Power Bowl Lunch: How to Make 5 Lunches in 2 Hr Meal Prep
This post came from something I heard a lot from y’all about: How to eat healthy/cook at home more and not spend so much time in the kitchen. It’s a great idea in theory, but in practice how many times do you end up ordering take out or eating something less nutritious that you happen to have on hand cause you got hungry?
It makes sense! I’ve been there, too, shoving an emergency yoghurt down because I didn’t have time left to prepare anything. I’ve found the best way to close the gap between idea and execution for quick and varied at-home lunches is to take 2 hrs to meal prep on Sunday and then be set for the week.
Power Bowls: The Power Lunch Similarly to my smoothie bowls, I make a power bowl every day for lunch and vary it with whatever I have on hand that week, and vary it daily by making a few sauces to mix up flavor profiles. My family calls me #saucequeen haha. It’s perfect because it packs so much nutrition in and keeps me full for hours, and it’s easy to vary to avoid getting bored. And the best is you barely even need to cook to prepare, you mostly need to roast!
Secret to Meal Prep: Take 2 hours every Sunday to roast a bunch of vegetables, legumes, and/or make some rice or quinoa. While the veggies are roasting, you can make your sauces, or multitask and do truly anything you want (a PWA on demand class?!) I like Sundays because I find it sets me up well for the week, and I have my weekend grocery haul ready to go.
Benefits of eating home-cooked meals:
Less added sugars, oils, and other unknowns. You know exactly what’s going into your body.
Saves so much money! Especially in NYC, a protein-packed salad will set me back ~$20 these days.
Below you’ll see my go-to Power Bowl, with some suggestions for sub-ins depending on what you have on hand/want to switch up. Have fun playing!
PREP 30-45 mins
SERVING 3-5
COOK 1.5 hrs
Vegetarian, Gluten-Free
Ingredients
Roasted Chickpeas: 1 can chickpeas, 1 tsp olive oil, 1 tsp cumin, salt + pepper | Cook 45 mins at 400F
Roasted Cauliflower: 1 head of florets and stems cut in equal portions ~ size of thumb, 1 tps olive oil, 1 tsp cumin, s+p | Cook 30-40 mins at 375F
Roasted Broccoli: 1 head of florets, 1 shake of red pepper flake, s+p | Cook 20 mins at 375F
Roasted Carrots: 1 bag of carrots | 1 tsp olive oil, cumin, cinnamon, s+p | Cook 30-40 mins at 375F
3-5 Medium Sweet Potatoes : Poke potatoes with fork then wrap in aluminum foil | Cook 40 mins at 400F
3 Chicken Breasts: 1 tsp olive oil, s+p | Cook 20 mins at 375F
Baby spinach or other leafy greens
Sliced radish or raw carrot for crunch
Optional avocado or nutritional yeast for flavor
Starch
1 Cup of Rice or Quinoa: Follow stovetop boil directions
Sauce:
Tahini Everything Sauce: 1 tbsp tahini, juice of 1 lemon, s+p, 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar, add water to make less thick, optional chopped garlic to taste
Spicy Soy-ish Sauce: 1 tbsp sesame oil, 1 tbsp soy sauce or aminos, 2 cloves finely chopped garlic, 1 inch finely chopped ginger, 2 tbsp lime juice , s+p to taste
Instructions
Preheat oven to 400F
Put all ingredients on their own sheet pan. Nothing touching! This helps brown not steam the veggies.
Find a nook near back of oven rack for the sweet potatoes put them in.
Cook chickpea, cauliflower and carrot sheet pans for ~40 mins turning halfway through until brown on edges and crispy. Take out and let cool.
Start rice or quinoa on stovetop.
Decrease temp to 375F.
Cook chicken, broccoli for 20 mins, turning halfway through til broccoli is brown on edges and chicken is cooked through. Take out and let cool.
Take out sweet potatoes when cooked through and soft on inside and let cool (40mins-1hr, it’s ok if they get runny)
Store roasted veggies in their own tupperware and assemble day-of with whatever combo of veggies, starch, sauce and protein your body is calling for.
Enjoy!
Note: Feel free to play around with different combos. I also like buying pre-made tofu for added protein options.
