If you need a Healthy Cold Lunch Recipe, you are in the right place. We have listed healthy recipes for you that can be prepared up to 36 hours ahead of time.These will make your life a lot easier and will allow you to keep your energy levels high throughout the day.
How to make healthy cold lunch recipes? Those are the two questions we’ll attempt to answer in this post! We’ll also show you healthy cold lunch recipes that you can use on a day to day basis.
Healthy Cold Lunch Recipes
Greek Chicken Meal Prep Bowls
Damn Delicious’s Greek chicken meal prep bowls are a little time intensive on the prep side, but well worth the effort. As with all of the recipes here, the time you put in gets you lunch for the whole week. You’ll appreciate having flavorful Greek chicken topped with fresh cucumber salad and tzatziki sauce every day.
Spinach, Apple, Gorgonzola, and Candied Walnuts Salad
Like many people, I have no trouble eating salads everyday through the summer when there is a wealth of fresh ingredients readily available. I’m a little less inspired during the depths of winter. Inside the Rustic Kitchen’s spinach, apple, gorgonzola, and candied walnuts salad to the rescue. It’s well worth the effort of making a batch of candied walnuts for it.
Rainbow Hummus Wraps
Tasty Thin’s rainbow hummus wraps are another fantastic rainbow lunch dish bursting with flavor and color. Nikki has several variation ideas to keep this wrap recipe fresh and interesting for work lunches week after week.
The Best Egg Salad Ever
When you hard-boil eggs for the week ahead, How Sweet Eat’s egg salad is always a good work lunch recipe. You can make a big batch and switch up how you eat it. One day pack a couple of pieces of bread to make a sandwich. The day next have it over a small green salad. The following day scoop it up with tortilla or kettle chips (my favorite). You get the idea.
Lima Bean Salad
I know, lima beans make me want to cringe, too. Kitchen Confidante has completely modernized the concept of a lime bean salad with tons of fresh veggies and a tangy lemon mustard dressing. You won’t even think about the fact that you’re eating lima beans.
Caprese Cold Noodle Meal Prep
Meal Plan Addict’s Caprese cold noodle meal prep is another fantastic way to enjoy Caprese as an easy, filling work lunch. It’s no secret that Caprese is perfect with pasta, and I love that Steph has found a way to turn the pairing into a cold lunch.
Chicken Cobb Mason Jar Salad
I didn’t want to include too many mason jar salads in my quick healthy lunch ideas for work list because they’re a little overplayed these days. But after Jessica’s Greek orzo salad, A Sweet Pea Chef’s chicken Cobb is at the top of my list. It’s hard to go wrong with a good Cobb salad. Lacey takes it over the top with homemade Ranch dressing.
Vegan Quinoa Sushi Bowl
Even easier than making your own sushi, you can make Beauty Bite’s vegan quinoa sushi bowl, which comes together much more quickly and tastes just as good. You would never imagine that this recipe is vegan, and you won’t miss the meat at all. I would double it for meal prep to get a week’s worth of lunches out of a single prep session.
Bruschetta Pasta Salad
Lovely Little Kitchen’s bruschetta pasta salad has everything you love about bruschetta in a quick, tasty pasta salad. For a work lunch, I’d add chicken or even leftover grilled steak.
Turkey Ranch Wraps
Turkey ranch (or chicken ranch!) is a tried and true combination that works so well as a wrap. Garnish and Glaze’s turkey ranch wraps are filled with spinach, fresh veggies, feta, and a creamy Greek yogurt Ranch spread.
HEALTHY COLD LUNCH IDEAS (VEGETARIAN & EASY)
These simple healthy cold lunch ideas will solve all your clean eating problems (if you have any). Get inspired with these easy vegetarian lunch recipes that you can take to work or to school, they are delicious, nourishing, many gluten-free and vegan.
NO MICROWAVE AT WORK? NO PROBLEM!
If you feel sick every time you think you need to eat “lean protein with veggies”, (especially when you’re vegan, vegetarian or pescatarian)…If you look at that pale chicken breast with soggy broccoli you packed for lunch 3 days ago with nothing but disgust…I’m here to tell you: There’s hope, my friend. There is hope.
As Shakira once said, you can have it all – flavor, healthy body, free time and hips that don’t lie. (just so you know – usually hips are huge liars).
These meatless clean eating lunch ideas will make you feel good and not like the universe hates you. They’re not boring and take less than 30 minutes to make.
Cold lunches are great if you don’t have a microwave at work, at school or are afraid that incubating your food in a microwave will turn it into a radioactive mess. Definitely not talking about myself here.
So, COLD lunches it is.
HOW TO MEAL PREP LUNCHES FOR THE WEEK
If you want to eat healthy throughout the week, it is worth doing some sort of meal prep on Sunday. Otherwise, convenience can easily take over and leave you with chips in your mouth for lunch. I am not the biggest fan of meal prep food, but I like making some things ahead of time to make quick and easy lunches in no time. Here’s what you can do to prepare for the week and make eating healthy for lunch easier.
WASH AND CHOP UP PRODUCE.
You can prepare by having your fresh produce ready to go. For example, you can chop up some cabbage, carrots, lettuce, cucumbers, radishes, whatever non-juicy fruits and vegetables you like. Once chopped, you can easily add them to make salads, bowls or wraps. Pack the chopped vegetables in an airtight container in the fridge and they will be good for the next 3 days.
PREPARE DRESSINGS AND DIPS.
The two things I usually like to make for the week are hummus and tzatziki. I keep my dressings pretty easy – some salt, some olive oil and some lemon juice are what I prefer in my salads. But if you do have some favorite healthy dressing recipes that you would like to use, feel free to make them ahead. Most will stay good in an airtight container for at least 3 days in the fridge.
ROAST VEGETABLES.
Roasted vegetables are such a great addition to salads, bowls and wraps. They just make them more interesting and tasty. So, roast some vegetables in the oven like I did here and use them to make delicious healthy lunches.
COOK GRAINS AND LEGUMES
Cook some rice, quinoa, bulgur, millet, lentils – whatever grains and legumes you would like to have in your salads or lunch bowls. I usually use pre-cooked chickpeas and black beans when I cook, just because it’s much easier, but I do make my lentils, rice and quinoa ahead and it saves so much time.
HEALTHY VEGETARIAN LUNCH BOWLS
5-MINUTE MEDITERRANEAN BOWL
Okay, there’s a reason this one’s one of my most popular recipes on the blog. It’s amazing. It’s easy to make, works for meal prep and is full of flavor. With a salad, hummus, tzatziki and olives this vegan bowl is delicious, fresh and filling. The recipe is here.
SWEET POTATO BLACK BEAN BOWLS
Full of flavor and so easy to make! Roast some vegetables, add some black beans, mashed avocado salad and lunch is ready. Recipe here.
HEALTHY QUINOA AND ROASTED EGGPLANT BOWLS
These vegan quinoa power bowls are great to meal prep for the entire week. The recipe takes a little longer, but it’s so worth it. You can find it here.
HEALTHY FRIED RICE BREAKFAST BOWL
Well, I know it says breakfast, but you can definitely have this for lunch too! Use hard-boiled eggs, cooked rice and your chopped vegetables – you’ll assemble it in no time. Recipe here.
SPICY MEDITERRANEAN LUNCH BOWLS
This healthy Mediterranean lunch bowl is ready in just about 20 minutes and is filled with spicy chickpeas, avocado, hummus, a fresh tomato cucumber salad, cabbage and olives. It’s delicious and great for meal prep! Recipe here.
VEGAN QUINOA SUSHI BOWL
This is an easy, throw-together, sushi bowl and uses quinoa instead of rice, because quinoa is more nutrient-dense and pretty awesome. You can pack dressing, veggies and quinoa separately, but if you make this in the morning – it’s not gonna spoil until lunch even if you put everything together. Recipe here.
HEALTHY VEGETARIAN LUNCH SALADS
HEALTHY AVOCADO CHICKPEA SALAD
Salads with chickpeas are so filling and so tasty. This one is not completely vegan, but if you get rid of the feta cheese – you’re good to go. It’s filled with fiber and antioxidants and is a very tasty, refreshing healthy lunch. I prep the ingredients the night before and then throw them all together in the morning with the dressing. Keeps well like this until lunch. Recipe here.
Turkey Ranch Wraps
Turkey ranch (or chicken ranch!) is a tried and true combination that works so well as a wrap. Garnish and Glaze’s turkey ranch wraps are filled with spinach, fresh veggies, feta, and a creamy Greek yogurt Ranch spread.
Primavera Pasta Salad
Pasta primavera converts effortlessly into a delicious cold pasta salad, which is perfect for work lunches. She Likes Food makes her pasta primavera salad with carrot, red pepper, broccoli, and peas and tops it with a red wine vinaigrette.
Raw Zucchini Wraps with Kale Pesto
The Simple Veganista’s raw zucchini wraps are so nutritrious, satisfyingly crunchy, and couldn’t be easier to make. If you love pesto, make a big batch and freeze it, so you can pull together this type of recipe whenever you like.
Mexican Bean Salad
I’m sure that bean salad doesn’t sound like the most exciting work lunch. The Forked Spoon’s easy Mexican bean salad will completely change your mind about bean salad. Her recipe is so easy and packed with flavor. For lunch, I would round it out with chicken or serve it over greens.
Cold Sesame Peanut Noodles
You know how much I love sesame peanut recipes. Gimme Some Oven’s cold sesame peanut noodles features a to-die-for sesame peanut dressing that’s perfect over sesame noodles with lots of fresh veggies. You can easily add chicken, beef, shrimp, or tofu to amp up the protein.
Greek Salad Hummus Sandwich
Saving Room for Dessert’s Greek salad hummus sandwich takes everything you love about a Greek salad, packs it into a sandwich, and completes the meal with a little hummus. A hearty, thick-sliced bread will add to the flavor and help keep the sandwich from getting soggy.
