20 Minute Meal Prep Recipe: Cabbage, Lentil & Sweet Potato Salad

This is my all time favorite meal prep for the week, It’s affordable, adaptable and super easy! Not to mention it’s packed with essential vitamins like vitamin A, K and C, which support your immune system. In this recipe, I use a simple olive oil dressing made with common condiments in my kitchen. However, you can use a store bought dressing, or use one of your favorite home recipes.

Ingredients

Here’s what you’ll need…

1. One head of red cabbage – mid size
2. Two-three heads of broccoli
3. 1/2 a red onion
4. One large sweet potato or 2-3 mid size ones
5. One cup of cooked lentils
6. Olive oil
7. Ginger
8. Lemon
9. Salt and pepper to taste

Cooking Instructions

More like chopping instructions…this salad is super easy and mainly redundant steps. I’ll break it down for you!

Prep for cooked ingredients:

First, preheat oven to 425 degrees and set two cups of water to boil on the stove.

Next, peel and dice your sweet potatoes then toss them in olive oil, salt, and pepper to taste.

Once your water is boiling, add one cup of lentils and bring to a low boil for 20 minutes (you can salt your water to taste).

After your oven is preheated, spread your sweet potatoes on a baking sheet and pop them in the oven for 12 minutes. When the 12 minutes is up, flip your potatoes and put them back in the oven for another 12 minutes.

Prep for fresh ingredients:

1. Chop the entire head of red cabbage (if you would like some variety you can do half red cabbage half green)
2. Finely chop two-three heads of broccoli you can include the stems if you’d like
3. Dice 1/2 a red onion
4. Place above ingredients into a large mixing bowl

Salad dressing Instructions:

1. Pour 1/2 cup of olive oil into a small pan and place it on the stove at a low heat
2. Peel and mince 1/2tsp of ginger and add it to the olive oil in your pan, let this mix sit for 15 minutes in the warm olive oil to infuse. Tip: don’t let the olive oil simmer or boil
3. Squeeze 1/4 cup of fresh lemon juice into a small mixing bowl
4. When the 15 minutes is up, mix the infused olive oil with the lemon in the mixing bowl, add salt and pepper to taste.

Final Steps:

1. Remove the lentils from the stove and drain any excess water
2. Add the lentils to your large mixing bowl with your freshly chopped veggies.
3. Remove the sweet potatoes from the oven (turn off the oven 😉 and add them to your mixing bowl
4. Toss all ingredients in the large mixing bowl
5. Serve with dressing on the side

Notes

Depending on the size of your vegetables, this makes a decent amount of salad, perfect for a week of meal prep. I like to keep the dressing on the side so that the salad doesn’t get soggy as the days go on. While the homemade ginger dressing is great, you can also use store bought. I personally love a good sesame dressing with this salad, but feel free to play around with different flavors! I’ve also added diced sweet peppers to the mix or even grape tomatoes. So have fun with it, put some of your favorite veggies in there, or stick to the original recipe – it’s so good I promise!