3 Steps To Easy Healthy Lunches All Week Long
If you’ve been following me on Pinterest or Instagram or reading this blog for any length of time you’ll know that I’m all about simplicity and balance when it comes to healthy eating. Without these two things, you’ll be hard pressed to stick to your healthy eating habits long term.
That said, there are two other essential components to making healthy eating habits stick and they are planning & preparation.
In other words, when you have a simple well balanced plan and you’re prepared to execute it, it’s infinitely easier to get a healthy meal on the table.
That said, there’s still a matter of the time it takes to prepare a healthy meal in the middle of a busy work day. So here are a few of my favourite tips and tricks to make it easier.
3 Steps To Easy Healthy Lunches All Week Long
Keep Some Main Meal Components On Hand
Meal components are basically ingredients that can be combined in different ways to create a few different meals and main meal components are those that serve as the base for your meal.
Keep each of the following meal components on hand each week, for easy mix and match meals.
Complex Carbohydrates (choose 1 or 2)
cooked grains (i.e. rice, quinoa)
baked, steamed or roasted potatoes or sweet potatoes
Plant Based and/or Animal Proteins (choose 2 or 3 )
cooked beans and/or legumes (i.e. chickpeas, beans, lentils) - also complex carbs
ready to eat proteins (i.e. smoked salmon, smoked tofu, tuna)
Leafy Green & Other Non Starchy Vegetables (make plenty)
raw, steamed or roasted vegetables (i.e. carrots, beets, cauliflower, broccoli, asparagus, etc…)
ready to eat salad greens (i.e arugula, baby spinach, kale, etc…)
This might mean batch cooking a few of them once a week or intentionally making extra when preparing dinner, to eat as leftovers the next day or to repurpose them into another meal all together.
I personally don’t enjoy batch cooking, as it can take 2-4 hours and I’d rather spend my Sunday afternoons doing something else, so I often plan for extras that can be reused in different ways.
If I’m making rice with a vegetable curry, I’ll chop a few extra vegetables that I can add to my salads or grain bowls and make some extra rice that I can repurpose in a different meal throughout the week.
If I’m making a soup, stew or another freezer friendly meal like a ragù I’ll make a double batch and freeze half of it for a busy day in the future, when the time and motivation to cook is running low.
If I’m boiling eggs or roasting vegetables, I make more than I need and use them to top my salads and grain bowls throughout the week.
Keep in mind that some meal components can be purchased and don’t require any cooking or preparation: tuna, smoked salmon, smoked tofu, roasted chicken, canned beans, salad greens, and pre-cut vegetables are all available at most supermarkets and can be a great way to add variety to your meals if you have little time to spend on lunch time meal preparation.
Prepare A few Flavourful Condiments
Flavourful condiments like dressings, dip, spreads, sauces and tapenades are great additions to your pantry each week. I like to prepare 2 or 3 of these to keep on hand to elevate the flavour and nutritional profile of my lunches, which more often than not are leftovers with a side salad, or meal component grain bowls or salads.
Here are a few favourite recipes:
And here are a few condiment ingredients to keep on hand, so you can mix and match to prepare your own salad dressings in a flash:
Extra virgin olive oil
Balsamic Vinegar
Umeboshi Plum Vinegar
Apple Cider Vinegar
Dijon Mustard
Tamari (aka soy sauce)
White Miso (aka Shiro Miso)
Maple Syrup
Garlic
Herbs & Spices
Stock Up On Extras
Extras include ingredients that you can use to add flavour and texture to your meal.
nuts and seeds
pickles and olives
sundried tomatoes and dried fruits
cashew cheese
feta cheese
this tasty vegan hemp parm to sprinkle on everything
marinated artichoke hearts
How to prepare easy healthy lunches all week
Once you have your main meal components, flavourful condiments and extras on hand, getting a healthy lunch together takes little to no time and effort.
Here’s what a week’s worth of easy healthy lunches might look like:
Grain Bowl with brown rice, roasted vegetables and chickpeas with tahini dressing topped with nuts and seeds
Meal Salad with greens, shredded carrots, cherry tomatoes, fennel, artichoke hearts, marinated olives and your favourite protein (smoked tofu or salmon, leftover shredded roast chicken, beans) with extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar
Grain Bowl with quinoa, baked bbq tofu cubes, and roasted vegetables
Meal Salad with greens, mixed roasted vegetables and spiced crumbled tempeh
Eggs prepared the way you like them, served with raw and/or roasted vegetables, leafy green salad dressed with oil and vinegar, a tasty dip or spread with some crackers, pickles and olives
