Meal planning and making coolers

turboterie

Hello all. I'm getting back into clean eating and am wanting to do some meal planning and to make coolers for when I go to work (I work 3 days a week 13 hours a day which requires me to carry 3 of my 5 meals). I would also like to do lumches and snacks for the remaining 4 days I am at home and diners for the 3 days I work since I get home so late and everyone else has already eaten. I'm not too interested in precooking breakfast because I like a nice hot breakfast when I am home and when I work, for my morning meal I really enjoy making smoothies.

Can anyone give any good advice on how to do this? I'd like to do a big cook for my cooler once a week but I'm not sure what to do, how to plan, what to put my food in (rubber maid containers are OK?)

How do you do it?

racheltwoshoes

Rubbermaid containers are totally fine, why wouldn't they be?

People have different definitions of clean eating so here are two ideas for a make-ahead hot breakfast... I know it won't go in your cooler but I couldn't help but notice your comment about hot breakfast:

Omelet Muffins
Basically, you spray nonstick spray into your muffin tin, and you add your egg mixture to it, bake it until it's cooked through. Then keep in the fridge and microwave in the morning. I've done it with bacon around the sides, a piece of ham, egg whites, crack an egg directly into the muffin tin, add veggies, cheese, whatever it is you feel like eating that week.

Breakfast Burritos
I like to do mine with multigrain tortillas, egg whites, spinach, reduced fat feta, roasted red peppers, and artichoke pesto. It's like a home-made version of Starbucks' spinach feta whole wheat breakfast wrap. I don't put much of the last three ingredients in because they are so full of flavor (and salt, and fat) you don't need much. Then you freeze these individually and microwave.


If you want advice on quick dinners, I suggest buying Well Fed. It's a paleo cookbook by Melissa Joulwan and she spends a ton of time going over how to cook basic protein and veggies so you can mix it with a sauce/spice mix for a super fast dinner. I use her techniques every week (when I'm home - I travel a lot for work). She has amazing recipes bursting with flavor. Highly recommend.

For snacks, I'd say raw fruit/veggies with a nonfat greek yogurt dip is a great idea. If you don't want to use the pre-packaged ranch packets, you can make your own by mixing up roasted garlic and fresh herbs in the yogurt, or experiment to create your own flavor concoction. Cold-cut roll-ups with fresh veggies inside are another option (like turkey with spinach and goat cheese). For an easy lunch, you can make a quinoa salad with roasted vegetables and a grilled protein. I like to do roasted zucchini, tomatoes, onions with fresh spinach tossed in a bit of goddess dressing. For the grilled protein, I'll marinade a big thing of chicken breasts in a simple concoction depending on what's in the salad, then grill, cool, slice, store.


I'm going to stop myself there. I could go on for days because I'm just obsessed with making cooking easy and delicious and healthy. If you want to talk more about planning a menu based on your tastes, message me

rebasporty

I try to make my lunches/breakfast/snacks for the week all at once so it is grab and go...very simple and easy. I make egg bakes in muffin tins, either the large or mini tins work well. I usually use 2 eggs with 8 egg whites then add veggies, sometimes I add bacon, ham or canadian bacon plus some spices - - that makes either 12 or 24 little egg "muffins". I make chicken breast and turkey taco meat, portion it out put it in the freezer and grab it on my way out the door. Love my crockpot as well.

turboterie

Wow! Thanks for the ideas!!!! I will put that cookbook on my Christmas list for sure. The egg "muffins" sound like a super easy and fantastic idea that would be super portable for work as well!