4 Nutrient-Dense Meal Prep Ideas for Back to School
How can you prioritize healthy meals during the back to school season?
Let me start by saying - fueling our bodies during busy seasons (like back to school) can be really challenging. Trust me I’ve been there; my college years were filled with many dining hall meals or skipped lunches because I was running around from one class or club to the next. While this challenge is very real, fueling our bodies during busy seasons also deserves priority in our schedules. Making sure we not only get our bodies enough calories, but also enough nutrients is crucial for energy levels and brain function. If we are going to invest our time and energy to run around from meetings to classes and all the other responsibilities…we may as well make sure we are doing it nourished and ready to tackle the day.
So how can you actually prioritize these healthy meals during back to school season? Bottom line - whatever works best for YOU. For me, meal planning and meal prepping was heavily utilized during busy school seasons. And before you decide you do/don’t want to meal prep, lets debunk some meal prepping myths. Meal prepping does not need to take you multiple hours in the kitchen, you don’t need to prep every single one of your meals, and it does not need to be inflexible. Meal prepping can be tailored to your unique needs each week. So, whether you are taking 10 minutes to prep tomorrow’s lunch or 1 hours in the kitchen on a Sunday to prep all your lunches, these are forms of meal prepping.
Utilizing Convenience Options Featuring Gimme Seaweed
Meal prepping also doesn’t mean we need to make everything from scratch. It can certainly include utilizing convenience options or foods that are already prepared. Some convenience options I use while meal prepping are microwave rice, bagged salad kits, canned salmon, cooked and shelled edamame, and Gimme Seaweed.
Blending both homemade and convenience foods while meal prepping offers more opportunities to ADD nutrition into our diet. For example, there aren’t many dishes or foods I would cook from scratch at home that are nutrient-rich in iodine. Iodine is rich in some foods (like seaweed!), but primarily present in some forms of salt (i.e. Iodized Salt). And while I love cooking from scratch, I live in Iowa and will not be drying out and preparing my own edible seaweed anytime soon.
That’s why I love convenience options like Gimme Seaweed. Their seaweed snacks allow me to add more nutrients like iodine, vitamin B12, vitamin C, iron, vitamin A, and calcium into my diet and meal prepping. Additionally, using new foods while meal prepping encourages me to get creative and continue building my skills in the kitchen. Lastly, using a quick option like Gimme Seaweed Grab and Go snacks makes fueling easier during those busy, gal-on-the-go seasons of life. Its empowering to nourish our bodies while also being able to say “yay to no cooking needed”!
Meal Prepping with Gimme Seaweed
This is a very important reminder that even “quick + easy” dinners can serve as a time to disconnect from your busy, hectic day…and instead connect with the food that is front of you. I don’t always nail this mindful cooking practice, but when I do, I feel much more relaxed and at ease.
To continue prioritizing nutrient-dense meal prepping during busy seasons, I created 4 back to school meal prep recipes to inspire you all in the kitchen. In each of these recipes, I used one of Gimme Seaweed’s Roasted Seaweed Snacks to add nutrition to the meal. I used their Chili Lime Roasted Seaweed Snacks, Grab & Go Avocado Oil Seaweed Snacks, Teriyaki Roasted Seaweed Snacks, and Sea Salt & Avocado Oil Seaweed Snacks.
Below are the four recipes I made with these nutrient-dense Gimme Seaweed snacks. Each recipe is a balanced, healthy meal and took me less than 30 minutes to meal prep!
Salmon Poke Bowl
with Sea Salt and Avocado Seaweed Snacks
Need more nutritious meal prep ideas?
Head over to IG to get inspiration from my meal prep series on Instagram.
Check out my ebook, Nourished by Basics. It has 120+ recipes that are my ride or die for cooking staple foods!
