Prep your lunches
Dread taking a box to work or school? Don’t — save time and control portions with tasty options
Some see a resemblance to Japan’s popular bento boxes. Some just call it meal prepping. And some prefer to think of it as bringing lunch to work in Tupperware containers.
Any way you look at it, it’s one of the hottest trends in dieting, if you listen to social media. People share recipes and take pictures of their bento boxes/ Tupperware containers. Folks can’t get enough of it.
And there are good reasons for the popularity. In these time-strapped times, meal prepping allows you to make four or five lunches (or dinners) at once and parcel them out throughout the week — if you don’t mind eating the same thing every day.
It also cuts back on the cost because you can buy in bulk when you are making four or five lunches for yourself or, say, 20 for your family of four.
But the best reason of all for meal prepping is portion control. It is always tempting to eat a little more than before or to stop at a restaurant where they serve you an entire cow on a bun. When you prep meals at home in advance, you can give yourself and your family just the right amount of food.
With meal prepping, you let your imagination be your guide. There are no rules. There are, however, a couple of suggestions.
Make dishes that are relatively hearty; remember, they have to stand up to a few days’ refrigeration. Soufflés are out. Make something that you are going to want to eat several days in a row — and change up the menu every week. For a balanced meal, be sure to include a protein, a vegetable and a starch.
And if you work or go to school with others, please, for the love of God, do not bring in any fish. There is no smell on this Earth worse than the smell of fish being reheated in a microwave.
I prepped three meals: one beef, one chicken and one pork. Sorry, vegetarians, I just wasn’t feeling up to tofu. But beans, tofu or seitan are all great sources of protein when prepping a meal.
I wanted to keep my meal preps simple, so I began with a classic — ground beef tacos.
If you were really pressed for time, you could just buy one of those packets of taco seasoning at the store, but where’s the fun in that? You can whip up your own batch of seasoning in a couple of minutes, and it will taste much fresher than any mix that has been sitting around in a foil packet for months.
I used the mix to season my ground beef (I bought the cheapest meat I could find, but if you can afford it you will be happier if you use a better grade). When the time came to prep my meals, I put the beef in the container and topped it with a sprinkling of chopped sweet onion, sliced fresh jalapeños, chopped tomato and shredded cheddar cheese.
I filled out the container with a few soft corn tortillas to make the tacos, plus a portion of black beans and some homemade Spanish rice. For fans of HispanicAsian fusion styles, it was a delicious Tex-Mex meal in a bento box.
For my chicken dish, I made a variation of perhaps my favorite go-to meal, pan-steamed chicken. That’s not an entirely accurate name for it, but I can’t think of a better one.
I call the variation I made Rosemary Chicken. First, I seared a couple of boneless, skinless breasts of chicken in olive oil, chopped onion and garlic. When browned on both sides, I added chicken
stock and a large sprig of fresh rosemary, covered the pan and let the liquid simmer for about 20 minutes (these were thick pieces of meat).
The flavor of the meat was highly pleasant, not overpowering — it’s easy to overdo rosemary. I diced the chicken and put it in my container, along with green beans that I briefly boiled and then shocked in ice water and a portion of tri-colored
bow-tie pasta. It made for a pretty meal; the colors were irresistible.
For the pork meal prep, I went a little fancy. I used pork tenderloin to make a recipe created by celebrity chef Charlie Palmer. I used his mostly Asian-inspired marinade (soy sauce, sherry, honey, rice wine vinegar, orange juice, fresh rosemary, shallots and ginger) to give it flavor, and then I broiled the tenderloin.
Grilling it would have worked just as well.
It took only about 12 minutes to cook. I put slices of the pork in my container, along with a colorful medley of sautéed vegetables and some simple boiled red potatoes.
It looked great. It tasted great.
And for some reason, I had the strangest desire to put pictures of it on Pinterest.