Want to know the best part of this post? You can choose any one of these recipes and it can be the only thing you prep for lunch this week. Yep, just one. So clear an hour or two this weekend and get some lunch prep in and you’ll have delicious and healthy food sorted for the week ahead.
Anyone that’s into healthy eating or saving money on food will tell you that preparation is key. If you’re buying lunch everyday you can easily blow anywhere between $10-$20 on food during your lunch break. That gets really expensive, really fast. Over the course of a week it adds up. It adds up to money you could be spending on a weekend away, a truly phenomenal dinner out or any number of other things.
The below 5 options will make enough for you to eat for lunch for about a week. With curries and pastas I usually freeze the serves I’ll be eating on Thursday and Friday to make sure they still taste super fresh. This also means if something comes up, a work lunch etc., you can have that one ready to go for next week.
With salads, I store the salad and dressing separately and mix dressing through before eating. It keeps everything fresh longer. Sandwiches, I find it’s best to store the components separately and have them ready to go, the one listed here has minimal assembly involved 😉
If you’re the kind of person who gets bored easily, make two things on the weekend and just freeze portions and you’ve got lunches sorted for two weeks. After the first week you could make 1 meal as your batch cook and keep rotating the different things you now have in your (probably quite full) freezer for a different option each day.
Most options are vegetarian as lunch is such an easy time of the day to get in loads of serves of vegetables. I have included a couple of options for you meat eaters though because I’m nice like that. Plus the chicken burger/sandwich below is one of my fave things ever.
- Sweet potato and spinach massaman curry (makes 4 serves)
- Vegetarian Lasagne (this makes 10 serves! You can have friends round for dinner Sunday night and still have your lunches sorted!)
- Thai Red Curry Pumpkin Soup (makes 4 serves)
- Grilled chicken, pearl couscous, pumpkin and feta salad, you could actually freeze this! (makes 4 serves)
- Cauliflower soup (makes 4 serves)
- Crunchy, Salty Sweet Pumpkin and Kale Salad
- Sweet potato, lentil and peanut curry (makes 6 serves)
- Chicken, ginger, chilli and all the green things noodles. (makes 4 serves)
- Vegetarian tikka masala (makes 4 serves)
- Meatballs in gochujang sugo. Throw and handful of rocket on top when you’re packing your lunch in the morning to get in some extra veg with this one. Or have with zoodles!(makes 6 serves)
- Potato Gratin, serve with a side salad and even some shredded chicken, or just a boiled egg. You could change up the accompaniments for this each day. (makes 6 serves)
- Thai Chicken burgers, you can easily freeze the cooked chicken for this one and the slaw will keep well in the fridge and you can easily assemble a sandwich, roll , wrap or burger at work/ before work. (makes 6 serves)
- Vegetarian nasi goreng noodles (makes 2 serves but you can double the recipe!)
- Dahl Mahkani (makes 4 serves)
- Kale, lentil and pomegranate salad (makes 4-6 serves, can have with shredded chicken)
