No More Girl Dinners! How to Make Meals Quickly Using the Chipotle Method

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“Girl dinner!’ I said to myself as I piled a random assortment of odds and ends resembling something foraged by a squirrel onto a plate and collapsed in front of the tv after work.

What is Girl Dinner?

The term “Girl Dinner” was coined on TikTok (I think), jokingly describing a random assortment of foods on a plate for a fast and no-cook meal. This was made popular when a whole bunch of women realized that we can get so busy and/or burnt out with life that making a full meal is the last thing we want on our metaphorical plate of responsibilities and just opt for a handful of this and that from the pantry or fridge.

My kids spend Tuesdays and every other weekend overnight at their dad’s house, and not surprisingly for a single mom – I don’t like to cook on those days. In fact, as much as I enjoy cooking and find it to be a space of sacred creativity and grounding for me, it’s hard for me to find the motivation to do a whole meal from start to finish for just myself.

The lack of dishes part of the girl dinner was pretty nice, but I noticed that those meals left me feeling unsatisfied. The nutritional value (and the volume of food that I need to fill me up) was lacking. Until…

The Chipotle Method

Back when I was in my early 20s I followed the paleo diet, and I liked the Whole 30 challenge so much that I bought one of the cookbooks. The cookbook authors (Dallas Hartwig and Melissa Hartwig Urban) taught the “Chipotle Method” of food prepping. Whereas traditional meal prepping means you make a giant lasagna or pot of soup and eat the same thing every day, the Chipotle Method means you prep some key ingredients (starch, vegetables, protein, sauce) and keep those readily available to mix and match as your mood changes, just like how you would build your own custom burrito at Chipotle.

I remembered this method and started to implement it with some of the basics that I always keep stocked.

Y’all. This has revolutionized my life in a way I cannot exaggerate. Incorporating the Chipotle Method of meal prepping into my Sunday Reset Routine has helped me eat balanced, hearty, and delicious meals in minutes without getting bored.

Here’s how it generally flows into my Sunday Reset Routine:

• 2 cups of brown rice in the Instant Pot
• Drain and press 3 packages of tofu. Cube and toss with cornstarch, nutritional yeast, and garlic powder and cook at 425* for 45 minutes, flipping halfway
• 1 package of steamed broccoli, microwaved
• Roasted yellow and/or sweet potatoes, cubed and sprayed with avocado oil in the air fryer
• I usually also cook up either a batch of beans or a batch of lentils in the Instant Pot
• Mix up sauces/dressings in mason jars for the week. Lately I’ve been alternating between the Creamy Poppyseed Dressing from The Simple Veganista and Tahini Sauce from Love and Lemons.

These are all things that my kids can help me do in the kitchen, and they have been having fun getting to help me measure, chop, and mix. I love showing them how all the foods we are making can mix and match into different flavors depending on our moods!

Other things we like to have ready: my ten-year-old loves snacking on roasted Brussels sprouts, so I like to keep those ready to go. I also always buy a bag of fire roasted vegetables at Costco. I love how easy it is to just scoop out how much I’m going to use and know I’m not wasting any.

Honorable mention: I mention in my Sunday Reset routine that I always make some sort of bread products for the week. This doesn’t necessarily count in my dinner prep but it is also getting done at the same time.

Now that we are heading into summer, we will be keeping fresh pineapple and melons cut up and in the fridge for grab and go sides and snacks.

With all those things ready to go, it makes my solo dinners so much easier to mix and match what sounds good in the moment, without causing a lot of dishes or extra time in the kitchen. This is especially great on Tuesdays, which are my consistent gym nights (i.e. I have even less time or energy when I get home). It’s also been a lot nicer to have some of the longer foods (rice, lentils, pressed and roasted tofu) ready in a pinch for meals with my kids on nights when we get busy.

Hopefully this gives you some ideas for foods you can prep all at once to have ready through the week! I love that this method means less dishes and more food. Prepping my food this way is one of the tangible ways that I show love to myself, because it helps me save money, waste less food, and eat absolutely delicious meals on a consistent basis.

Give it a try and let me know what you think!