Okay, I need to figure out a way to make keto meal prep work that doesn't make me want to cry into a block of cream cheese. Most advice I find online assumes you have a deep freeze the size of a pickup truck and the time to spend four hours every Sunday pretending you're on a cooking show.
The background here is that I run a small art studio out of a converted garage. My kitchen is essentially a hot plate, a mini-fridge, and a toaster oven. There is no room for a slow cooker, a food processor, or a stockpile of mason jars full of pre-chopped vegetables. My schedule is also erratic; one day I'm painting for fourteen hours straight, the next I'm running to the art supply store three times. So a "meal prep Sunday" where I make five identical lunches for the week just doesn't survive my reality.
What I've tried so far has been a graveyard of good intentions. I roasted a massive tray of chicken thighs and broccoli, which was sad and soggy by Wednesday. I tried making a big batch of egg muffins, but the texture got rubbery and the toaster oven can only reheat two at a time, which takes forever. I bought those pre-made keto "bowls" from the grocery store, but they are astronomically expensive and taste like they were designed by a math problem. My main failure seems to be that I need variety, I have zero freezer space, and I only have a few minutes to assemble something, not cook it from scratch.
So my specific question is this: can I do some kind of modular, no-reheat keto prep? What are the best raw or pre-cooked components from the store that I can just grab and combine in a bowl? I am thinking things like pre-washed spinach, canned fish, avocado, maybe a rotisserie chicken, and some nuts. But I am worried about it all being boring or the chicken going bad. I am looking for concrete, weird, space-saving hacks from people who also live in a shoebox and hate leftover textures.
The background here is that I run a small art studio out of a converted garage. My kitchen is essentially a hot plate, a mini-fridge, and a toaster oven. There is no room for a slow cooker, a food processor, or a stockpile of mason jars full of pre-chopped vegetables. My schedule is also erratic; one day I'm painting for fourteen hours straight, the next I'm running to the art supply store three times. So a "meal prep Sunday" where I make five identical lunches for the week just doesn't survive my reality.
What I've tried so far has been a graveyard of good intentions. I roasted a massive tray of chicken thighs and broccoli, which was sad and soggy by Wednesday. I tried making a big batch of egg muffins, but the texture got rubbery and the toaster oven can only reheat two at a time, which takes forever. I bought those pre-made keto "bowls" from the grocery store, but they are astronomically expensive and taste like they were designed by a math problem. My main failure seems to be that I need variety, I have zero freezer space, and I only have a few minutes to assemble something, not cook it from scratch.
So my specific question is this: can I do some kind of modular, no-reheat keto prep? What are the best raw or pre-cooked components from the store that I can just grab and combine in a bowl? I am thinking things like pre-washed spinach, canned fish, avocado, maybe a rotisserie chicken, and some nuts. But I am worried about it all being boring or the chicken going bad. I am looking for concrete, weird, space-saving hacks from people who also live in a shoebox and hate leftover textures.
