A Week of Healthy Meal Prep: June 4-8

Chicken cutlets get great flavor from a lemon-rosemary marinade while the leeks cook into a silky, caramelized vegetable side dish. If you’ve never enjoyed the darker green leek tops, give them a try in this recipe. The chicken marinade does double-duty here: it seasons the chicken while the leeks cook and then becomes a light sauce for the whole meal. If you can’t find chicken cutlets, you can make your own: For 4 cutlets, cut two 8-ounce boneless, skinless chicken breast in half horizontally and lightly pound into an even thickness with the smooth side of a meat mallet.

Chickpeas, goat cheese, and walnuts pump up the protein in this arugula salad, making it a hearty meatless main. Dried figs add a big fiber boost—more per serving than any other fruit.

The trout has a nice smoky flavor that is cut by the freshness and acidity of the chimichurri. For a less smoky flavor, seek out thinner fillets (which will take less time to cook). Serve with Baby Zucchini Ribbon Salad.

The perfect side-dish companion to a variety of meat-based main dishes, including fish, chicken, and steak, this quinoa recipe is simple and delicious. Pine nuts from China are less expensive than those from Italy, although not as flavorful. Sunflower seed kernels are a budget-friendly alternative to pine nuts in just about every applicaiton, including pesto. Toasting the nuts draws out their essential oils and deepens their flavor. This dish can be made up to a day ahead and kept refrigerated in an airtight container. Let the dish come to room temperature before serving so the flavors won't be muted. A hit of acid from a squeeze of fresh lemon or a dash of vinegar would be a welcome addition to this dish, brightening and intensifying flavors.

Here we season quick-cooking scallops with inspiration from Caribbean pepper pot recipes. To get a nice sear on the scallops without any sticking, be sure to thoroughly pat your scallops dry and preheat the skillet until it’s nice and hot.

The spicy scallops are cooled by the sweet, minty watermelon salsa. Ask for “dry” sea scallops at the fish counter. Other scallops have been treated with a sodium solution that prevents them from browning nicely and can make the texture of the meat less pleasant. 

This zucchini pie recipe is a fresh riff on spaghetti pie, where zoodles stand in for spaghetti and sweet grape tomatoes replace pasta sauce. Serve zucchini pie for breakfast, lunch, or dinner—it’s great hot, cold, or at room temperature. For a special brunch treat, top wedges with a sliver of cold-smoked salmon and a dill sprig.