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- Hi, friends, welcome back to my channel.
If you're new here, my name is Alyssa.
Today, we are doing a
little sit-down video,
and we're gonna talk
about protein-flexible
meal planning and cooking.
I know a lot of people that
are part of this channel
either have roommates or you have a family
and you aren't all on the same diet,
and so I wanted to kind
of share some strategies
and some specific types of
recipes that you can make
that I call protein flexible,
meaning you make the same base
and you can just swap
the proteins in and out.
The benefit of making meals like this
is that it cuts down on
your own cooking time.
A lot of times, they can be meal prepped,
and then basically if
you're living with somebody
who isn't plant-based or who
is wanting something different
they still are satisfied with
the meal that they're eating
and they're not feeling like
they're forced into eating
beans or tofu or something like that.
So on my list I have six
different types of recipes
that you can make that are
what I call protein flexible.
So we'll kind of talk through all of them,
and again, all of these
can be meal prepped,
and hopefully this will save you some time
and some headache and
hassle cooking at home
for multiple diets.
So the first thing that I always recommend
is the bowl-type meal, and
for me this is something
like a Buddha bowl or
a roasted veggie bowl,
and basically you cook
a bunch of vegetables,
and then you cook a protein on the side.
So maybe you'd be roasting sweet potatoes,
maybe you'd be making mashed potatoes.
You basically have a
starch, you'd have a green,
you'd have some sort of
other type of vegetable,
Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower,
and then you'd also have your protein.
So the benefit of a meal like this is that
it's super customizable.
You can use any type of
vegetable that you have on hand.
I'll link some of my
favorite recipes down below,
and then for the protein
because it's separate
from the rest of the meal
that can be swapped in and out.
So you could have baked
chicken along with tofu
or chickpeas or steak or shrimp or salmon,
and basically you can just
have whatever type of protein
people want on the side,
and then the main bulk
of the meal is the same.
So that is my number one.
I think it's the easiest way to cook.
It's how I personally cook
almost every single night at home
how I accommodate me and
Matt who does not eat vegan,
and we almost always find a way
to have pretty much the same dinner.
The second type of recipe that
I have on my list is pizza.
I personally love pizza.
I mean who doesn't love pizza?
And pizza is another one of those things
that is super customizable
based on what people want.
So what I like to do is
just make different doughs.
So I basically have
like one batch of dough,
and either I split the pizza in half
so half of it, the toppings are mine,
half of the toppings are his,
or we just make individual crusts.
So I have made a ton of
gluten-free and vegan pizzas
on the channel and on my blog.
I have my five ingredient
quinoa pizza crust.
I have a quinoa flower pizza crust.
I have an almond flour pizza crust.
So basically you can use
any of those as your base,
and then you can swap with
different toppings in and out.
You basically you can
do like a topping bar.
So you could have a
bunch of sliced veggies,
different types of cheeses,
and then you could do different toppings.
So it might seem like extra work,
but it's really actually not that bad,
especially if you make the
same crust for everybody,
and then people can just pick
and choose their toppings.
The third thing that I recommend,
third type of recipe is pasta.
Pasta dishes are one of my
favorite meals of all time.
I seriously love pasta,
and I make pasta at least
once or twice a week,
and I almost always
make like the same base,
and then we swap protein
things in and out.
So I actually just cook for me
since I'm mostly plant-based.
I actually just cook bean-based pasta.
I think that's a really great
solution for those of you
who are following a plant-based diet
because I don't personally
love any of the protein options
for like go into pasta.
So I don't love adding
beans into my pasta.
I don't like adding tofu into my pasta,
and that's where a bean-based
pasta works really well
'cause one serving has up
to 20 grams of protein.
So you basically have your
pasta and your protein,
and then you can just use
whatever types of vegetables you want.
So that's what we do at home.
We make a big batch of pasta,
whether it's with pesto,
sometimes it's a cheese
sauce, vegan cheese sauce,
sometimes it's just with
veggies, lemon, garlic.
You guys have seen me
make a million pastas
in my "What I Eat In A Day" videos,
but again that is an opportunity for you
to just make one big batch
of something as your base,
and then if people want
to have their own protein
on the side, whether it is
chicken or shrimp or whatever,
they can stir that in in the end,
and again you're cutting
down on your cooking time.
My fourth suggestion is salads,
and salads kind of go with
the first one, the bowl meal.
It's basically like a
giant vegetable meal,
and then you can put
whatever on top you want.
So basically any type of salad.
This can really be like honestly anything.
It could be a kale salad.
It could be a green salad.
It could be a romaine salad.
It could be like a chopped
veggie salad, like a Greek salad,
and then just have your
separate proteins on the side.
For me, beans are so easy.
I just rinse them out of the can.
I'll make them in the instant pot.
I have those on hand almost all the time.
So I'll just use that on top of mine,
and then usually it's chicken for Matt,
and again we just have to
do like one separate thing,
and then we can just put
them on top of our salads
and call it a day.
All right, so we have two
more going down the list.
My fifth one is stir fries,
and kind of like stir fries
/ rice dishes in general.
Rice I think is something
similar to pasta.
It's just like a really easy base.
You could also do quinoa if
you're not a big rice fan,
and basically we'll just do
a rice-based dish with vegetables.
I personally love stir fries.
So I'll do like ginger
and garlic and tamari,
and then the protein is on the side,
and it can just be added in at the end.
It can be stirred in, or
it can just be topped.
So stir fries, again, really easy.
They also reheat really well,
and the same goes true for
other type of rice dishes.
So it doesn't have to be
like a stir-fry necessarily.
It could be just like a tomato and rice
with tofu and beans or chicken.
It could be rice and like a fried rice.
It could be, I don't know.
Basically anything goes with rice.
It's so simple and plain,
and I don't know why I'm
just saying rice as the base,
but also quinoa is a
really great option too.
It's also very plain.
It's great 'cause it has a
plant-based protein in it.
So you could use that as a
form of protein for yourself
if you do follow a plant-based diet.
So number six on our list,
the last thing on our list
is soups and stews.
I think I consider soups
more of a better way
to have a protein-flexible meal than stews
'cause stews tend to take
a longer time to cook,
and they kind of build flavor
based on their ingredients,
but soups are a really great option
for protein-flexible meals
because you can stir things in.
So what I would like to do
and what I recommend doing
is that I would just make like a standard
vegetarian-based soup whether
that's a vegetable soup,
maybe it's one of my creamy-based soups,
maybe it is a chilly, and I'll
just keep it kind of simple.
I won't put beans in it.
I won't do anything
like that if the person
that you live with does not like beans.
Mine doesn't like beans.
So we would make a non-bean-based soup,
and then when it's ready
to go, you can stir in
your protein at the end into
each of the individual bowls.
So whether that's shredded chicken for one
and beans for the other,
maybe it's baked tofu for one
and shrimp for the other, whatever it is,
you can just kind of
stir it in at the end,
and you still have a
really delicious soup.
Soup is great because
it's only usually one pot.
So it cooks fairly easily.
It doesn't take a ton of cleanup,
and it's also like you
can make a big batch.
So it's great for meal prep.
It's great for freezer
meals and things like that.
So that pretty much
does it for this video.
I hope you guys enjoyed it.
I hope it was helpful.
I know I kind of talked kind of fast.
So if you have any questions
about what I was talking about
or if there was any areas of confusion,
let me know in the comments
and I will be sure to clarify.
As I mentioned, everything
that you need to know
about today's video, the
meal ideas and everything
that we kind of talked about,
the six different things,
those will all be listed out
in the description box as well.
So hopefully you have
everything you need there,
and otherwise I appreciate you being here.
I am gonna start kind
of creating more content
around this idea of being protein flexible
because I think that a lot
of people live this way now,
and it's kind of personally how I live.
So I think we will be creating
more content around this idea.
So if there are any ideas
that you have or suggestions
or anything else you want to learn,
definitely let me know.
And yeah.
Otherwise, thank you
so much for being here.
Please give this video a
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Bye!
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