Instant Pot Meal Prep for Travel Nurses

Meal prepping and quick meals are a must for busy travel nurses. The Instant Pot makes meal prep and quick meals so much easier. Allie and Michael Wright have been meal prepping and using their Instant Pot to save money and time since August of 2019. Below you will find a recipe for breakfast, lunch, and dinner that they prepped and made for their day.

They say that they stick to a $65 a week budget for 2 adults and it has worked for them. They do say they buy as little meat/animal products as possible. They tend to get a lot of their protein from beans and vegetables.

So here we have 3 of their go-to recipes!

Breakfast:

Meal prep steel cut oats 

Makes 6 servings (1 cup servings)

Prep + cook time: 1-4 hours

Ingredients:

• 1 cup steel-cut oats – $2.50/container @ 20 servings per container
• 4 cups Almond Milk (unsweet, unflavored is what we use)
• 2 thick tablespoons (my husband’s words) of brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons of cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• Optional: butter/vegan butter ¼ stick
• Berries to garnish (frozen usually works best)

Instructions:

1. Put oats, almond milk, and cinnamon in instant pot
2. Cook on “multi-grain”. Once instant pot has depressurized naturally, open lid and stir in butter, brown sugar, and salt
3. Then, let sit on low heat for 1-3 hours. 
4. Enjoy. Add toppings! 

Dinner/lunch:

Burrito bowl 

Time to prepare + cook: 1 hr

Number of servings: 8-10

Ingredients:

• 1 lb chicken breast
• 1 can black beans – low sodium , rinsed
• 1 can red beans – low sodium , rinsed
• 1 can garbanzo beans – low sodium , rinsed
• 1 can sweet corn, rinsed
• 2 Bell peppers (We like orange or red, but to be cost-effective, green is the way to go)
• Top with ranch dressing or whatever dressing you want (if any)
• Optional: sour cream, cheese, etc, but we are mostly dairy free, so we don’t add a lot of extra dairy..except that ranch mentioned above..)

Instructions:

1. Dice chicken and put in the instant pot, add ½ cup of water, and cook on “poultry”
2. Remove chicken and shred it. Drain the remaining broth, or save it for later (see next “chicken noodle soup” recipe”)
3. add all of your ingredients together and mix. You can later re-heat it when you take it to work/school/etc because all of these ingredients are already cooked
4. Top with ranch or whatever and enjoy!

Chicken noodle soup

Time to prepare + cook: 2 hrs

Number of servings: 8-10

Ingredients:

• ½ -1  lb chicken breast
• 4 large carrots
• 4 large sticks of celery
• Kale
• Green onions
• 1 box of chickpea pasta
• Salt/pepper/cajun seasonings to taste

Instructions:

1. Dice chicken and put it in the instant pot, add ½  cup of water, and cook on “poultry”
2. Remove chicken and shred it, leave the broth in the instant pot
3. Add 3 cups of water to the chicken stock in the instant pot, plus seasonings
4. Add 1 cup of each: chopped carrots, onions, and celery
5. Set instantpot to “soup” setting and let it cook. Allow instant pot to naturally depressurize.
6. Cook chickpea pasta per the package instructions separately on the stove
7. Add pasta to individual meal-prep bowls, and then add soup.  *You can mix all the pasta together , but we’ve found that the pasta will absorb the liquid if you do this step at first*

We hope you like these recipes! These 3 meals are basically what they have been living off of so they can minimize their grocery bill. They are working to pay off all their debt. We hope to bring you more of Allie and Michael’s delicious Instant Pot recipes in the future.

If you are working on meal prepping this article offers great advice to get started!

If you are a new travel nurse or looking into becoming a travel nurse:

Travel Nurse Guide: Step-by-Step (now offered in a PDF Downloadable version!)