I have challenged my clinic to A Health and Wellness Challenge this month, which, along with daily exercise, involves bringing a healthy lunch to work each day. I had a lot of questions regarding what constitutes a healthy lunch. A healthy plate, as pictured plainly above, involves half your plate being vegetables/fruit, a quarter of your plate being whole grain, and a quarter lean protein, with olive oil and nuts as healthy fats. [Harvard Healthy Eating Plate ]
But just in case you thought lunch would be boring (like the plate above) think again! These components can be mixed and matched into many different well balanced lunches. The key to bringing healthy lunches to work 1. MEAL PREP 2. MEAL PREP 3. MEAL PREP. Although I typically love making soups to portion out for the week, this week I have prepped a few main ingredients to be used in five different recipes, to demonstrate how simple bringing a healthy lunch to work can be with a little bit of prep.
Main ingredients to cook
4 chicken breasts grilled, baked or in pressure cooker. I used some store bought pesto during the cooking process to add a bit of flavor.
2 cups farro or wheat berries, simmered in 4 cups of broth on stovetop for 22 minutes
6 eggs, hard boiled. My key to the perfect just medium boiled egg is to bring water to a boil with eggs in the pot, boil for one minute, turn off heat and let sit 8 minutes. Done!
Other ingredients to buy for the week, depending on the recipes you choose : cilantro, basil, mint, parsley, lemons, dried apricots, dried currants, nonfat plain yogurt, pears, celery, parmesan, arugula, lettuce, whole wheat wraps
With the above you can make the following tasty lunches for the week:
FARRO SALAD WITH ARUGULA, PARMESAN AND LEMON (recipe coming soon!)
CURRIED CHICKEN SALAD WRAPS (recipe coming soon!)
CHICKEN CLUB LETTUCE WRAPS (recipe coming soon!)
EGG SALAD CRISPS (recipe coming soon!)
