Sunday meal prep: five lunches, one tray
Weekday lunches used to be the weakest part of my eating week. Either an expensive sandwich bought in a hurry, or leftovers I’d grabbed in the morning that turned out to be mostly rice and one lonely piece of broccoli. Sunday meal prep fixed both problems, and the key wasn’t the cooking. It was dividing everything evenly before it went in the fridge.
The batch
Batch note · Makes 5 lunch portions
- 600 g boneless chicken thighs or breast, cut into pieces
- 1 kg mixed vegetables: broccoli, squash, peppers, courgette, red onion
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 lemon, dried oregano or mixed herbs, salt and pepper
- 300 g dry rice
I spread the chicken and vegetables over one large tray (or two, if they’re crowded), toss with the oil, lemon juice, herbs and seasoning, and roast at 200 °C for about 30 to 35 minutes, turning once, until the chicken is cooked through. The rice cooks separately on the hob according to the packet, using the absorption method from my rice conversion notes.
Dividing it properly
This is the bit that matters. I line up five containers and divide each component separately:
- Rice first. I weigh the whole pan of cooked rice (minus the pan) and divide by five. With 300 g dry rice, it comes to roughly 180 g cooked per box.
- Chicken next. I count the pieces and share them out, then use any small bits to even up the boxes.
- Vegetables last. A big spoonful in each, going round until the tray is empty.
Doing it component by component means the fifth box looks like the first. Before I started this, Friday’s lunch was always the sad one.
Fridge or freezer
I keep two or three boxes in the fridge for the first part of the week and put the rest in the freezer. Cooked chicken and rice are best eaten within a day or two from the fridge, so freezing the later portions keeps the routine sensible. Frozen boxes go into the fridge the night before to thaw, and I reheat until everything is steaming hot. The full system, labels and all, is in my freezer notes.
Changing it up
Five identical lunches can get repetitive, so I change one element each week and keep the quantities the same:
- Swap the protein: chickpeas or firm tofu instead of chicken. A 400 g tin of chickpeas, drained, roughly replaces 250 g of chicken in volume; I use two tins.
- Swap the grain: couscous, bulgur or small pasta instead of rice, at the same dry weight.
- Swap the seasoning: smoked paprika and cumin one week, soy, ginger and garlic the next.
Because the quantities stay fixed, the portions stay the same size, and I only have to think about flavour.
What it looks like on a plate
When I check one of these boxes against the balanced-plate sketch, it’s close: a generous half of vegetables, a quarter rice, a quarter chicken. I didn’t plan it that way at first. It came out of simply dividing the tray fairly.
Time spent
The whole thing takes about an hour on a Sunday afternoon, most of it waiting for the oven. Washing up is one tray, one pan and a chopping board. In return, five weekday lunches are decided, and I don’t have to make a single choice about food until dinner. That trade feels very good on a Wednesday.