Use these easy ways to meal prep lunches to make your lunches for the week on Sunday evening. Making a week's worth of lunches save you time on busy mornings and reduce your temptation to pick up fast food.
Turkey Taco Bowls from Prep-Ahead Breakfasts and Lunches
There are a lot of resources out there for meal prepping dinners. It seems that this is what most people focus on because we have such a busy schedule these days, it can be hard to get everyone around the table without a little extra prep-work. If you do find meal-prepping advice for lunch it often is geared towards the type of meal prep athletes do; bland chicken upon bland chicken with the same vegetables prepped for lunch 5 days a week. That isn't what most of us are looking for. How do you make different and exciting meals for lunch with little time? Here are some easy ways to meal prep lunches that are flavorful and offer a lot of variety!
Easy Ways to Meal Prep Lunches
Make Sandwiches ahead of time
View this post on Instagram
Jalapeño Chicken Pita Pockets from Prep-Ahead Breakfasts and Lunches
You can make sandwiches ahead of time that don’t get soggy with ease. It is all about picking the right bread, fillings and order you put the sandwich together. Here are tips for preventing soggy sandwiches. Additionally, pre-cooked sandwiches are heroes of lunch boxes. They can be made ahead and frozen for easy heating up later at your desk.
Chop vegetables for salads on the go
View this post on Instagram
Chimichurri Steak Salad from Prep-Ahead Breakfasts and Lunches
I love a fresh salad for lunch, but often by the time lunch rolls around, it is no longer so fresh and has turned soggy on me. There are several ways you can prevent this including keeping dressings to the side to storing salads in the right container. Another great way is to simply prep ahead your vegetables, store them separately in your fridge and assemble salads in a flash every morning. Doing this each week takes mere minutes, too! Here are more tips on how to meal prep salads for the week and keep them fresh.
Batch-cook what you can
If you are planning your dinners, batch cook for your lunches at the same time. For instance, I make big batches of rice and quinoa for salads and one bowl meals later in the week with my lunches as I am making my dinner batches. I also like to make large side portions of recipes for portioning out in my lunch as well. Here are more tips on batch cooking.
Plan for leftovers
If you are batch-cooking, you are probably the planning type of person. I plan to have leftovers by making larger portions than my family will eat for dinner so I can have leftovers for lunch. This cuts waste and it makes it super easy to plan lunches with leftovers a couple of times a week, cutting lunch prep even more.
Make one-bowl meals
View this post on Instagram
Salmon-Berry Quinoa Bowl from Prep-Ahead Breakfasts and Lunches
One-bowl meals are easy to put together even if you are really strapped for time. You can prepare both dinner and meal prep lunch for the week. You can make a large enough batch of them that you can serve them for both meals, too. A one-bowl meal is simply as it sounds; a meal that doesn’t require much work and cooks up nice in one bowl in the microwave for easy re-heating. Just add a grain such as rice, a protein like chicken or tofu and some veggies. I like to add the sauce on last. One-bowl meals are very customizable, so you can tailor them to individual family members.
Pack a soup, stew, or chili
View this post on Instagram
Jalapeno Popper Turkey Chili Recipe
During the cooler months, I make huge batches of soups, stews, and chilis for dinner and they make great meals for lunch as well. They reheat nicely and are very filling, too. I pack my extras for chili toppings (such as sour cream, cheese, onions etc.) in a separate container and just add them after the chili is warmed up in the microwave.
Need some delicious make-ahead lunch recipes? Check out my latest cookbook Prep-Ahead Breakfasts and Lunches.
Leave a Reply