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Yup- it’s time for another meal prep roundup since our Meal Prep Like a Pro With These 10 Yummy Recipes has been shared over 50,000 times on social media! This time we are doing lunches- you know you dread thinking up lunches, or worse, eating the same boring sandwich every day- and this roundup has been chosen to offer a variety of easy lunches to please not only you, but your family, too. Nothing is better than having lunch for the week prepped and ready to go on Sunday night. No before work or school rushing, no more spending money on pricey take-out, and no more PB&J or plain old turkey and cheese. These lunches look so good you’ll have to resist eating them at 10am.
We are big on meal planning around here. For one thing, my husband works in Illinois most of the week, and most of the year I stay at our lake house in Michigan. If I don’t meal prep, we eat terribly. My husband will live on fast food, and I will live on cereal, toast and frozen pizza. Neither of us functions well without the other, lol! I try to meal prep 4 dinners and 5 lunches each week, and I usually make 2 recipes for dinners and 2 for lunches. I will admit, my husband loves a boring ham and cheese, extra mustard, and would be happy eating that every. single. day. But that is so boring, and lunch meat is not very good for you, so I like to switch it up a bit. Also, I don’t know where you live, but lunch meat is often $8-9 a pound here, which is insane to me. Meal prepping saves us so much time and money we can’t imagine doing it any other way.
Before getting started, you’ll need some supplies. For dinners, I like to use these round containers for my husband’s meals because they are cheap enough to be disposable if one gets left in his car for months. I love these awesome glass containers for myself because I prefer my food compartmentalized. But for some reason, for lunches, I prefer these rectangular containers. I think they remind me of the Starbucks containers their pre-packed lunches come in, and I love their bento boxes!
Meal Prep Lunch – So easy, so good!
We are going to start off with a recipe that has been the most popular in our big post– these Turkey Spinach Pinwheels from Damn Delicious. These pinwheels are so easy to make. Our whole family loves them, and what’s great is you can sub any lunch meat that is on sale for the turkey. We like to take these on our boat for a snacky-type lunch, and they are great to keep in the fridge to grab a quick bite if you’re in a weekend rush. Damn Delicious has the details.
Damn DeliciousMy husband *loves* grilled chicken Caesar salads. In fact, on weeks we don’t meal prep he often picks one up at the local brewery by our apartment in suburban Chicago. This grilled chicken Caesar wrap is really good and very easy to make. I confess to adding a touch more dressing…we aren’t kidding ourselves that Caesar salads are “healthy,” are we? 😉 Marinate the chicken in the morning, and it’s ready to go on the grill at dinner time. Check out Spend with Pennies for the full recipe.
Spend with PenniesSimilar to the grilled chicken Ceasar wrap, these grilled chicken avocado burritos are amazzzzing. The avocado in this lunchtime burrito recipe hits the spot when I crave its cool, creamy goodness. Closet Cooking has the full recipe. The salsa verde gives these an amazing flavor. My daughter was visiting the lake recently and made *the best* salsa verde with tomatillos fresh from the farm stand. It was so easy! I wish I had thought to have her do a guest post for me!
Closet CookingI am a big fan of slow cooker recipes for dinner AND for lunch. While I usually meal prep on Sunday evenings, sometimes we have guests who stay an extra day or we just have a really busy day planned, and on those days, I like to throw a meal in the slow cooker in the morning and know that it will be done and easy to package up in the evening. I really like my Hamilton Beach slow cooker. It has a timer and automatically switches to “warm” once the cooking cycle you choose is completed. I upgraded to this one about 18 months ago and it has worked perfectly all this time. At around $35 it has been great to have the “warm” setting- just in case you are not home in time to shut it off.
Which brings me to this yummy Slow Cooker Sweet and Sour Chicken from Life Made Sweeter. We both love Chinese and this recipe looks terrific! Aside from the chicken and produce, you probably have the simple ingredients on hand, making this an easy recipe to use for lunchtime meal prep. I also use boil-in-bag rice alllll the time. I am terrible at making rice, and this has solved that problem. For a long time I was buying frozen rice, but boil-in-bag is much more economical and it cooks perfectly in 10 minutes every time.
Life Made SweeterWhile you have slow cooker meal prep lunches on your mind, take a look at these Quinoa Black Bean Crock Pot Stuffed Peppers from Pinch of Yum. They are a perfect vegetarian meal prep recipe that is super easy to put together and takes just three hours to cook on high, and the quinoa is a protein-packed healthy meal prep option!
Pinch of YumI love salads for lunch, but sometimes they can get a little…boring. This Grilled Chicken and Blueberry Salad is anything but boring! At about 260 calories, including dressing, this salad checks all of the boxes: clean eating, healthy eating, meal prep for weight loss and tastiness! Keep the dressing separate until lunchtime using these great condiment cups and no more soggy salads, either. Skinny Ms has the full recipe.
Skinny Ms
How great do these Garlic Chicken and Veggie Pasta dishes look? You can almost see the flavor! I love that you can make a huge batch of this for lunches throughout the week. This would also make a great dish to serve at a luncheon or shower because it’s an all-in-one dish. Tasty.co has the recipe, and an awesome video, too! We have so much summer squash growing that this is going on next week’s plan right now.
Tasty.coAt my last job, I worked through lunch and quick bites were best during our busy season. These Peanut Butter and Banana Rollups Snack Boxes would have been perfect! Damn Delicious does it again with another quick and easy lunch idea. I am not a plain celery person, so these condiment containers would definitely be put to use with some extra peanut butter.
Damn DeliciousMy husband does not like sweet potatoes, so this one is just for me. It is so good I can eat it all week long without being bored. This Spicy Chicken and Sweet Potato meal prep recipe from Pinch of Yum is nothing short of amazing! I loooove broccolini, and the little bit of avocado adds some great flavor contrast to the spiciness of the seasoning mix.
Pinch of YumCan you tell I rely on Damn Delicious and Pinch of Yum for a lot of the recipes I make? I have never made anything from either site that we did not like- you can’t go wrong with anything these ladies create!
Have you ever had crispy chickpeas? They are so yummy- and if you crave crunch like I do, chickpeas are a super healthy alternative to give you some crunch. Well and Full makes these delicious Vegan Budha Bowls that are full of flavor, making them a perfectly healthy lunch for vegetarians, vegans, weight loss, healthy eating and more!
Well and FullAre you excited to meal prep some lunches now? There is truly something for everyone in this roundup, and if you do not have any dietary considerations, this roundup offers an awesome variety of lunches that are so flavor-packed and easy to make you won’t have to think about what to make for a long time.
If you would like additional meal prep and easy recipes ideas, check out our Meal Prep Motivation Pinterest board and also the following posts:
Meal Prep Like a Pro With These 10 Yummy Recipes
Meal Prep Like a Pro- Part Two: 10 Awesome Recipes to Try This Month
10 Easy Dinners for Busy Weeknights
Super Easy Dinners For Super Busy Weeknights
Happy planning!
Allison
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