Goodful Meal Prep Club: Week 2

This week, we're making two delicious salsas and guacamole!

Hello and welcome back to Meal Prep Club!

Rachel Miller / BuzzFeed

If you're just joining us, here's a quick refresher: Meal Prep Club is a super flexible and low-key meal prep project we're doing for the next few weeks on Goodful. Each Thursday, I’ll share a new meal prep inspiration (for a single meal for the whole week, AKA lunch or dinner) based on what I cooked for myself the previous Sunday, and from there, you can customize it to fit your own life/diet/tastes. It's centered around Sauce Theory — aka the idea that when you're trying to be healthy, it's helpful to put your time/energy into making new sauces/toppings/dressings to go with your healthy staples instead of making a ton of new recipes every week.

You can read the kickoff post and see the Week #1 recipes here.

Before we get to this week's recipes, I wanted to share some photos people sent me of their Meal Prep Club Week 1 efforts!

Sarah Sullivan, Cristin Connell, Lindsay Sumney Reyes, Riah Werner, Monique Bartley

(Click any image to expand / to see what the people who made them had to say!)

This week, we're doing Chipotle-inspired sauces and toppings!

Rachel Miller / BuzzFeed

Don't @ me with your feelings about Chipotle!!!!

Here's everything I made this week:

• One batch perfect chicken

• One batch refried beans

• Guacamole (recipe below)

• Corn salsa (recipe below)

• Green salsa (recipe below)

• Chopped lettuce

• Sliced radishes

I also had some pickled onions left over from last week that I threw on there!

Rachel Miller / BuzzFeed

Here are all the recipes:

GUACAMOLE

Recipe by Alison Roman for BuzzFeed

INGREDIENTS

4 avocados, halved and pitted

½ small red onion, finely chopped

¼ cup finely chopped cilantro

½ jalapeno, seeded and finely chopped

2 Tbsp. fresh lime juice

Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper

DIRECTIONS

Using a fork or whatever avocado-smashing implement you desire, smash avocados to desired texture. Add onion, cilantro, jalapeño, and lime juice, and season with salt. Taste it; add more lime juice or salt if you like.

Makes four cups.

ROASTED CHILE-CORN SALSA

Recipe by Alison Roman for BuzzFeed

INGREDIENTS

2 poblano peppers

3 cups corn (from 4 ears or one 10 oz package, thawed)

½ red onion, finely chopped

2 Tbsp. fresh lime juice

2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice

¼ cup chopped cilantro

Kosher salt

DIRECTIONS

1. Using tongs, char peppers over a gas flame until they're all black and blistered, about 4 minutes per side. (If you don't have a gas flame, you can char them under a broiler, turning them occasionally, until they're blackened and blistered, about 5 minutes per side.)

2. Place them in a bowl and cover with plastic (or place them in a large Ziploc bag) and let sit for 10 minutes.

3. Gently peel away the skin of the peppers (resist the urge to run them under cold water), remove the stem and seeds, and finely chop.

4. Add the peppers to a large bowl along with corn, red onion, cilantro, lemon juice, lime juice, and some salt. Toss everything together and season with more salt and lime juice, if you like.

Makes four cups. The salsa should stay good for five days, covered and refrigerated.

GREEN-CHILE TOMATILLO SALSA

Recipe by Alison Roman for BuzzFeed

INGREDIENTS

½ pound tomatillos, husks removed

1 medium tomato

1 white onion, cut into a few large wedges

1 jalapeño

1 cup chopped cilantro

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

1 teaspoon dried oregano

½ teaspoon ground cumin

Kosher salt

DIRECTIONS

1. Simmer tomatillos, tomato, onion, jalapeño, and 2 cups water in a medium sauce pot until tomatillos have turned olive green and are almost bursting, 8–10 minutes.

2. Remove with a slotted spoon and place in a food processor or blender with cilantro, lime juice, oregano, and cumin. Process until smooth, then season with salt.

Makes two cups. Will stay good for a week, covered and refrigerated.

Rachel Miller / BuzzFeed

A few notes on this week's prep:

Rachel Miller / BuzzFeed

• I'm torn on whether or not it's worth it to make two salsa and the gaucamole. On the one hand, it requires more work to chop all that extra produce. On the other hand, there's a ton of overlap in terms of ingredients, and once you're already chopping an onion or a bunch of cilantro or juicing a lime, what's a little more, you know?

• The corn salsa may seem the most intimidating because you have to char and peel a poblano pepper, but it's also the most delicious one IMO. So if you're just going to make one, I'd probably say you should make that one. BUT the tomatillo one is also really delicious and easy to make.

• I halved the guacamole recipe since I was only cooking for myself.

Rachel Miller / BuzzFeed

• I stored the corn salsa and guac in large containers and have been adding them to the meal for the day the morning of, before I pack it all up for work. (I was a bit worried about the whole thing getting soggy if I put all the salsas on on Sunday.)

• I could take or leave the homemade refried beans. They are yummy and not hard to make and I would definitely make them again, but in the context of so many other homemade things, it was just a bit too much work, especially because I like canned ones enough. Totally your call!

• ICYMI, my meal prep containers are from Prep Naturals on Amazon — $26 for the set of five.

Rachel Miller / BuzzFeed

By the way...

Someone mentioned in the comments last week that a shopping list would be helpful; the reason I haven't been doing that is because everything is so flexible and I have no way of knowing if you're going to make one recipe or several or the proportions (so I can't tell you how many limes you'll need), or if you need ingredients for things like the perfect chicken seasoning. Basically, I want a shopping list to be actually useful and I'm not sure of the best way to do that. That said, I put all of the recipes so far into a single Google Doc for easier printing/reading/shopping. (Click File -> Make a copy to save a version to your own Google Drive account that you can edit and mark up.) Maybe a spreadsheet shopping list will be V2!

Oh, and one more fun thing!

On Tuesday night, I was super cranky and very hot and my appetite was low and I kind of didn't want to make dinner, or to eat one of my prepared meals. (The thought of lettuce was just...ugh.) So I decided to do a Meal Prep Club REMIX and put all my sauces on top of EGGS. I reheated some of the beans and then spread them on a warmed-up flour tortilla. Then I fried two eggs, put them on top of the tortilla and beans, and topped everything with the two salsa and guac. Not only was dinner saved, IT WAS AMAZING!

Rachel Miller / BuzzFeed

So truly, make the most out of all your toppings and use them in creative ways throughout the week.

All right, that's all I got! Let me know if you have any questions, send me your pics (rachel dot miller @ buzzfeed) and/or tag us on Instagram (@goodful), and I'll see you back here next Thursday! 🥑✨