The transition from school to university is often a struggle. There’ll be a long adjustment period where you get yourself acquainted with new surroundings, new people, and a new lifestyle. One of the most challenging things to transition to will be your eating habits. It’s incredibly challenging for college students to eat healthy while still staying on a budget.
Although it seems as though you have no time to prepare your meals, there are several easy and healthy recipes that you can follow to make sure you eat healthily. One of the trends among college students is meal preparation, where students cook their meals in advance. By cooking food ahead, they no longer have the problem of looking for something to eat when the time arises.
What’s good about preparing your meals beforehand is that you can control what exactly goes into your food. So, you know you’re consuming enough nutrients. Here’s a quick 3-meal plan that you can prepare yourself for a day’s worth in college!
Breakfast: Overnight Oats
If your main issue is time, then overnight oats are the perfect solution to your dilemma. You can easily prepare the night before in less than 10 minutes. So you won’t have to worry about skipping breakfast. Overnight oats would come in different variations based on your preference, but the two essential ingredients would be your oats and milk.
In a jar with a sealable lid, add in your oats and other dry ingredients. These may include but are not limited to chia seeds, nuts, raisins, fruit, and others. The last thing to do would be to pour in your milk.
Unsweetened almond milk is usually a popular choice for overnight oats, but you can opt for different variants. Once you’ve placed all your ingredients, seal your jar and place it in the refrigerator. Leave it overnight, and you’ll have breakfast ready for you when you wake up in the morning.
Lunch: Pasta
It’s a bit more challenging to prepare lunch because you may need to work around the kitchen more to have this done. However, you shouldn’t worry because there’s a wide array of easy and healthy recipes available for you to choose from. One typical dish to cook for lunch is pasta since it’s flexible and can easily be prepared in advance.
You can cook pasta in a variety of ways, which gives you room to make it as simple or complex as you want. Another great thing about it is, just like overnight oats, you can prepare it the night before and heat it the next day to eat.
If you’re extremely tight on time, you can opt to go for a ready-made sauce to avoid making them from scratch. You can even cook a more significant portion to cover more than one meal, so you won’t have to worry about what to eat for a few days.
Dinner: Meat and Vegetable Rice Bowl
If you’re struggling to think of what to have for dinner, you can easily cut time by choosing any meat along with vegetables and adding it to your rice. One example would be sauteed beef and broccoli, both of which don’t take too long to cook.
You can choose to marinate the meat beforehand, but this is not required. And you can easily create an equally delicious meal without doing this.
Having meat and vegetables is a common choice because you can easily prepare it in one pan and still have a nutritious meal. You can cook a large portion of rice and store it for a couple of days, and change up your viand for variety.
