Easy Lunch Recipes For The Workweek

Easy Lunch Recipes For The Workweek We have all experienced the monotony that bringing a lunch to work can be searching the fridge for way too many minutes for something to take, repeating the same thing for days, then never wanting to look at it again. Even if cooking brings out your creativity, making 250 lunches (or more if you make them for your kids and/or partner, too) per year can feel like meal prep overkill and can tarnish the gloss on inspiration and grow into a millstone-weight chore.So this month, Fairygodboss caught up with nutritionist and herbalist Danielle Brooks, author of But lets face it sometimes we dont cook dinner or what were cooking (a salad, a TV dinner, a meal from a delivery service where the items are already portioned into single servings) is not conducive to leftovers or doesnt translate into a lunch idea.If thats the case, Dani suggests stocking up on mixed nuts, fresh fruit, nut butters like peanut butter or almond butter, fresh veggies like bell peppe r slices, yogurt and eggs. And if youre a fan and a carnivore, either beef jerky or canned polypeptid (such chicken or tuna).Dani says one way to encourage youre eating a healthy lunch is to keep ansicht things on hand in either an office refrigerator, if you have one, or the dry goods in your desk drawer.This prevents you from making unhealthy choices when long work hours result in skipped meals and the chaos and confusion of low blood sugar hits, Dani says. When the donut in the breakroom becomes your savior is typically only when you dont have something else on hand instead. Indeed, it can be hard to resist the bagels and cream cheese at your 11 a.m. meeting if you dont have a good pre-lunch snack at your disposal.Dani even suggests keeping a fruit bowl on your desk, if you have space, your favorite can or two of soup or in a desk drawer for emergencies (if you have access to a microwave).But if you need ideas for easy lunch recipes, consider cooking a protein source rather plain ly on Sunday or Monday. For example, cook a couple of chicken breasts in some extra-virgin olive oil. For the first day of work, toss some cubes (or shredded pieces) with some barbeque sauce and mix it with some shredded low-fat cheese and toss it in a small glass container with romaine lettuce and chopped veggies for a BBQ Chicken Salad.For the second day, heat the cubes or shreds of chicken with a (low-sodium) soy sauce and a few other ingredients such as chopped celery, carrots, and whatever other vegetables you like. Add rice or Asian noodles.For the third day, use the chicken in a tortilla and add fresh strips of veggies, avocado or lettuce to make a chicken wrap. Drizzle it with a bit of ranch dressing, if you like (but dont overdo it on the dressing depending on what kind you choose it may make your healthy lunch a not-so-healthy one...plus, no one likes a soggy tortilla)For day four, you can add some new ingredients to the chicken and place it aside spinach leaves, cherry to matoes and small mozzarella balls or pieces of feta cheese and drizzle the whole thing with balsamic to add an artistic flourish to your meal.By the end of your week, you may be sick of chicken, so go vegetarian and consider baking a potato or sweet potato (which takes only a few minutes in the microwave), and top the potato with chopped, steamed veggies, a soft cheese or Greek yogurt.For the next week, before the first day, cook a cup and a half (dry) of brown rice, quinoa or whole grain noodles as your base. Throughout the week, you can use a half-cup of rice or noodles (cooked) and add veggies and chicken, shrimp or sojaquark to make a Buddha in a Jar a sushi bowl a burrito bowl with some beans a strawberry, noodle or rice and mozzarella pasta salad, or mix some pesto with the protein and add a bit of sundried tomato (or plain old tomatoes) and the starch and you have a colorful, delicious salad.The meal prep time for all of these lunch recipes is minimal all of these ideas take approximately 10-15 minutes to assemble once the main ingredient for the week has been cooked. Each dish will provide plenty of color and vitamins and protein to keep you going throughout the day. And if you need a little pick-me-up snack, you always have the mixed nuts, hardboiled eggs and Greek yogurt that Dani said to keep on hand.--Jill L. Ferguson is the co-author of WOMEN Are Changing the Corporate Landscape Rules for Cultivating Leadership Excellence and Raise Rules for Women How to Make More Money at Work. She is the founder of Womens Wellness Weekends and can be followed on Twitter JLFerg.Fairygodboss is committed to improving the workplace and lives of women.Join us by reviewing your employer