Meal prep can save Estonian families hours each week

Teacher and food content creator Annika Murulaid told ERR’s morning programme Terevisioon that preparing meals in advance can reduce the time spent cooking on weekdays.

Murulaid said the Statistical Office had found years ago that the average Estonian family spends about 13 hours a week preparing food, amounting to 30 days a year. Preparing larger portions on Sunday evening can help shorten that time during the working week.

She demonstrated a meal plan that can be prepared in about two hours, with breakfast, lunch, a snack and dinner cooked simultaneously in the oven, on the stove and in a pan.

For breakfast, Murulaid made curd cheese pancakes using eggs, curd cheese, flour and sugar. The pancakes can be reheated on the stove or in a microwave in the morning.

Lunch was a Korean-style bowl with rice, a salad of carrots and red cabbage, spinach and fried minced meat. She cooked the meat with garlic, soy sauce, tomato paste and sugar, which she said gave it a sweet flavour and made it juicy and appealing.

For a snack, she prepared oatmeal cookies from banana, eggs, oats, nuts, raisins and sugar. Murulaid recommended eating them two or three hours after lunch, for example before training, saying the carbohydrates could help fuel the muscles and make exercise more effective.

For dinner, she suggested making a large pot of tomato cream soup at the start of autumn. The tomatoes, onions, garlic and carrots are roasted in the oven, then blended with seasonings and cream cheese.