5 meal-prep ideas using only local market ingredients

Meal prepping is the single most effective habit for eating well on a budget. Done right, two hours on Sunday morning means healthy food ready to go for the entire week. Here are five ideas built entirely around what you'll find at your nearest Tanzanian market.

1. Spiced lentil base. Buy 500g of brown or green lentils, an onion, garlic, ginger, and a bundle of coriander. Simmer the lentils with fried onion, cumin, and coriander seeds until thick and soupy. Refrigerate in portions — use as a base for rice bowls, stuff into flatbreads, or eat as soup with bread.

2. Roasted vegetable tray. Whatever is abundant and cheap this week — sweet potato, capsicum, courgette, carrot — cube it uniformly, toss in oil and sea salt, and roast at high heat until caramelised. Keeps for five days and works in everything: salads, wraps, alongside eggs, with ugali.

3. Coconut fish parcels. Buy fresh tilapia or dagaa from the fish section. Marinate in coconut milk, lime, garlic, and chilli. Wrap individual portions in banana leaf or foil and refrigerate. Each parcel takes 15 minutes to bake when you're ready to eat — minimal effort, maximum flavour.

4. Green sauce. Blend a generous bunch of coriander, half a bunch of parsley, two garlic cloves, a green chilli, olive oil, and lime juice until smooth. Pour into an ice cube tray and freeze. Drop a cube into pasta, rice, soups, or marinades throughout the week.

5. Overnight porridge base. Mix millet or sorghum flour with water and a pinch of salt. Leave to ferment overnight. In the morning, cook for ten minutes, sweeten with honey or banana. Nutritious, filling, and cheaper than any breakfast alternative. Prepare the dry mix in bulk and it takes two minutes nightly.