How To Meal Prep On A Budget

Tired of circling the Whole Foods hot bar on your lunch break? More importantly, isn’t your wallet tired? There’s only one way to solve this first world problem and it’s made up of two words: meal prep.

Yes, meal prepping can be very daunting, but once it’s done and you have the rest of your Sunday to chill out, you’re going to be happy you did it. Not to mention all of the money you will save on food during the week.

The below recipes all involve ingredients that you already have in your kitchen, are super affordable, or that you can buy in bulk. Each dish is also ideal for lunchtime (except for one breakfast bonus meal that is totally worth the five minutes of your time it’ll take to assemble).

Here are five recipes that will keep both your bank account and appetite satisfied:

1. Spanish Rice

The Country Cook

The greatest thing about Spanish rice is that it can be served in a multitude of ways. You’ll never get sick of eating it five days in a row. Hello, budget friendly meal! You can cook it in an omelette, wrap it up in a burrito, or eat it on its own. And don’t forget the protein; the source can be in whatever form you prefer, whether that’s ground turkey, chicken, or beans. This recipe uses ground beef. Get the recipe.

2. Frittatas

Sweet Phi

Eggs are your best friend when it comes to meal prepping on a budget and a frittata is the perfect way to get your fill of veggies and protein all in one. You can throw practically anything that you have in the fridge into this dish. So, grab your cast iron skillet and go to town. Here’s a standard recipe to get you started that involves five easy ingredients. *Tip: Use your leftover egg mix (if you have any) and pour it into muffin tins for breakfast on the go.* Get the recipe.

3. Chicken, Vegetables, and Rice

Stupid Easy Paleo

This classic dish is simple, yet always a solid go-to when it comes to an affordable, well-rounded meal. When prepping for this meal, chicken thighs will be your saving grace. They are not only cheap, but also packed with flavor. Follow the recipe below for some amazing, mouth-watering poultry. In addition to the chicken, you can add your grain of choice (quinoa, rice, etc.) and a nice helping of vegetables (broccoli is a great pairing with chicken, but any array of veggies will do). Get the recipe.

4. Tuna Salad and Egg Salad

Lexi’s Clean Kitchen

These two salads can be made in bulk and prepped at the same time, which is why they are paired under one category. What makes these salads great for meal prepping is the fact that you can serve it on bread, lettuce, or eat it as a snack with veggie sticks or crackers—easy! If you don’t feel like making two separate salads, follow the recipe below for a combined tuna and egg salad (the recipe serving size is eight, but you can adjust to the amount you want). Get the recipe.

5. Overnight Oats

Fitful Focus

They say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so why not prep for your mornings ahead of time to ensure smooth sailing? This recipe will have you addicted to oats, seasonal fruit, and feeling full in the morning—a rarity in most people’s daily grind. The recipe below uses blueberries and bananas, but what makes overnight oats so satisfying is the sheer variety of fruits you can incorporate into the dish. *Tip: Always add cinnamon for an added depth of flavor. * Get the recipe.

— Head photo: Flickr (shutterbean).

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What Is the Difference Between Jambalaya and Etouffee?

I don’t know about you, but when I travel to New Orleans to eat and drink, I usually don’t ask questions. I don’t bother with explanations, hardly glance at dish descriptions, eschew translations, because I know, whatever it is, it’s going to be damn delicious. Food culture and heritage is the heartbeat of that city, after all; you can trust that you’re in good hands.

Of course, it’s not a totally infallible plan. The problem arises when I get back, and in my food-and-cocktail sweats haze cannot, for the life of me, remember which was the favorite dish I wanted to try and recreate at home. It had lots of spice and rich, savory flavor . . . there was shellfish of some variety, shrimp, I think, and maybe sausage . . . rice, for sure . . . it wasn’t a soup, so gumbo’s out. Narrowed down to jambalaya and étouffée, I decided to do some digging.

Not surprisingly, the two dishes have roots in both Cajun and Creole cuisines. There is a difference, by the way, if you’re interested in reading up on it, but to make a long story short: Creole cuisine relies on a wider variety of cultural influences—French, Spanish, African, Caribbean, Portuguese, among others—and therefore often uses more traditionally “exotic” ingredients and spices. Cajuns, on the other hand, are considered those of French Acadian descent, and their cuisine is firmly based around whole-animal butchery, indigenous seafood, and more local ingredients and bold seasonings. Which is why the roux in Cajun étouffée is made using oil and flour and is typically darker, whereas in Creole cuisine, it’s butter and flour. And Cajun jambalaya, for example, doesn’t call for diced tomatoes, like its Creole counterpart, and instead browns the meat in the pot first before adding any other ingredients. But I digress.

One thing that unites both dishes (in either of their iterations) is the use of the “holy trinity”: The combination of onions, bell peppers, and celery that is at the base of just about any iconic Louisiana dish you can think of. The other important staple of Louisiana cooking, roux—flour cooked in fat mixture essential to thickening sauces—is used in étouffée, but not jambalaya. This, I would say, has to do with how you would codify the two dishes. Both are considered main dishes, but étouffée is more or less a sauce, a thick gravy, if you will, typically served over rice. Jambalaya, however, is a rice dish, akin to paella, its likely ancestor. One uses rice as a vehicle, the other as a staple component of the dish.

As for the discussion of other key ingredients, there is a little overlap. Shellfish, specifically crawfish (arguably the most traditional), shrimp, and crab, are the usual stars of étouffée, although there are certainly variations with meat that exist (chicken, rabbit, and sausage). While étouffée is usually a one (maybe two) ingredient-driven show, jambalaya is all about the combo. The usual suspects there are andouille sausage, chicken, smoked ham, and shrimp.

Alright enough talk, get yourself to the kitchen and laissez les bons temps rouler.

Chicken and Andouille Jambalaya

Chowhound

Humble though it may appear on the plate, this cultural melting pot of a rice stew is definitely for those home cooks who enjoy tackling a more labor-intensive project. A masterful layering of flavors, this Cajun creation combines bold spice with the savory trinity of snappy andouille sausage, smoked ham, and chicken thighs. Get our Chicken and Smoked Andouille Jambalaya recipe.

Wild Rice Jambalaya

Chowhound

The party in your mouth that is this savory, spicy one-pot-wonder surf-n-turf stew gets a little more raucous here with the substitution of wild rice for the traditional jasmine. The nuttier, chewier grain cranks the volume on the texture and heartiness of the dish in a really great way. Get our Wild Rice Jambalaya recipe.

Easy Jambalaya Breakfast Burrito

Billy Parisi

How can someone not love a dish that can easily transition from being last night’s dinner to tomorrow’s breakfast? Once you have the jambalaya made, all you need to do is add soft scrambled eggs, shredded cheese, and wrap it all up on a large, warmed flour tortilla. And there you have it: The breakfast of I’m-gonna-need-a-nap-later champions. Get the recipe.

One-Pot Jambalaya Pasta

Fav Family Recipes

I’m admittedly wary of any recipe that draws its inspiration from a signature dish of The Cheesecake Factory, but the internet overwhelmingly agrees that the restaurant’s Jambalaya Pasta is pretty damn good. Aside from swapping a thin noodle like spaghetti or linguini for the traditional rice, this version retains the flavor and ingredients of the original but offers the added bonus of making it an all-prepared-in-one-pot meal. Get the recipe.

Jambalaya Skewers

Honest Cooking

Here’s one creative way to reinvent the jambalaya wheel for your summer barbecue: Take the star ingredients (andouille, chicken, shrimp, onion, pepper), smother them in Cajun seasoning, and arrange them onto a skewer. Cooking over the grill adds a welcome smokiness to the mix, and you can serve them either as is or stuffed into a toasted roll. Get the recipe.

Classic Crawfish Etoufée

Acadiana Table

No, the crawfish never did anything to me personally. But I still don’t feel a lick of guilt about taking pleasure in smothering the sweet, tender meat of the shellfish in a thick roux-based sauce and serving it all over rice. The result is just too good to resist. (If you’re having trouble sourcing crawfish, shrimp, albeit less “traditional,” works well as a substitute. Or even lobster, if you’re feeling fahn-cy.) Get the recipe.

Chicken Etouffée

Ginger and Biscuit

Just because crawfish and shrimp are usually designated the star proteins in this dish doesn’t mean that meat can’t get in on the action too. Here, instead, whole pieces of chicken are given the spotlight, with slices of spicy andouille sausage taking a supporting role. Get the recipe.

Etouffée-Style Shrimp and Grits

Love and Olive Oil

Rarely am I not going to be in favor of a culinary mash-up, especially when it involves two of my favorite Louisiana-inspired shrimp dishes: Shrimp étouffée and shrimp and grits. In a genius move, creamy, buttery grits replace the usual white rice as the vehicle for the spiced, saucy shrimp and andouille gravy. Get the recipe.

Crawfish Etouffée Pie

Menu Musings

The classic étouffée formula may not need a makeover, but it hasn’t stopped people from getting creative with its look over the years. A particular favorite reimagining of the dish is this recipe for crawfish pie (because really, who doesn’t love pie, especially a savory one?) As it turns out, the generously spiced, crawfish-studded sauce is a perfect contrast to the texture of the crisp, flaky crust. Get the recipe.

Vegetable Etouffée

My Goodness Cooking

Purists will no doubt cry “blasphemy” at the idea of a vegetarian étouffée. And believe me, I get it. But for the meat-averse, this rendition does a good job of keeping the original dish’s sea essence thanks to the clever inclusion of dried wakame. Get the recipe.

— Head photo illustration by Chowhound, using: Spicy Southern Kitchen/Grandbaby Cakes.

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How to Roast Coffee at Home

Lots of people—ok, most people—prefer to leave the coffee-roasting to the professionals, which is fair: the act of brewing coffee, actually, is technically “easy” to do, but really difficult to do well. Just about anybody can throw some ground coffee and hot water together and call it a beverage, but there’s some question over whether you’d actually want to drink it. Same thing with making green (unroasted) beans brown. On the one hand, it’s basically as “easy” as making popcorn. (In fact, you can even use the same machine to get the job done: See below.) On the other hand, however, the act of roasting coffee contains in it myriad chemical and physical reactions—most of which can’t be seen, but are only heard or smelled—that are impacted by about a gazillion tiny variables that are very difficult to rein in and master.

That said: Roasting coffee, like brewing it, or like undertaking any new culinary adventure, can be so much fun and such a relatively low-stress hobby that with a few tips and a couple of good pieces of equipment, there’s really very little risk in giving it a shot. (Though you will want to make sure your living space is up to fire code—and don’t even think about trying any of this at home if you’ve got a sprinkler system, unless you want to wind up as drenched as the grounds in your Chemex filter on a Saturday morning.)

Before you get smoky, here are a few tips to put you on the right track to achieving roasted realness without changing out of your pajamas.

Buy decent beans. Thanks to the increasing number of coffee geeks who are dead-set on taking their coffee all the way from green to gulp-able, there are also an increasing number of resources for small-batch unroasted specialty coffees, where a few years ago the options were limited to past-crop dregs, beans of questionable origin ordered from eBay, or semi-underground networks of home roasters in forums swapping supplies. If you’re looking for very small quantities and aren’t too picky about what you’ll wind up with, Amazon is actually a halfway decent resource. If you’re interested in getting serious, however, try a DIY-coffee specialty store like Portland, Oregon’s Mr. Green Beans, or the one-who-started-it-all, Sweet Maria’s.

Invest in a fire extinguisher. No matter the method you use to make your green beans turn brown, you will have to prepare yourself for the possibility of fire. Roasting takes place at very high temperature, and as the coffee gets hotter and the moisture inside starts to evaporate, the beans become increasingly flammable. Fires are preventable by following good roasting instructions and paying close attention—cell phone down, my friend—but only you can prevent roaster fires.

Check your smoke alarms. Where there’s smoke there isn’t necessarily fire, but there will be smoke. You’ll want a good vent, open windows, maybe a fan nearby—and you also might want to take the batteries out of the alarms, just temporarily.

Don’t expect the best. (But don’t expect the worst either.) As mentioned above, roasting at home is completely doable, and with practice (and the right beans) it’s absolutely possible to achieve something really surprisingly good. There’s nothing like making something magic happen with your own hands in your own kitchen, and coffee is just short of alchemy, after all. Write down your technique and your results, keep good notes about time and temperature—you will want to time your roasts to see how evenly the heat is being transferred and absorbed, and to keep track of the “cracks,” or the audible signals the beans will give you to indicate how you’re progressing.

Let it rest. Just like with bread fresh out of the oven, it’s tempting to dive right in and start tasting the fruit of your labor right away—but trust us, it’s worth the wait. Coffee is very busy off-gassing, or releasing carbon dioxide gas, from the moment it is finished roasting, and will continue to release that gas very aggressively for the first 12–24 hours. For the best brewing experience, the vast majority of coffee professionals recommend letting the coffee “rest” for at least a day before attempting to make a drink out of it; if you rush your beans, you might end up with a bitter cup that doesn’t properly show off your handiwork.

Here are some different ways you can achieve that just-roasted coffee taste in your own kitchen (or backyard).

A great basic overview

Roasty Coffee

Before you buy the beans and fire up the stove, you’ll want to give yourself a little bit of know-how regarding what exactly happens when you’re roasting coffee, and how to generally achieve the best results. You’ll need to know that coffee typically roasts at very high temperatures, that there will be a somewhat slow development for the first five to seven minutes, and after that things start to snap, crackle, and pop pretty quickly. (Literally, actually: Roasters use points in the roast called “first crack” and “second crack” to determine and describe how dark the coffee is roasted. All coffee will make it through first crack if you’re successful, and most folks who like a medium roast will stop the process before second crack happens—so you’ll want to know what to look and listen for here.) See the overview.

Cast-iron skillet

Owl Haven

Friends and family during a coffee ceremony in Ethiopia and cowboys huddled ’round a campfire both drink coffee made this same way: Simply toss some green beans in a pan and hit ’em with heat until they’re done. (Don’t forget to stir and shake them around, though, or you’ll get a scorched mess.) This recipe utilizes the high, direct heat of a grill, but you can get roughly the same results with a gas stove. See the tutorial.

Manual popcorn popper

Red and Honey

If you’re a little spooked by the open danger a cast-iron skillet offers, you can go closed with an old-fashioned hand-crank popcorn popper. You can pick one up for around $35–$40, and make sure to look for one with a sturdy, heat-resistant handle and a heavy bowl to retain the most heat. See the tutorial.

Go for the grill

Tim Eggers

A perfect marriage of the first two options is the rotisserie coffee roaster that can be attached to most outdoor grills. You get a nice even roast from the rotation of the beans over the flame, it’s a touch safer than roasting in an exposed skillet, and you can keep things outside when they get smoky. (Probably don’t want to throw any brats on the grates below the coffee, though, unless you want your morning cup to taste like a one-mug breakfast.) See the tutorial.

Air popcorn popper

The Elliott Homestead

The first step to becoming a full-out roast-your-own-coffee nerd is to pick up an air popper at a yard sale or a thrift store and quickly convert it to a home coffee roaster. Air roasting is a really great way to achieve a slightly more even (and less labor-intensive) batch of beans than the methods above, though vintage popcorn poppers don’t give you terribly much control over the process. See the tutorial.

Cheap home roasting machine

I Need Coffee

The next step on your journey to full-on DIY coffee roasting geekdom is to drop a little dough on a good, reliable starter model. There are so many online resources from home roasters offering tips, tricks, and other unsolicited advice, that you will find yourself in very good company as you try out your first batch (or your first hundred batches). See the tutorial.

Not-cheap home-roasting machine

The Coffee Compass

If you are ready to get high-tech and low(ish) maintenance, you can’t beat a fully programmable, highly consistent, control-from-your-iPad gadget like an Ikawa sample roaster. While it’s designed to roast 30–50-gram batches for cupping and sampling for sensory analysis in professional settings, turns out that’s just enough to roast tomorrow’s coffee today. (Remember you want to let the beans rest overnight.) What could be more luxurious than knowing you roasted this morning’s coffee yesterday with the touch of a $1,500 button?

— Head photo: Vimeo.

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