I do pretty good I’m just in search of ways to make work lunch prep as brain dead easy as possible. A couple points specific to me: I don’t like to eat the same thing more than a couple days in a row and I very rarely take frozen meals because they’re expensive and don’t have the nutrition that I want.
Im like you! A burrito wrapped on Sunday does not taste good on Wednesday, at all. Especially if ive already eaten said burrito days prior. Batch cooking helped me a ton! I’ve gotten in the habit of having batches of cooked grains/legumes in the fridge. Throwing together a bowl, salad or wrap with whatever veg or protein I have on hand is super quick. However, I know this is not exactly what some people want from meal prep since it’s not exactly just grab and go, but it literally takes 3 minutes or less to put together, so not a tall order. And on days I’m home or have some extra time, lunch is a soup or frittata/scramble or cakes (bean cakes are delish and easy af), and comes together in less than 10mins. My methods may not work for you but there are a ton of ideas out there around batch cooking, give it a look and I’m sure you’ll find some that resonate with you.
Cooking on Sunday feeds me on Monday. Maybe even Tuesday
Something simple is done on Tuesday/Wednesday
Or something moderate for 2 days
Same for Thursday/FridaySaturday is usually the one-off day.
We neither have the space nor the want to eat a meal 5x for a week.
I’m a big fan of making big batches of something like lasagna or enchiladas and freezing extra portions. I also don’t want to eat lasagna every day for a week. So once you have a couple batches of stuff frozen, you make big dinners with leftovers, and swap out.
So you have 4 lasagnas in the freezer. You make butter chicken and pop leftovers on the freezer, take out 1 lasagna.
I will go though periods where I will prep work lunches and then periods when I get lazy and take a can of soup or something frozen.
I don’t do it as often as I should, but I like making a big batch of soup or stew and freezing it in portion size containers.
I mostly work from home, and the schedule is pretty forgiving, plus lunch is the only time I have the house and the kitchen to myself. Today I had lightly dry brined wagyu ribeye/entrecote, and sautéed mushrooms for lunch, paired with a nice beer. Tomorrow it’s going to be Stilton cheese, peach marmalade, and crackers.
When lunch comes around I’ve usually cleared out the inbox sludge for the day, as well as checking up on the stuff for which I am responsible just to make sure everything is working as it should. If it is, then I can take my time to do things properly, as long as I’m available in case someone else’s fan hits my shit.
Chicken and broccoli, both get cooked in the same glass pan. Only need to season the chicken, broco gets the seasoning left over after the chicken and soaks up a lot of what would be the mess from the chicken. Wash one dish, takes 1 hour, food for 6 days.
425 degrees oven, one large pack of chicken breasts, 3-4 brocolli crowns. 17 minutes one side for the chicken, then flip to the other side until its 165 inside the chicken. Then 20 minutes for the broc, you can do ten mins then stir and do another ten mins, or you can just leave it for all 20
I just eat sandwiches. Change the filling every day. Voilà.
I can’t help much if you don’t like to eat the same thing, because I’m more of a “eat to live” kind of person lol
I basically get chicken, mixed vegetables, a bean that I’ll change up every now and then, and mushrooms. Toss that in a slow cooker with whatever seasoning matches the bean I chose well and I eat that for lunch every day for the week.
I guess you could break it up into 2 cooks and make a different style for the second batch so you’re not having the same thing, or have it with rice as well/instead.
You just gotta find what works for you and stick to it. My advice is to get a crockpot, cause you can make some braindead easy stuff with it that freezes well. Pick different meals and cycle through them for variety. I too, suffer from not being able to eat the same meal over and over.
My favorite thing to do is to make and freeze large batches of base proteins. I just made a bunch of pulled chicken in the crockpot on Sunday. It keeps for a long time even just frozen in a storage container or ziplock baggie as a single serving. Then when making dinner I just toss seasonings and toppings and have a wrap quickly ready to go. Add a side like a quick slaw or salad or even some chips and it’s good to go.
Today I had some frozen leftover Christmas ham with a bunch or jerk seasoning, pickles, peppers, and some cabbage with a slaw on the side. Think it took 5 minutes to do up and didn’t dirty anything I wasn’t already dirtying while making dinner.
Tonight I’ll probably do something with the chicken from the weekend. Could be flavored with taco seasoning, bbq, Cajun, Greek seasoning with hummus, Buffalo, teriyaki, any random Chinese sauce, some curry flavors, even left plain.
The other option is to make 2 to 3 times what you would for dinner and have leftovers for a couple of days. Not as ideal as you said you don’t like eating the same thing over and over but personally I’m fine with it as long as something changes. Like if making tacos for dinner have a taco salad, taco dip, or make a soup by adding broth.
Soups are a good option too. Either canned or preferably homemade. They freeze really well and as long as you put it in the fridge the night before, thaws and heats up quickly in a microwave.
Pies/turnovers/pasty/calzone/empanada/whatever you want to call them are an option that takes more effort but can be used to have a frozen stash that’s easy to grab after they are made and gives variety. One day of prep work can give lunches for a long time.
Good luck on your lunch adventures, it’s hard to find new ideas that are not just make a wrap or salad or sandwich. And yes I realize that’s basically what I wrote above.
I get a farm share during the growing season. So every week I sit down with whatever I’ve gotten from the farm and clean, chop, dice, slice, etc. Then I make two large batches of food from whatever I’ve gotten from the farm that week, and some side stuff as well. Those get portioned info single-serving containers; half of them to into the fridge, the other half into the freezer.
Then I take everything that hasn’t been used in a dish, and I try to make a variety of salads - spicy, savory, sweet, fruity, cheesey etc. I make 10-12 salads - one for every lunch and dinner for the work week. Greens go on the top so they’re not crushed, crunchy stuff goes in a Ziploc on the side, and an old pill bottle of dressing gets tucked in as well.
Then I go over everything that wasn’t used in a salad. If it’s snack-appropriate, servings go into snack-sized ziplocs, with an old pill bottle of dip/dressing if appropriate. Anything still left over may get frozen to be used as ingredients later in the year, or processed and canned, pickled or dehydrated.
The first part of the week, I eat freshly made meals, salads and sides; the latter part of the week, I eat something from the freezer for mains and sides, and a salad from the fridge. I usually have 40-45 servings of 12-15 different main courses available, so I don’t really get tired of stuff.
My goal each week is to use up or process everything from that week’s harvest; and my goal each spring is to finish eating everything in the freezer and pantry before the next season gets fully underway.
Some of my standards: eggplant Parmesan, stuffed peppers and stuffed tomatoes, zucchini boats, twice-baked potatoes, vegetable pizza, French onion soup, seven-layer casserole, mashed turnips, pickled beets, sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie, blueberry pancakes, strawberry muffins, raspberry jam, butternut squash soup, lettuce soup, early greens frittatas, vegetable stirfries, cranberry sauce, cranberry scones, apple turnovers, spinach salad, peach kuchen, baked apples, feta-stuffed baked tomatoes, cinnamon roasted baked potatoes, kale chips, pumpkin and squash seeds, roasted squash, corn soup, corn salsa, chili, tomato salsa, tomato paste, marinara, pickled garlic and garlic confit, stuffed cabbage, celeriac stuffing, current scones, 9-bean soup, green bean casserole, daikon gratin, mushroom pot pie, veggie pot pie, colcannon, strawberry and rhubarb crisp, granola, etc.
It just doesn’t bug me to eat the same thing all week, and I’d certainly rather cook less than more. Salads and sandwiches might be good for you, because you can change the fillings.
