142: Making Incredibly Delicious and Plant-Based Meals, Fast

In this episode, we’re digging into fast, whole plant food cooking—because eating healthy shouldn’t feel like a part-time job.

We’ll chat about batch cooking as your secret time-saving weapon and how to stock your fridge with ready-to-go convenience foods (no processed food required). I’ll share how I use grains, sauces, soups, and dressings to throw meals together during the week without the stress.

Eating whole-food plant-based food doesn’t have to be fancy or complicated. It’s all about meeting yourself where you’re at and building meals that work for you.

• Start a free trial to Meal Plan Club
• Plant Fueled Meal Plans: Follow Along for Five Nights of Flavor
• Mother of All Plant-Based Batch Cooking Resources
• Rainbow Crunch Topping (Salad mix topping)
• Basic Grains from Scratch
• Basic Beans & Legumes from Scratch, or use from the can
• Drop It Club: Plant-Powered Weight Loss
• Join Recipe Club for just $12 a month

Transcript (auto-generated, may have errors) 

Hey there, this is Molly, and welcome to the Clean Food Dirty Girl podcast. Thank you for listening to today’s episode. Today’s topic is all about fast food—not drive-through fast food, but making fast food at home.

If you’re in a place in your life where you just need simple, where you don’t have the energy to get complicated or follow intricate meal plans, this is for you. We have almost 500 meal plans now, and over 5,000 recipes in our Clean Food Dirty Girl portal, which is absolutely crazy to me. These are all handcrafted by my team and me. We started with just one meal plan and one recipe a long time ago, and now we have this amazing vault of whole food plant-based meal plans and recipes that are so good, so yummy, so vast, covering so many different cuisines and all the whole food plant-based yums.

For our meal plans, we offer gourmet versions, and we’re still working on about 30 simple meal plans to complement them. If you’re new to whole food plant-based cooking, new to Clean Food Dirty Girl, or new to cooking in general, we suggest starting with a simple plan and then working your way up. The simple plans have only five batching recipes and are, well, simpler. The gourmet versions are a bit more labor-intensive but offer restaurant-quality meals with all the little extras that take them over the top. Having both options is awesome; we didn’t always have that. It’s been great for people who are short on time or desire to cook, or who are just starting out.

That said, I know some people don’t even want to follow a meal plan. They just want to eat this way without it being complicated or time-consuming. To that, I say: batch cooking is a really great time management tool. The only reason I can put together food quickly, often in under 10 minutes, is because I batch cook. I’m not going to cook everything from scratch for every single meal and still get food on the table in 10 minutes. This process of batch cooking is all about making your own convenience foods. You’re taking raw ingredients, cooking them, and batching them so you have convenient food during the week to pull together and heat up.

Some people might say, “Okay, I don’t want to batch a meal plan, but I’m just going to prep a few things.” For me, it’s kind of the same thing. If you’re following one of our simple plans, there are five batching items, which will likely be a soup, a dressing, a grain, some kind of sauce, and a bean. Because we’re talking whole food plant-based, we’re focusing on veggies, beans, whole grains, nuts and seeds, and some fruit. These five categories are going to be helpful for making meals throughout the week.

Whether you think of it as batch cooking or prepping, making a few batches of things on the weekend will save you time during the week. The only difference with our meal plans is that we show you exactly what to do with the items you made over the weekend, so you don’t have to think about how to incorporate that cheesy sauce or batch of quinoa into your meals. That can be really helpful.

The more you cook this way, the more confident you’ll become at putting things together in a yummy way that doesn’t necessarily require recipes, or at least not a full meal plan. Some people, even after years, prefer to just follow along and not think about it, which is why our plans are so awesome. For others, they just want to make a few components and assemble meals on their own, depending on what they have. That totally works too, which is why we offer both meal plans and access to all our individual recipes. You can search for cheesy sauces, soups, or grains, and all the recipes will pop up for you to choose from.

I want to give you an example of what I would do if I wasn’t following a meal plan but wanted to make myself some convenient foods for the week. I would definitely make a salad dressing because I love salads and want to eat lots of them throughout the week. Making a dressing once means I can use it many times. I would also make some kind of whole grain—maybe rice, millet, buckwheat, or quinoa—to incorporate in different ways. A cheesy sauce or some other versatile sauce is a must, as it pairs well with many things. We have many cheesy sauce recipes in our portal.

I’d make a soup, ideally one with beans and lots of veggies, so every bite is packed with plant power. And I’d make sure to either cook a batch of beans or have canned beans in my kitchen. Cooked beans are super fast, and canned beans just require opening, rinsing, and adding. Then, veggies! You want a nice variety: lettuce, leafy greens, cucumbers, zucchini, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower. Even if you’re not putting them into specific recipes, having them handy is key.

I always wash my veggies when I get home from the farmer’s market to save time later. I also love to put together a salad mix, chopping carrots, celery, and cabbage. We have a yummy “rainbow crunch topping” recipe in the CFDG portal (and I think on the blog too) that’s a great addition to many things, including salads. So, to recap the basics: a salad dressing, a grain, a cheesy sauce, a soup, some veggies, and some beans.

That’s a pretty quick prep. If I were doing this, I’d put the grains in the Instant Pot. While that’s cooking, I’d prep the veggies, then start on the cheesy sauce, then the dressing. I’d probably use canned beans for ease. I like to have a variety of canned beans: chickpeas, kidney beans, white beans, black beans, pinto beans. I’ve also been loving an Italian brand of canned lima beans from my local health food store. I love cooking my own beans too, but canned beans work in a pinch.

If I had to choose one more thing to make, it would be some marinated tofu, another versatile staple. But let’s stick with the basic list: salad dressing, grain, cheesy sauce, veggies, and canned beans. With that, you can throw together so many things. Make sure you have some potatoes handy too.

Earlier this week, I cooked Yukon gold potatoes in the Instant Pot, mashed them with a little soy milk, salt, and pepper. Then I heated up some cheesy sauce, added white beans and kale, and had a wonderful, fast potato bowl. You could even cook those potatoes on your batching day. Since I work from home, I’ll cook potatoes around 11:45 for a 12:30 lunch, then mash them, add soy milk, heat the cheesy sauce, and add beans and kale. It’s a very fast meal.

Sometimes I cook a whole box or half a box of pasta on the weekend. Then, when I’m ready to eat it, I just microwave it or pour boiling water over it and strain it. Heat up some cheesy sauce, steam some broccoli or cauliflower, and add some beans. Super, super easy. You could even add arugula. With cooked pasta and cheesy sauce ready, steaming some cruciferous veggies takes minutes, then combine everything in a bowl. Very simple, doesn’t require much planning, but having that cheesy sauce is a big one because one batch lasts all week.

Another idea with cheesy sauce: heat up some corn tortillas, add cheesy sauce, pinto beans, lettuce, and tomatoes. Super, super easy. You could also bake potatoes while you’re doing your other batching. Bake five potatoes so you have them throughout the week. With cheesy sauce, veggies, and beans, you’ll have a loaded baked potato quickly for lunch or dinner.

And soup! Seriously, there’s nothing easier than taking soup out of the fridge, heating it up, and eating it. You’re creating the ultimate convenience food with soup. Again, load it with veggies and beans. If you search “veggie soup” in our portal, many options will come up. If a recipe doesn’t have beans, just add them. You can even put heated grains at the bottom of your bowl to make the soup more nutrient-dense and fiber-rich, keeping you full longer. My fridge is never without soup; it’s fast, easy, and nutrient-packed. Whether blended or chunky, it’s the ultimate fast food.

Grains are handy to add to soup, on top of salads, or for bowls. A heated grain, heated beans, some of that rainbow veggie mix, and cheesy sauce is delicious and incredibly fast.

Salad dressings are great for big salads. I’ve talked about “big ass salads” a lot on the podcast—they’re meal-sized with lots of veggies, beans, baked tofu, grains, and plenty of dressing. I also like to add toasted sunflower or pumpkin seeds with a little soy sauce for a salty crunch. Having a dressing made on the weekend means I eat more salads. If I don’t have a dressing, I won’t eat as many veggies. I also use dressing for dipping carrot sticks, celery, and cucumber, or as a “mayonnaise” on sandwiches. The other day, I made a quick chickpea mash with mashed chickpeas, red onion, celery, shredded carrots, and some miso tahini dressing from the fridge. It was a great filling for salads and tacos.

It’s super easy, especially with canned beans. I do like to simmer my canned beans in water for a little while, especially chickpeas, to make them nice and soft, not al dente. That’s a little tip.

With cheesy sauce, you can also steam a mix of veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, celery, carrots, and snap peas. Steam them until soft, then top with cheesy sauce. So easy, so good, and you could even pair that with a side of soup and some beans for a hearty meal.

Hummus is another great one to have around. You can put it on salads, make tacos, or sandwiches.

These are just some ideas if you’re not following one of our meal plans but want very basic, easy food. I’m bringing this up because in Drop It Club, our plant-powered weight loss membership, people are getting amazing results, and the group is so heartwarming and supportive. It’s been a joy to create this program. But people often ask on our connection calls, in the private Facebook group, or via email, “What are the simplest meals?” We’re actually working on a good resource for that. I wanted to share this because if they’re curious, others probably are too. I think people have this idea that whole food plant-based eating has to be really complicated. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. Basic stuff is totally fine.

I do suggest, if you don’t want to follow meal plans, checking out the Clean Food Dirty Girl Recipe Club for just $12 a month. You get access to all our recipes. A cool feature is that when you open a recipe, you can scroll to the bottom and see what dishes or meal plans that recipe was used in. For example, if I look at the “fast food style cheesy sauce” I made, I can see it’s used in a smashed potato cheeseburger bowl, cheesy smashed potato bites, double cheesy mac and cheese with crispy cauliflower, insanely easy broccoli soup, Baja cheesy penne pasta bowl, burritos, and nachos. You can get ideas and inspiration right within the portal. I often do that, and it’s a pretty cool feature.

So, I wanted to give you a few ideas and a little inspiration to just eat all the plants. As I always say, you’ve got to meet yourself where you’re at. There are different seasons in our lives. Sometimes following meal plans is super helpful and saves time, and we need someone else to do the thinking for us. Other times, we just want to make a few components and figure it out ourselves. Both are good, and there are other ways to do it too—all the ways! So meet yourself where you’re at. If you don’t necessarily need to follow meal plans, don’t be afraid to just make a few things over the weekend to have convenient food ready during the week and put together very simple combinations. Again, it doesn’t have to be complicated.

Take this, go eat some plants, go make some plants, don’t spend too much time on it. And yeah, I hope this was helpful.

I’ll talk to you soon. Bye.