Friday in the Kitchen - Meals Preps for the Work Week

Meal Preps for the Work Week

No matter if it's for your work week, your husband's or lunches for the children doing a little prep work each week can save time. And of course, packing your own lunches is not only much healthier but also very frugal.

For more then 30 years I've packed lunch for my hubby to take to work. He works 4 – 10 hour shifts each week. Between the long days and commuting time he is gone for almost 12 hours. So he eats a lot of food at work. He spreads his meals times out between his breaks and lunch.

Over time I became more efficient in the process of preparing his food. Typically he takes to work with him: 2 wraps & chips, a main dish, salad, fruit and a bottle of homemade lemonade.

When his work weeks begins I assemble all his food. It takes me a little over and hour to put it altogether. Having it all ready to go saves me a lot of time and means no matter what I'm doing or what's going on packing the daily lunch is a quick process.

Here is what I do to get him ready for his work week...

I start the process by making 8 wraps at once. My hubby is pretty simplistic in what he likes to eat and does not mind repetition. So I make the same thing weekly.

I start by pulling out all the ingredients. I cut up a few tomatoes and slice some cabbage. I use cabbage in the wraps because it stays fresh for the whole week. Lettuce can sometimes start to deteriorate when it is sitting with cut up veggies such as tomatoes. 

I spread the tortillas with mustard (Dijon is his favorite), and then put lunch meat, tomatoes and cheese on them...

Then I drizzle a bit of ranch dressing on and top with the cabbage..

Finally I roll them up and place 2 of them in a container.

Next I move on to the salads. I put salad dressing in 2 of them and add the dressing to other 2 in the middle of the week, again I do this so the lettuce does not get soggy and fall apart. I put dressing and cut up veggies at the bottom of the container. Then I pile the salad greens on top. When he goes to eat it he shakes up the container to distribute the dressing and veggies. 

After the salads are made I pack 4 containers of chips. Typically it is a combo of regular chips and tortilla chips...

Finally there is the main dish. During the week as I cook dinner for us I will set aside enough for him for his work week and freeze it if needed. This week I had leftover chicken biscuit bake (a change on my menu due to a busy day). I divided what I had leftover into 2 containers. I already had 2 containers of black bean chicken chili in the freezer. 

Now the work week's food prep is complete!

It's nice not to have to pull all the ingredients out of the fridge, chop and cut up and prep the same things each work day.