Healthy Cooking for Busy People

Whether you’re in college or just a busy person, here’s a framework to eat healthy and cook efficiently.

After lunch, we all have that looming question: what’s for dinner tonight?

You then probably think, “I’ll figure it out later.”

But now it’s almost dinner time, you’re hungry and maybe subconsciously pissed off for not taking five minutes out of your day to look up a new recipe, and now you actually have to decide what you’re going to make.

And now you end up eating out or you’re scrambling to put something together because you don’t have enough groceries (not that there’s anything wrong with restaurants and Ramen).

There’s a solution to this.

After just two weeks of college, I’ve found that it’s quite possible to be a busy student and a respectable chef. In fact, it only took me 20 minutes to make this:

All you need is a simple, well thought-out plan. Even on days when I’m exhausted and don’t feel like cooking, I’ve found a system that enables me to whip up a wonderful, healthy meal, usually in under half an hour. My plan involves two things: weekly preparation and simple, adaptable recipes.

🗓️ Weekly Preparation

1️⃣ Assumption: breakfast and lunch repeat themselves throughout the week. For breakfast I’ll always eat eggs, and for lunch I’ll either make a salad, have greek yogurt with fruit, or happily warm up some leftovers.

2️⃣ Now all you have to worry about is dinner. Every night, my non-negotiables are protein and vegetables. I’ll buy at least six different vegetables at the store and make sure I have protein in the freezer that I’ll precook on the weekend (read on for more about this).

3️⃣ You only need to go to the grocery store once a week! Go when the store is quieter (like 8 pm on the weekend) and buy what you need for the whole week. Most produce—except maybe green beans—can sit in the fridge for a week.

4️⃣ Buy simple, quick, and healthy snacks like nuts, dark chocolate, or protein powder for when you’re extra hungry.

🔪 Cooking Essentials: You Can Make Anything if You Have…

• Extra Virgin Olive Oil

• Salt and Pepper

• Spices: Oregano, Parsley, Basil, Paprika, Cayenne Pepper, Dill, Rosemary, and others

• Minced Garlic

• Frypan, Oven, Stove, and Microwave

• A week’s worth of groceries

• A growth mindset. Cooking is not hard! Everything you could possibly need to know is on the Internet or is a text away.

🧑‍🍳 Simple, Adaptable Recipes

• Cook your protein on the weekend. I’ve used this recipe for delicious oven-baked chicken, and for ground beef, I’ve made the meatballs in this recipe.

• When are your busiest parts of the week? Save your leftovers for then.

• I have a small meal plan, so whenever I eat on campus I’ll bring Tupperware to load up on chicken and other food. This is extremely helpful for my busiest days.

• Most raw vegetables are pretty unappealing to my taste buds, but if you have spices and learn how to do a simple sauté or roast them in the oven, you can make a great side for any meal!

• To never get sick of what I’m making, I like to switch up the vegetables I buy and also use random permutations of spices, garlic, and anything else I’d like to try. Cooking is a fun experiment of its own, and you generally can’t go wrong!

🥅  Summary: Goals of This Framework

✅ Go to the grocery store once a week, when it’s less busy

✅ You only need to think about what you’re making for dinner

✅ It takes all the thinking out of cooking:

• Sauté your vegetable of choice using a frypan or cook it in the oven

• Reheat your precooked protein in the microwave

• If you want to add in some carbs, cook those at the same time as your veggies

✅ Spice up your recipes with different combinations of spices (or just take a few minutes to look up new recipes)

So Why The Hell Would I Write About What I’m Eating?

My health is one of my top priorities, and to ensure that I can eat healthy, even on my “worst” days, I figured that I needed something to guide me.

But why do I need a system in the first place? As James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, says:

You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Your goal is your desired outcome. Your system is the collection of daily habits that will get you there.

Taking a few minutes every day to plan out my nutrition seems like it’s one of those small yet significant habits.

With all that said, remember this: it’s not always about how quick you can make a meal. Food—whether that’s cooking or eating out—should be enjoyed, and so far for the first two weeks of this semester, I’ve had a lot of fun implementing this cooking framework.

I guess we’ll see how it holds up in the long run. Bon appétit!

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To view this on my website, click here.

Cover Photo by Anh Nguyen on Unsplash