35 Minutes. 18 Dollars. Lunches for a Week.
35 Minutes. 18 Dollars. Lunches for a Week.
I walked in the door from a wonderful Labor Day weekend about 90 minutes ago. And my fridge is filled with lunch for the week. What a wonderful feeling.
I am feeling so much at peace knowing I’m ready for the week, that I wanted to share what just happened in my kitchen. If you’re taking a moment to read this, it’s because you’d like to know for yourself how to inexpensively get healthy lunches made in a hurry.
First Secret: I made large quantities of these two recipes…
Asian Chicken with Peanut Slaw
Secret #2: I bought 2 pounds of chicken breast and cooked the first pound with a little Italian dressing…the second pound with light Asian Sesame dressing. I totally cheated and used my Pampered Chef Deep Covered Baker to cook the chicken quickly in the microwave. Each pound took 15 minutes to cook.
You can also use a slow cooker or bake in the oven. You may lose some flavor from the dressings, but can recover some flavor when you mix the final ingredients together.
Secret #3: While the first chicken was cooking, I sliced grapes and put them in a bowl. I also put away groceries, swept the floor, and cleaned up the fridge a bit. Talk about productivity. I removed the first pound of chicken from the microwave, cut it up and put it in the fridge to cool. While pound #2 was cooking, I added a bag of cole slaw mix to a bowl.
Secret #4: I’m not sure how these secrets are numbed by the way. But I’m going to finish how I started. So secret #4…I removed pound #2 (chicken with Asian dressing) from the microwave and chopped it up with TPC salad choppers. Knife and cutting board will get it done too. Added the chicken to the bowl of slaw. Added peanuts and a little more dressing and tossed.
Secret #5: I removed the chicken cooling in the fridge and added the chopped grapes. (I forgot my celery…don’t forget your celery…) Then added salt, garlic powder, Splenda and fat-free plain Greek yogurt. Turned it all together and done. 35 minutes and I have full bowls of delicious, low-carb and filling lunches.
I added these to separate containers for each day we need lunches. I think this will get me almost 8 lunches…unless I’m sharing with my better half. And at about $18 dollars of groceries (estimation as I already had some of these ingredients) that’s about $2.25 per lunch. Healthy and filling meals…low in carbohydrates but high in flavor. If I alternate between these two recipes, I won’t get sick of them before I run out. I’ll just make something different for next week!
Wishing you a happy and healthy week from my {little} dietitian kitchen to your home kitchen!