Bento Box Lunch

Happy Tuesday! Having a three day weekend was just what I needed to catch up on housework, errands, and quality time with my family. Today’s post is all about how to prep an easy breakfast, lunch, and snack for the entire work week! I don’t do this often, but when I have time I will. It makes the work week so much easier because I loathe packing lunches. Anyone else?

During the week I typically eat breakfast on the way to work or at work. I have been loving oatmeal because it is easy to take on the go and it is super simple to make. I buy the lower sugar oatmeal and mix it with diced apples. The apples give it more texture and a sweet bite.

But by 10:00 I am starving. I will either grab a clementine or a Larabar. These bars are made of dates and cashews and then flavored with other natural ingredients. I’ve made them before and you can find the recipe in this blogpost. They are really good homemade, but I can’t home make the lemon ones. These are my favorite!

For my lunch I created my own bento box, which makes it much easier to store in the fridge. Too often I will prep meals, let’s say for dinner for the week and my fridge is full of different sized containers and bags of chopped vegetables. What’s nice about prepping lunch is you can use one larger container for your entire lunch! That saves so much fridge space and makes it much less intimidating.

I started with the vegetables first. I knew I wanted cucumbers because they have so many health benefits, especially for the skin. I bought a huge cucumber, it was about 10 inches long, HUGE! I sliced it up thinly and packed five slices per container. The next vegetable of choice were carrots. I was deciding between carrots and celery, because I knew I wanted to dip them in hummus, but I ultimately chose carrots. Like cucumbers, carrots have a lot of health benefits such as maintaining a healthy heart and helping with digestion. I put five in each container and added two tablespoons of roasted red pepper hummus. Hummus is low in calories but provides protein to keep you full. I added a handful of grapes to my bento box, and voila! I know you’re thinking, Kayt that is NOT enough food to keep me full all afternoon. I know, I hear you, so I added a hard boiled egg on the side. I have a love hate relationship with hard boiled eggs for two reasons. One, I detest the yolk. Two, I hate peeling the shell off. Usually I scoop out the yolk (less calories for me!) and peel the egg shell off at home. If I wait to peel the egg at work, I spend half my lunch trying to get the darn shell off and by the time I’m done I don’t even want to look at the thing! Too dramatic?

I hope this helps if you’re looking to save time when it comes to preparing food! Do you prep your meals for work? I’d love to know! Happy eating!