Meal Prep Lunches – 1 Week Meal Prep Plan

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This meal prep lunches plan will give you a full week of lunches to take to work, plus some extra to store in the freezer!

Taking a healthy meal to work for your lunch break is critical to sticking to a great meal plan. But prepping those lunches can sometimes be a pain. Especially when you are trying to make them each and every day.

Meal Prep Lunches - Four images of each of the meals and dressing used in this meal prep plan.

I will say up front, that I’m a huge believer in taking dinner leftovers for lunch the next day. In fact, it’s pretty rare that I will take a few hours out of my weekend to specifically prep lunches. But it does  happen on occasion, and it doesn’t have to be hugely complicate.

The time allotment for this meal prep plan calls for 2 1/2 hours of prep and cooking time combined. But there is a very good chance that you can get this done in less time than that. The important part is to prep all the veggies ahead of time. You can save even more time by preparing them ahead of time, or even by purchasing already chopped veggies (for some of them. Not all will be available pre-chopped).

You can also cook the pasta ahead of time (maybe make double the pasta on a pasta night, and then save half for this meal prep plan). Do little things to cut down on prep time and prep day will go super quick and efficiently.

A NOTE ON THE DRESSING:

The dressing is not specifically used for these recipes. However, I included it here for several reasons.

  1. You can use it to quickly prepare a green salad to accompany any of these lunches.
  2. You can make it to keep on hand for marinating chicken for dinner some night.
  3. You can use it to add extra flavor to any of these dishes, but try it first to make sure you like the combos before you mix a bunch in.
  4. I believe in always having some sort of dressing or sauce in the fridge because it totally expands what you can prepare for just about any meal.

NOTES ON FREEZING:

The quinoa salad freezes the best. The sweet potato should not be frozen, so make sure that if you prep it on Sunday, you eat it by Wednesday at the latest. The turkey vegetable pasta will freeze, but not for long. The max is about 1-2 months. So make sure you use that up first. It’s not great for freezing overall, but will freeze in a pinch.

NOTES ON THE SERVINGS:

This meal prep plan is for one person. If you have more people you are feeding with this, make note of the number of servings each recipe provides, and adjust as needed for the number of people you are feeding. Remember to adjust your shopping list as well!

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RECIPES USED FOR THIS MEAL PREP PLAN:

Monday: Turkey Vegetable Pasta Salad
Tuesday: Quinoa salad
Wednesday: Stuffed sweet potato
Thursday: Turkey Vegetable pasta salad
Friday: Quinoa salad

MEAL PREP LUNCHES DOWNLOAD

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE MEAL PREP PLAN PLUS THE SHOPPING LIST – PRINTER FRIENDLY

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MEAL PREP LUNCHES

1 Full Week Of Lunches - Meal Prep Plan

Total Time

1 d 2 hrs 30 mins

 

For this meal prep plan, you will have want to eat the pasta salad while leaving any leftover servings of the quinoa salad for the freezer. You may want to have one or two nights where you eat the rest of the pasta salad so that it doesn’t go bad. If you have more mouths to feed than just yourself, adjust accordingly as to what goes in the freezer and what doesnt.

The sweet potato recipes makes one serving. So if you are making this for multiple people, you’ll want to multiply that particular recipe (especially for your shopping list) by the number of people you are feeding.

The quinoa salad can be frozen. So anything that won’t be eaten can be saved for future meals.

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: American

Yield: 5 lunches + some for the freezer

Author: The Gracious Pantry

Ingredients

Turkey Vegetable Pasta Salad

  • 1/2 small red onion (chopped)
  • 1 medium orange bell pepper (chopped)
  • 1 tbsp. coconut oil (any oil will work)
  • 1 lb. ground turkey
  • 1 tbsp. garlic powder
  • 1 tbsp. onion powder (yes, on top of the fresh onion.)
  • 2 tsp. dried thyme
  • 2 medium tomatoes (chopped)
  • fresh basil (chopped or sliced thin for garnish)
  • 1/2 lb. whole wheat rotini pasta (cooked to package directions)
  • parmesan cheese (optional)
  • salt and pepper to taste

Hummus Stuffed Sweet Potato

  • 1 medium sweet potato
  • 1/4 cup prepared hummus (no sugar added)
  • 1/4 cup cooked black beans
  • 2 tbsp. fresh, chopped cilantro (optional)
  • 1 cup cooked quinoa (about 1/2 a cup dry, cooked to package directions)
  • 15 oz. can diced tomatoes (look for low or no sodium)
  • 15 oz. chickpeas (rinsed and drained or homemade)
  • 6 medium garlic cloves (minced)
  • 1/2 small English cucumber (diced fine)
  • 1/2 cup diced red onion
  • 2 tbsp. fresh, chopped basil
  • 1 tbsp. Italian seasoning
  • 2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
  • salt and pepper to taste

Garlic Lemon Vinaigrette Recipe

  • 3/4 cup oil (extra virgin olive oil or grapeseed oil work well)
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
  • 1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
  • 1 tsp. garlic powder (use 2 tsp. if you like a strong garlic flavor)
  • salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

  1. Set the pasta to cook in a large, separate pot. Wash, dry and bake the sweet potato at 350 for about 50-60 minutes, or until soft an easily pierced through with a knife.

  2. Chop or slice all vegetable as instructed by each recipe.

  3. In a large skillet, sauté the onion and bell pepper in the oil until translucent.

  4. Add the turkey, garlic powder, onion powder and dried thyme to the skillet and scramble, stirring until the meat is fully cooked.

  5. Drain the pasta and rinse with cold water to cool.

  6. In a large mixing bowl, toss the meat mixture with the raw tomatoes, fresh basil, cooked pasta and top with parmesan cheese and/or salt and pepper as desired.

  7. Remove the potato from the oven (don't burn yourself!) and cut it open.

  8. Layer on the toppings and pack up in a lunch container and store in the fridge.

  9. Collect and prep all your ingredients for the Italian quinoa salad, then simply mix them all together in a large mixing bowl. This can be served warm or cold, as a side dish or vegetarian main meal.

  10. Place all the salad dressing ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth and well combined.

Recipe Notes

Please note that the nutrition data available on individual recipe pages. Click links above to find them.



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