Beijing Office Lunch: How to Take Your Packed Lunch to the Next Level

Carmel Moersalim | Mar 29, 2017 8:30 am | Add a comment | 1722 reads

A well-prepared packed lunch at the office is often a sign that you have your shit together, but it's a wellknown fact that functioning well enough at 7am to prepare food is for the superhuman. That being said, although extra effort is required, the benefits of preparing your own food outweigh the drawbacks. First of all, they're healthier and more cost-effective. Second, eating heavy takeout can leave you slumped over your desk and reduce productivity, while a healthier homecooked meal allow you to portion control so you won’t be scrambling for a post-lunch nap. You can try and build a habit of preparing homecooked lunch by keeping these five tips in mind:

Keep your fridge well-stocked

The key to a hassle-free packed lunch is meal-prepping. That way, you can cook large batches over the weekend and dish it out over the weekday as opposed to cooking every morning. Prepare more than one tupperware to portion the meal so that all you need to do in the morning is pop that sucker in your bag and head out to start the day.

Easy to make

Unless you want to impress your coworkers, your lunch doesn’t need to be overachieving. There is an abundance of delicious yet easy recipes that are not time consuming. An easy recipe will leave you feeling proud and productive instead of overwhelmed and tired. Your coworkers will be impressed enough when they see you bring homecooked packed lunch every day.

Cost-effective

Choose recipes with affordable and easy-to-find ingredients. Unless you’re using expensive ingredients for multiple dishes, buying them for one particular dish often isn't worth it.

Convenient

Your lunch should not only be easy to make, it should also be easy to eat. Especially if you like eating at your desk – no one wants remnants of food stuck in their keyboard. If you don’t have airtight containers, avoid making soupy dishes. If you can’t be bothered to clean up spillage on your desk, avoid making dishes that fall apart easily, like a burrito for instance.

Exciting

This is essential in meal-prepping. Prepare a dish you don’t mind eating a couple of times in a row. It should be something you like and is not too heavy. Heavier dishes like creamy pastas can get tiring to eat daily, so make sure you prep something that’s lighter yet always exciting to eat.

Still don’t know what to make? Don’t sweat because we got your back! These are the types of dishes that can be prepared in bulk, easy to make, filling, packed with energy-boosting nutrients and will also prevent you from breaking the bank:

Pasta

Pasta is a classic dish that can be modified into many forms and is still easy to make (one-pot pasta, anyone?). What’s even easier is that you can make a large batch of a pasta dish that keeps well in the fridge. The only thing you need to do is heat it up in the office microwave and you’re all set. Here are some pasta recipes that are light, cheap, and easy to prep:

Salad

Salad can be a pain to prep. All the vegetable washing and chopping can be tedious, but you can save a lot of time and energy if you do it all at once. Prepare bulk amounts of salad and keep them in an airtight container to keep them fresh all week long (store dressing separately to avoid vegetables turning soggy).

Anything that’s not a pasta or salad