Meal prepping, an efficient and productive way to make sure you eat healthy, home-cooked food has populated online and offline conversation. The mere mention of meal prepping can conjure up a stereotypical image: of neatly stacked containers filled with the dull beiges and greens of boiled chicken, broccoli, and quinoa.
For Indians, though, the picture doesn’t have to look this way. Meal prepping–some form of it, at least–has become necessary in the modern life, although it doesn’t hurt to remember that women have always “meal-prepped” in the Indian kitchen: washed, cut and stored away vegetables and fruits, prepared pickles for months to come, ground chutneys to spruce up meals throughout the week.
For young professionals in urban areas, meal prepping may look different, but in the tedium of city life, it can be the recourse for sustaining cooking autonomy – while not sacrificing on health or taste.
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However, meal prepping isn’t without its drawbacks. Sure, it promises to save your time and make your meals healthier, but the process can easily lead to wasted food. The domestic kitchen is no stranger to the guilt of wilting greens, slops of dals, and uneaten leftovers. So, how do we marry the art of meal prepping while keeping sustainability in mind and avoiding the monotony of repetitive meals?
Here’s a guide to meal prepping for the Indian diet—designed to save time and taste.
The Do’s
1. Cook in small batches to avoid spoilage
Instead of prepping an entire week’s meals, aim for only 3–4 days. Indian dishes, especially those with fresh coconut or dairy, can spoil quickly. Cooking in smaller quantities reduces the risk of food going bad, and the ability to cook more for fewer days ensures variety in your meals.
2. Plan around perishables
When meal prepping, prioritise using fresh ingredients early in the week. It can be tempting to stock your fridge with fresh produce to use throughout the week, but you may not get around to it–your produce will remain fresher and more useful when purposed into, say, a coriander chutney or a green curry base on Day 1 and then frozen in portions. Planning around perishables will help you avert your greens from wilting in the back of your fridge.
3. Repurpose leftovers
Meal prepping doesn’t mean every meal has to be a fresh start, using a fresh batch of veggies or proteins. While prepping your ingredients is a large part of it, meal prepping for the Indian kitchen encompasses the larger idea of thinking ahead and using food sustainably – and “prepping” in this way also means thinking creatively about using your leftovers. Turn yesterday’s dal into dal parathas or use leftover sabzi as stuffing for sandwiches. Rice, the Indian staple, can transform into fried rice, lemon rice, a quick rice bowl mix–and if you have some more time on hand, you can just take the cooked rice, grind it with grated coconut, soaked rice, urad dal and water and whip up a batch of leftover rice dose for breakfast or lunch!
4. Label and rotate
Clear, pretty air-tight containers are great for meal-prepping, but labeling them is the non-negotiable part. Write down the date you cooked each dish to ensure you’re eating the oldest items first. The ugly side of meal prepping often is forgetting the food you’ve made and discovering that your old containers are now housing new ecosystems. Labelling can go a long way in countering this.
5. Prepping ingredients and not just dishes
While meal prepping does involve preparing full meals ahead of time, the tedium of eating the same meal–or even similar meals–every day can make you averse to the whole process. Instead of prepping full meals, consider prepping ingredients. Chop vegetables, boil dals and soak pulses overnight, prepare spice marinades in advance for a quick dinner after work. This reduces waste by giving you flexibility to cook fresh, diverse meals without the stress of starting from scratch.
6. Pre-chop and freeze vegetables
Vegetables like peas, beans, carrots, and spinach freeze beautifully. Contrary to popular belief, frozen vegetables don’t lose their nutritional value. In fact, they’re often frozen at peak freshness, locking in nutrients better than produce slowly aging in your fridge for days. Freezing also gives you the ability to prep it in bigger batches, because you can use them over a longer period of time.
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The Don’ts
1. Don’t forget about the safety of your food
Cooked rice and dals are particularly susceptible to bacterial growth. Store them in shallow containers to cool quickly and refrigerate within two hours. While refrigeration is a must, make sure to consume them within the first few days.
2. Don’t give into storage myths
Myth: Freezing food reduces its nutritional value.
In reality, frozen foods, especially vegetables like peas, spinach, and corn, are flash-frozen at peak freshness. They are actually a reliable alternative to fresh produce. The same also applies to meat, if you so choose to marinate and prep meat ahead of time in the freezer.
Myth: Refrigerating food for more than a day makes it unhealthy.
When in reality, properly stored, cooked food can last up to 3–4 days in the refrigerator without losing its quality or nutritional value. The key is to cool food quickly and store it in airtight containers.
Myth: Freezing chapatis makes them rubbery.
In reality, semi-cooked chapatis or parathas freeze and reheat well on a hot tawa, retaining their softness. The trick is to separate each piece with parchment paper before freezing. Instead of microwaving your chapatis, make sure to heat them on a pan/tawa.
3. Don’t overstuff your fridge
Meal prepping is ultimately about organisation. Overloading your fridge can cause uneven cooling, leading to spoilage. Prioritise what you’ll actually eat instead of prepping with misplaced gusto.
4. Don’t discard edible scraps
That ridge gourd peel you were about to toss can be turned into a delicious chutney. The stems of coriander, often thrown away with their muddy roots, can add incredible flavour to a curry base or tadka. Vegetable scraps can be used for stocks or composted to reduce waste. Meal prepping doesn’t have to compromise efficiency over sustainability when you can have both!
Meal prepping and food wastage
India wastes an estimated 78.2 million tonnes of food annually, nearly one-third of what is produced. This wastage occurs at every stage—harvest, storage, transportation, and consumption. In urban households, much of it comes from the kitchen: uneaten leftovers, rotting produce, and over-purchased groceries.
The environmental cost of this waste is staggering. It is estimated that decomposing food in landfills contributes to 8–10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. For a country like India, where millions still go hungry daily, the dichotomy is stark.
Meal prepping, if done thoughtfully, can help address this crisis with appropriate stockage, freezing, repurposing leftovers, and upcycling your ingredients. At the end of the day, meal prepping can shape up to a practice of productivity, autonomy and care.
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