ThePrep: A Week of Healthy Lunches to Power Your Week

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I feel like lunch has been needing some love, so here it is! When I meal-prep my lunch over the weekend, my mornings are less stressful and my energy levels during the day are significantly more stable. Who doesn't like the sound of that, right? And while I know how helpful it is to actually meal-prep, I haven't been doing it much since I started working from home, which explains why a lot of my lunches have been grilled cheese sandwiches! But this week's delicious recipe, which makes enough for the whole week, is the push I need to eat a healthy lunch everyday—and meal-prepping makes it easier to do so.

Don't worry, though, you'll still find a weekly dinner plan, plus a shopping list at the bottom.

Your Meal Plan

This week, I'm making these colorful Chopped Rainbow Salad Bowls with Peanut Sauce. These healthy bowls pack in protein and fiber from all the veggies and bulgur—a quick-cooking whole grain you usually see in tabbouleh—for a super-satisfying lunch that will help you power through the afternoon. What's nice about this recipe is that you can adapt it based on your preferred veggies. Just aim to include as many different colored veggies as you can—this is not only beautiful but helps you get a wider range of helpful nutrients.

This recipe makes enough for four lunches, which leaves one day for leftovers or takeout. Here's how to make this easy lunch in a quick 30 minutes:

Step 1: Chop the veggies.

Step 2: Add cabbage, bulgur and herbs to each meal-prep container and top with the colorful veggies.

Step 3: Make the peanut dressing and refrigerate or put into individual containers if you're taking your lunch to-go. Wait to add the dressing until you're ready to eat to keep the veggies crisp.

Step 4: Enjoy!

Looking for something different? Give one of these other meal-prep lunch recipes a try this week:

Greek Meatball Mezze Bowls

Chicken Caprese Pasta Salad Bowls

Spicy Slaw Bowls with Shrimp & Edamame

Let me know if you meal-prep lunch this week, or what else you're doing to kick-start a healthy new year, by emailing me at ThePrep@eatingwell.com. Or if you have a question or requests for future newsletter topics, I'd love to hear those too!

Dinners for the Week

For those weeks when dinner needs to be fast, this 7-day meal plan is a no-brainer. The delicious dinners in this plan (like the Lemon-Garlic Chicken with Green Beans pictured above) come together quickly in a half-hour and clock in under 400 calories—making it easy to eat well and keep your calories in check.

Get the Plan: Fast Dinners for 400 Calories or Less

We're making shopping easier with a list of all the ingredients you need to make this week's dinners and the Chopped Rainbow Salad Bowls with Peanut Sauce. You can print it out, or just keep it on your phone when you hit the store. As always, I swapped in ready-to-use ingredients on the shopping list where possible to keep your week as easy as can be. Get the shopping list here.

Treat Yourself

I bought all the ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies before Christmas but never got around to making them. But I'm really craving some, so I'm making a batch of Bev's Chocolate Chip Cookies this weekend.

Get the Recipe: Bev's Chocolate Chip Cookies