The average person leads a busy life. Work or school can take up most of a weekday, while any time left over is divided among hobbies, socializing and rest. With time, not to mention energy, in such limited supply, it can be tempting to order takeout instead of doing the groceries and cooking three times a day.
However, takeout meals are often high in calories, and they don’t lend themselves well to specific diets or nutrition plans, like keto or the Mediterranean diet. What’s more, regularly getting fast food is an expensive habit compared to cooking meals from scratch.
For busy individuals who still want to eat healthy while saving time and money, meal prep is an excellent alternative to ordering in. Preparing the week’s meals beforehand ensures you get delicious, nutritious meals and snacks daily, keeping you on track with your healthy eating goals.
Consider adding avocado to the mix to amp up the nutrition factor of your meal-prep recipes. Avocados are high in nutrients, healthy unsaturated fats and minerals. They also contain three grams of fiber per 50 g serving. Dietary fiber helps make you feel fuller and may help with healthy weight management.
Here are some ideas for how to incorporate avocados into meal prep for eating plans like keto, paleo, Mediterranean, DASH, vegetarian and vegan.
Tips for Using
Avocado in
Meal Prep
A good way to ensure you have a steady supply of fresh, ready-to-eat avocados throughout the week is to buy them in varying stages of ripeness. This way, you won’t have to worry about them going overripe later in the week.
Ripe avocados must be eaten on the day of purchase, while “breaking” avocados will be ready for eating within one to two days. Meanwhile, unripe avocados will ripen within four to five days. Learn how to tell avocado ripeness stages apart here.
If you’re using avocado in meal prep, consider preparing the rest of the dish beforehand and just adding the avocado later, right before you eat.
You may also squeeze lemon or lime on the cut avocado, cover it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it to slow down the rate at which it browns. This method allows cut avocados to be stored for up to three days. When you’re ready to eat them, just scrape away and discard the thin layer of brown flesh. You may eat the rest.
Add Avocado to
Meal Prep as Part
of the Keto Diet
The ketogenic diet is an eating plan that incorporates very low-carb, high-fat meals and snacks. While there are many variations of this nutritional plan, all of them dramatically reduce carbohydrate intake and increase intake of fats—often by as much as 70% to 80%.
Avocados are an ideal ingredient for ketogenic recipes, as they are high in heart-healthy unsaturated fats. Unsaturated fats do not raise LDL (bad cholesterol) levels.
One-third of a medium avocado contains five grams of unsaturated fat and is low in saturated fat. What’s more, avocados are versatile and can be easily added to many keto recipes. The following is one example of a recipe that incorporates avocados and may be eaten as part of a ketogenic diet plan.
Keto-friendly recipe
Fresh and filling, pesto BLT stuffed avocados are perfect as a small meal or a snack.
One serving contains:
- 7 grams of carbohydrates
- 5 grams of dietary fiber
- 11 grams of unsaturated fat
To tweak this recipe for meal prep:
- Only prepare the filling beforehand and freeze.
- When you’re ready to eat, heat the filling.
- Slice fresh avocados in half, remove the pits and spoon the BLT mixture into each avocado.
Paleo Meal Prep
with Avocados
The Paleolithic diet, also called the caveman diet, is based on the kinds of foods that early humans reportedly ate. This nutritional plan is heavy on lean meats, vegetables, fruits, seeds, fish and nuts.
If you’re on the Paleo diet, you need to avoid the following:
- Highly processed foods
- Dairy
- Grains and legumes
- Added salt
- Starchy vegetables like potatoes and corn
While avocados weren’t around yet during the actual Paleolithic period, they’re a popular option for those on the Paleo diet. This is because avocados have zero grams of sugar or sodium per serving.
They’re also highly nutritious—one 50-gram serving provides nearly 20 vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients,including:
- 11% of the Daily Value (DV) for dietary fiber
- 10% of the DV for folate
- 6% of the DV for vitamin E
- 6% of the DV for potassium
- 4% of the DV for vitamin C
- 2% of the DV for iron
- 136 micrograms of the carotenoid lutein.
Paleo-friendly recipe
Heart-Healthy Citrus Cumin Marinated Chicken Salad with Avocados
It’s easy to tweak this recipe to make it meal prep- and Paleo-friendly.
- Simply take out the salt, and use raw honey instead of processed.
(Note that raw honey may contain bee pollen, so avoid it if you’re allergic.) - Then, top the chicken breasts with slices of fresh avocado once you’re ready to eat.
Vegetarian or
Vegan Meal Prep
with Avocados
There are a lot of great reasons to go vegetarian or vegan—Some people switch to a meat-free lifestyle because of their love for animals, while others do it for the health benefits.
If you’re on a vegan or vegetarian meal plan, you’ll be happy to know that there are countless recipes you can use for weekly meal prep that include avocado.
Vegan-friendly recipe
This avocado recipe contains no animal or animal-derived products.
For meal prep, you can mix all of the filling ingredients beforehand and store them in the refrigerator or freezer. However, only slice the avocados when you’re ready to eat.
Discover More Ways to Add Avocados to Your Meal Plan
Avocados are versatile and delicious, and they make any meal or snack instantly more nutritious. Check out more recipes for meal prep with avocados on the Love One Today website.
