The High-Protein Post-Workout Meal That Cooks While You Shower - Take your shower, the microwave's doing the hard work this time!
Alice Sun (@alicecsun) shares a unique view into her life through the ways she uses food to nurture wellness, cross cultural divides, and bring people together, all through the medium of storytelling.
Alice Sun•
April 7, 2026
I wanna make sure you’re able to work out AND have a gourmet meal in the same night, without adding extra work, without losing flavor or the gains. For this one, pull it out of the freezer and it acts as the perfect microwave meal. Just pop it on the defrost setting for 5-10 mins depending on your microwave, and it’ll get to work, cooking itself during the time you’re getting a shower in!
Proteins generally get a little weird when they get warmed in the microwave — it gets either overcooked, which makes it rubbery, huge no no! But we get around that because the ground meat in the curry sauce stays silky and tender. The sauce acts like a protective buffer, and the ground texture means it heats evenly in the microwave. Today I’m using ground beef, but you can def sub with ground chicken or turkey, if that’s what you’d prefer more.
But like most of my post-workout meals, you might have seen a trend that I need to protein + fiber max because of my sensitive tummy. This one is packed with carrots, sweet potato (instead of regular potato), and peas! The root veggies get pre-cooked with the ground beef and curry sauce, but the peas get added the day you’re microwaving.
The delicate little peas don’t need a double cook and it stays vibrant, sweet, and not mushy on the defrosting setting in the microwave. It gets mixed in at the end, and helps brighten the bite overall when you have the heavy curry sauce.
Here’s how to make it for yourself this week!
Start by cooking the ground beef (1 lb) in a heavy bottomed pot, until browned.
Stir in the onion (½), ground ginger (1 Tbsp), and garlic (1 bulb) until fragrant and just cooked through, which takes about 3 mins.
Once everything’s smelling nice, add in the carrot (½ cup), sweet potato (½ cup) and give it a stir, letting the veggies cook for another 3 mins.
Pour in water (2 ¾ cups), place in the curry blocks (1 package), and bring it to a simmer before stirring the curry cubes into the water so it makes a thick sauce.
Let everything simmer for 20 mins, then add to microwave safe containers.
Once the containers are cooled, store in the freezer until the night you want it.
Add the frozen peas (¼ cup) on top, pop it in the microwave on defrosting setting for 5 mins, check, then add more time if needed.
Fold the peas into the curry mix and enjoy with rice!
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