How to Create the Perfect Meals to Bring to Work

Balancing Meals for a Productive Workday

To get through the workday on homemade food and satisfy those sneakiest cravings, I would say one of the most challenging cravings is that salty craving that comes later in the day. What we're trying to do is avoid the vending machines at all costs or just going to the store and grabbing a bag of chips that might take you down. We need energy later on in the day, so finding a really good, just salty, healthy snack is essential. My go-to solution for this craving is making some fresh popcorn with a little salt or spice it up a bit. This is a great way to power right through that salty craving.

Popcorn is an excellent snack because it's easy to make and can be seasoned in countless ways. To make the perfect batch, simply throw some popcorn kernels in a pan with a little bit of oil over high heat. Let the popcorn do its thing until it pops, then hit it with a sprinkle of salt for added flavor.

Tupperware: A Game-Changing Tool for Meal Prep

One of my favorite tools for meal prep is Tupperware. These takeout containers come in a wide variety of sizes and styles, making them perfect for organizing your kitchen and taking meals on-the-go. They're great for storing soups or stews, as they're leak-proof and can be trusted not to spill. I love that you can have a little bit of variety depending on what size you need or what style you prefer.

For me, Tupperware is especially useful when packing lunches for my wife who travels frequently. I pack her lunch in one of these containers and freeze it overnight. The container has actual freezer packs inside the lining, which keeps the food cool for a few hours, making transportation easy. This tip alone has saved us so much time and hassle.

Workday Meals: A Day in the Life

For me, a typical workday involves cooking meals that are both healthy and delicious. One of my favorite breakfast options is an acai bowl with granola on top. When I need something quick and easy, I'll often bring this to work or make it at my desk.

I also love salads, especially those with sourdough croutons. The dressing is prepped the night before and can be easily added to the salad when I'm ready to eat. Another staple in my diet is muffins – they're perfect for grabbing on-the-go and are easy to customize with different toppings.

Satisfying Those Late-Day Cravings

One of the most challenging cravings that comes later in the day is that salty one. I've found a solution by packing daily harvest salad bowls, which come frozen and can be customized at my desk. The key is adding a scoop or two of lamb stock to make it more flavorful and then adding some shredded lamb for extra protein.

The Daily Harvest Balls are an amazing tool for satisfying those late-day cravings. They're packed with nutrients, flavor, and variety – everything I look for in a meal. Plus, they're so easy to customize! The best part? By using the code "brothersgreen" in your order, you'll get three free cups off your first purchase.

The Importance of Replicating Recipes

While this series is all about inspiration and tools, it's not about replication. I don't want you to just copy these recipes exactly – instead, I want you to take the ideas and concepts here and apply them to your own lifestyle. Meal prep should be a game-changer for anyone looking to balance their work life with healthy eating.

In our next video, we'll dive into something that I think is incredibly important: cooking skills. This is where things get really interesting, and I'm excited to share my expertise with you. Stay tuned!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwelcome back to the home cooking Survival Guide for your busy work week so in part one which you can see right here we cover chopping we covered prep and we prepped a lot because that's what I do in a weekend I try to cook as much as physically possible when I have some free time because when I'm in the flow of the workweek and I'm super busy well then I can take all of that prep work that I took care of and put together some quick meals and execute these awesome work meals which is what today is all about executing these meals and creating the perfect work meals all week long to keep you satisfied to keep you high on energy and to keep you healthy throughout your work week let's talk about what makes the perfect home-cooked meal which is something I'm really passionate about because I've been making meals for my wife and myself for years now to get us through the busy workweek so I've learned a lot over the years and the things I've learned are definitely you got to have variety you got to keep it unique this is not meal prepping we've seen enough meal prep where you making 15 pounds of chicken or salmon and dividing that up with some roasted veggies that's not what we're looking for I'm not a bodybuilder I will get bored of that quickly so we need variety we need balance too we need to hit all of those different food groups all those different tastes salty sweet savory we need a well-balanced meal so you are satisfied the amount we have to nail that and that is one of the trickiest things to really get down because it depends on how much you eat in the day it depends on how much you work how many hours you go to work how hard is your work are you sitting at a desk are you doing manual labor so this is something that you will develop over time as you start cooking meals at home we need this food to be able to travel well and I have some great tricks for that coming up of course we need it healthy we want energy we want health throughout the week that is the key to all of this when you're cooking homemade food you get to control what's in it so this is very easy to tane at home rather than going out to a store and getting food and then the last thing we need this food to be delicious that is very important in one of the best parts about cooking your own food very easy to obtain that and I think I've got some tricks for extra deliciousness before we bring the entire working together there's one more thing I really want to show you because I make it every single week and it's some variation of a baked good I kind of freestyle the recipes at this point and the ultimate goal is to really just pack in as much healthy ingredients into baked goods so like a healthier version of a baked good but I'm just using whatever's in my fridge whatever I have available and I've made so many baked goods over the years that I'm really just working on ratios at this point I don't have exact recipes so hopefully you'll pick up a few tips a few ideas but there won't be an exact recipe for this specific treat so I'm gonna make some muffins and I usually start off on the base of either banana or sweet potato I did have some sweet potatoes lying around in the week before so all I did was I took one of those threw it in an oven at 450 degrees and roasted it for about 50 minutes and then when that thing comes out because it's protected in that skin it is perfectly roasted in there you have beautiful sweet potato flesh and it should peel right away from the skin you could save some of that use it for different dishes but for me I'm going to smash it up I'm gonna add some homemade yogurt that we made in part one remember that almond meal that we saved from the almond milk that we made well this is the perfect place to use that to add a little texture and a little flavor then I'm gonna add some maple syrup that will be my only sweetener other than the sweet potato I'll crack in two eggs and give that a little mix we've got our wet ingredients here now when it comes to the dry ingredients I tend to go gluten-free with these baked goods because I eat so much wheat so much bread already that I can go gluten-free for this I am gonna do some cocoa powder I thought that would be nice to take it on a little chocolate root and sweet potato chocolate sounds good in my mind and then I'm just searching the pantry for whatever leftover flowers I have I'm I do have a gluten free blend just a little bit of that I've got some oats some flax meal some tapioca flour as long as it's a flour product it will work fine for the dry ingredients for our baked goods I think I went on the chocolate route cuz I knew I had these in my fridge fill on the chips I'll be straight up with you guys a muffin or like a banana bread it's the most versatile thing you could take to work they're so easy to snack on they hold really well when you transport them and they're just a delicious little energy bomb if you make them healthy like this no processed sugars all really good ingredients in here these are just gonna be little energy bombs throughout the day the homemade yogurt and this yogurt in general makes them very very moist very very fluffy and then the sweet potato that adds another layer of moistness so they're almost like brownie muffins and these things too because they're so moist when they cool they might even be better so as we start to break down what your work meals are gonna look like and we're keeping in mind all of these elements a big portion of it is going to be lunch and potentially dinner this is key if you are staying at work a little later you're not just gonna want lunch you also want dinner which we will talk about later in this series and a lot of these lunch and dinner options if you didn't have time to prep them which we really didn't do that much prep for these options they might be coming from leftovers if you have time at night to cook a little meal make sure you double it so you can have some leftovers for the next day that is a great tip but really this section is just gonna be a nice big meal like a salad a soup a stew Green Bowl a sandwich or pasta curry all of the classics that will fill you up but hopefully not take you down when you're working now breakfast some say this is the most important meal of the day I think it's very important to have a healthy breakfast there are a lot of great options out there I'm going to be covering a few smoothie yogurt muffins eggs fruit you can even do chia Bowl oatmeal great options and then made snacks which i think is one of the most underrated parts people forget about when it comes to work meals at least for me snacks are so important because I want the variety I want the balance and when I have those cravings throughout the day and you know I'm not eating one of the big meals I don't want to be turning to you know bag chips of the vending machine I want something there to satisfy that craving whether it's sweet or salty so there are a lot of options here you can just do fruit or veggies you know popcorn you can make homemade energy balls granola we covered a few of them in the prep but we are going to be getting into more snacks throughout this series as well so what I'm gonna do is put together a really well-balanced work meal like a classic work meal that would get me through you know an eight-hour day using some of the prep stuff we did over the weekend and then a few new things that I'll be cooking up one of my favorite meal options for the workday is definitely a smoothie because one they're super healthy they're gonna give you energy to get through the day and two you can have them at any time of the day you know it's a good breakfast it's a good snack whenever you just need a quick meal and daily harvest makes amazing smoothies they are the sponsor for this entire series they make an insane variety of smoothies but I really like their acai and cherry smoothie because it works great with a few add-ons and we already made the fresh almond milk we already made the granola so we're gonna customize it a little bit all you have to do is open up the cup I'm gonna fill it up to the top with our homemade almond milk but use whatever nut milk you want and then give it a blend until it is nice and creamy so two key transportation tips when it comes to smoothies and acai bowls you can definitely freeze these for like an hour or even overnight so when they transport and you get to work they're ready to go or you can even put them in the freezer and fridge there when you're ready to eat them they should be a good consistency the other thing is when it comes to granola if you do want to topping put that in a little side Tupperware or side jar so you're gonna transport the granola on its own so when you get to work you whip this out of the freezer or the fridge you pop on a little bit of the granola that way you have a crispy granola topping that won't get soggy through the transportation process so I would say my go-to lunch most days is probably gonna be some type of salad and right away when you hear that word salad you might be thinking boring which I get I used to not really like salads you know greens and dressing that wasn't exciting to me but then I learned how to make a good salad and how to load in a lot of ingredients so you're still getting a healthy meal but it almost doesn't taste like a salad and that's what I do for my salads I load in as much ingredients as possible so I almost mask the greens so even though you're still getting the greens you're not really noticing so that's what I'm gonna show you guys how I generally prepare the salads that I make but for the most part it's just ingredients that are coming from the fridge so this is a totally free style recipe use whatever you have of course we already made the salad dressing in part one I'm gonna use some turkey that we made in part one and then just kind of get weird with it I always start off with the actual base the greens like you're in one of those salad buffet places so I have some of those mixed greens from the farmers market I like cabbage cabbage will really go a long way and then I have some of that butter lettuce so one more element that I find so crucial to a good salad is some type of crouton or fried bread so if you have some extra bread that's lying around cut it up into pieces fry it up in a pan boom you've got croutons but what I love doing is taking my sourdough starter which I feed every day if I'm not making bread I'll fry it up into a quick little pancake just add a little oil to a pan pour in some of that sourdough starter fry it up for a few minutes aside add a little bit of salt and you have quick little croutons it's a little fermentation hack if you're looking to add more fermented foods into your diet perfect way to do that the goal for me is always to get through the workday on homemade food and I would say one of the sneakiest cravings is that salty craving that comes in a little later in the day and what we're trying to do is avoid the vending machines at all costs or just going to the store and grabbing a bag of chips that might take you down we need energy later on in the day so I find a really good just salty healthy snack popcorn just making some fresh popcorn a little salt or even you know spice it up a bit that's a great way to power right through that salty craving so all you have to do is just throw some popcorn in the pan with a little bit of oil turn that thing on high heat and let the popcorn do its thing and then just hit it with a little bit of salt and you've got yourself in this snack just a quick little lesson on Tupperware as you see I have a pretty wide variety these things are the best different sizes of these sort of takeout containers they're great for just home organization and you can definitely take those to work but it is nice to have something like this Tupperware here say you have a soup or stew you need something that's leak proof that you can trust you do not want anything spilling on you but it's nice to just have a little bit of a variety depending on what size you need or what style now there's a very good chance you're asking yourself well how do I get the food to work that's a lot of fresh food how does it not spoil I would recommend one of these things I don't travel too far for work but my wife does and I pack her lunch in one of these things what you do is you put this entire lunch bag in the freezer and there's actual freezer packs in the lining of this and they'll stay super cold for a few hours so I packed the lunch in here boom transportation taken care of so for me or my wife this might be what a workday looks like of meals and of course this is you know this is one random day it changes every week it's super adjustable if you stand longer at work maybe you need a dinner that would go right here you can always add on but I think this checks off everything there's a lot of variety it's well balanced it's super healthy and of course it's delicious so we have our acai bowl here granola goes on there when you get to your location we've got our salad with our sourdough croutons the salad dressing we prepped on day one that goes in your salad when you get to location you can dump that into a bowl that's a good tip bringing a bowl we've got our muffins over here great breakfast or just a snack I'll bring these with me if I go out for a few hours and I think I'm going to get hungry because they transport so well and then that last little salty craving boom that is your work day right there so I just got back from running around all day I'm tired I'm hungry I don't want to make a full meal so I grabbed daily harvest harvest bowl from the freezer I've got some Brussels sprouts and tahini right here but I am gonna customize it just a bit I'm gonna add some of the lamb stock that we made earlier and then just to bulk it up a little bit why not add some of the the lamb meat that came off the bones customization right now this right here is the flavor bomb it's pretty cool dump that in oh yeah a few flavor bombs I've realized that if you add one scoop of stock that's more of like a thicker stew two scoops will give you a bit of a thinner soup add some of the shredded lamb in there these daily harvest balls are saving my ass when you're hungry you need a quick healthy meal these things are awesome and I love the variety the flavors are always unique always different which is very important for cooking for the week you need variety of flavors to keep it interesting and if you guys want to try daily harvest yourself make sure you click the link below in the description and type in the code word brothers green and you will get three free cups off your first order so there you go that is one example of work meals that would get me through around an eight-hour day of work feeling good feeling healthy and remember this series is not about replication I don't necessarily want you just copying these recipes exactly the goal is to give you the inspiration and the tools needed so you can make meals that fit into your lifestyle so you can balance meals for your work life so hopefully you've learned some tips here and there and in the next video in part 3 we're getting into something that I think is so important one of my favorite skills that cooking can provide for you especially when you're running on ingredients towards the end of the weekwelcome back to the home cooking Survival Guide for your busy work week so in part one which you can see right here we cover chopping we covered prep and we prepped a lot because that's what I do in a weekend I try to cook as much as physically possible when I have some free time because when I'm in the flow of the workweek and I'm super busy well then I can take all of that prep work that I took care of and put together some quick meals and execute these awesome work meals which is what today is all about executing these meals and creating the perfect work meals all week long to keep you satisfied to keep you high on energy and to keep you healthy throughout your work week let's talk about what makes the perfect home-cooked meal which is something I'm really passionate about because I've been making meals for my wife and myself for years now to get us through the busy workweek so I've learned a lot over the years and the things I've learned are definitely you got to have variety you got to keep it unique this is not meal prepping we've seen enough meal prep where you making 15 pounds of chicken or salmon and dividing that up with some roasted veggies that's not what we're looking for I'm not a bodybuilder I will get bored of that quickly so we need variety we need balance too we need to hit all of those different food groups all those different tastes salty sweet savory we need a well-balanced meal so you are satisfied the amount we have to nail that and that is one of the trickiest things to really get down because it depends on how much you eat in the day it depends on how much you work how many hours you go to work how hard is your work are you sitting at a desk are you doing manual labor so this is something that you will develop over time as you start cooking meals at home we need this food to be able to travel well and I have some great tricks for that coming up of course we need it healthy we want energy we want health throughout the week that is the key to all of this when you're cooking homemade food you get to control what's in it so this is very easy to tane at home rather than going out to a store and getting food and then the last thing we need this food to be delicious that is very important in one of the best parts about cooking your own food very easy to obtain that and I think I've got some tricks for extra deliciousness before we bring the entire working together there's one more thing I really want to show you because I make it every single week and it's some variation of a baked good I kind of freestyle the recipes at this point and the ultimate goal is to really just pack in as much healthy ingredients into baked goods so like a healthier version of a baked good but I'm just using whatever's in my fridge whatever I have available and I've made so many baked goods over the years that I'm really just working on ratios at this point I don't have exact recipes so hopefully you'll pick up a few tips a few ideas but there won't be an exact recipe for this specific treat so I'm gonna make some muffins and I usually start off on the base of either banana or sweet potato I did have some sweet potatoes lying around in the week before so all I did was I took one of those threw it in an oven at 450 degrees and roasted it for about 50 minutes and then when that thing comes out because it's protected in that skin it is perfectly roasted in there you have beautiful sweet potato flesh and it should peel right away from the skin you could save some of that use it for different dishes but for me I'm going to smash it up I'm gonna add some homemade yogurt that we made in part one remember that almond meal that we saved from the almond milk that we made well this is the perfect place to use that to add a little texture and a little flavor then I'm gonna add some maple syrup that will be my only sweetener other than the sweet potato I'll crack in two eggs and give that a little mix we've got our wet ingredients here now when it comes to the dry ingredients I tend to go gluten-free with these baked goods because I eat so much wheat so much bread already that I can go gluten-free for this I am gonna do some cocoa powder I thought that would be nice to take it on a little chocolate root and sweet potato chocolate sounds good in my mind and then I'm just searching the pantry for whatever leftover flowers I have I'm I do have a gluten free blend just a little bit of that I've got some oats some flax meal some tapioca flour as long as it's a flour product it will work fine for the dry ingredients for our baked goods I think I went on the chocolate route cuz I knew I had these in my fridge fill on the chips I'll be straight up with you guys a muffin or like a banana bread it's the most versatile thing you could take to work they're so easy to snack on they hold really well when you transport them and they're just a delicious little energy bomb if you make them healthy like this no processed sugars all really good ingredients in here these are just gonna be little energy bombs throughout the day the homemade yogurt and this yogurt in general makes them very very moist very very fluffy and then the sweet potato that adds another layer of moistness so they're almost like brownie muffins and these things too because they're so moist when they cool they might even be better so as we start to break down what your work meals are gonna look like and we're keeping in mind all of these elements a big portion of it is going to be lunch and potentially dinner this is key if you are staying at work a little later you're not just gonna want lunch you also want dinner which we will talk about later in this series and a lot of these lunch and dinner options if you didn't have time to prep them which we really didn't do that much prep for these options they might be coming from leftovers if you have time at night to cook a little meal make sure you double it so you can have some leftovers for the next day that is a great tip but really this section is just gonna be a nice big meal like a salad a soup a stew Green Bowl a sandwich or pasta curry all of the classics that will fill you up but hopefully not take you down when you're working now breakfast some say this is the most important meal of the day I think it's very important to have a healthy breakfast there are a lot of great options out there I'm going to be covering a few smoothie yogurt muffins eggs fruit you can even do chia Bowl oatmeal great options and then made snacks which i think is one of the most underrated parts people forget about when it comes to work meals at least for me snacks are so important because I want the variety I want the balance and when I have those cravings throughout the day and you know I'm not eating one of the big meals I don't want to be turning to you know bag chips of the vending machine I want something there to satisfy that craving whether it's sweet or salty so there are a lot of options here you can just do fruit or veggies you know popcorn you can make homemade energy balls granola we covered a few of them in the prep but we are going to be getting into more snacks throughout this series as well so what I'm gonna do is put together a really well-balanced work meal like a classic work meal that would get me through you know an eight-hour day using some of the prep stuff we did over the weekend and then a few new things that I'll be cooking up one of my favorite meal options for the workday is definitely a smoothie because one they're super healthy they're gonna give you energy to get through the day and two you can have them at any time of the day you know it's a good breakfast it's a good snack whenever you just need a quick meal and daily harvest makes amazing smoothies they are the sponsor for this entire series they make an insane variety of smoothies but I really like their acai and cherry smoothie because it works great with a few add-ons and we already made the fresh almond milk we already made the granola so we're gonna customize it a little bit all you have to do is open up the cup I'm gonna fill it up to the top with our homemade almond milk but use whatever nut milk you want and then give it a blend until it is nice and creamy so two key transportation tips when it comes to smoothies and acai bowls you can definitely freeze these for like an hour or even overnight so when they transport and you get to work they're ready to go or you can even put them in the freezer and fridge there when you're ready to eat them they should be a good consistency the other thing is when it comes to granola if you do want to topping put that in a little side Tupperware or side jar so you're gonna transport the granola on its own so when you get to work you whip this out of the freezer or the fridge you pop on a little bit of the granola that way you have a crispy granola topping that won't get soggy through the transportation process so I would say my go-to lunch most days is probably gonna be some type of salad and right away when you hear that word salad you might be thinking boring which I get I used to not really like salads you know greens and dressing that wasn't exciting to me but then I learned how to make a good salad and how to load in a lot of ingredients so you're still getting a healthy meal but it almost doesn't taste like a salad and that's what I do for my salads I load in as much ingredients as possible so I almost mask the greens so even though you're still getting the greens you're not really noticing so that's what I'm gonna show you guys how I generally prepare the salads that I make but for the most part it's just ingredients that are coming from the fridge so this is a totally free style recipe use whatever you have of course we already made the salad dressing in part one I'm gonna use some turkey that we made in part one and then just kind of get weird with it I always start off with the actual base the greens like you're in one of those salad buffet places so I have some of those mixed greens from the farmers market I like cabbage cabbage will really go a long way and then I have some of that butter lettuce so one more element that I find so crucial to a good salad is some type of crouton or fried bread so if you have some extra bread that's lying around cut it up into pieces fry it up in a pan boom you've got croutons but what I love doing is taking my sourdough starter which I feed every day if I'm not making bread I'll fry it up into a quick little pancake just add a little oil to a pan pour in some of that sourdough starter fry it up for a few minutes aside add a little bit of salt and you have quick little croutons it's a little fermentation hack if you're looking to add more fermented foods into your diet perfect way to do that the goal for me is always to get through the workday on homemade food and I would say one of the sneakiest cravings is that salty craving that comes in a little later in the day and what we're trying to do is avoid the vending machines at all costs or just going to the store and grabbing a bag of chips that might take you down we need energy later on in the day so I find a really good just salty healthy snack popcorn just making some fresh popcorn a little salt or even you know spice it up a bit that's a great way to power right through that salty craving so all you have to do is just throw some popcorn in the pan with a little bit of oil turn that thing on high heat and let the popcorn do its thing and then just hit it with a little bit of salt and you've got yourself in this snack just a quick little lesson on Tupperware as you see I have a pretty wide variety these things are the best different sizes of these sort of takeout containers they're great for just home organization and you can definitely take those to work but it is nice to have something like this Tupperware here say you have a soup or stew you need something that's leak proof that you can trust you do not want anything spilling on you but it's nice to just have a little bit of a variety depending on what size you need or what style now there's a very good chance you're asking yourself well how do I get the food to work that's a lot of fresh food how does it not spoil I would recommend one of these things I don't travel too far for work but my wife does and I pack her lunch in one of these things what you do is you put this entire lunch bag in the freezer and there's actual freezer packs in the lining of this and they'll stay super cold for a few hours so I packed the lunch in here boom transportation taken care of so for me or my wife this might be what a workday looks like of meals and of course this is you know this is one random day it changes every week it's super adjustable if you stand longer at work maybe you need a dinner that would go right here you can always add on but I think this checks off everything there's a lot of variety it's well balanced it's super healthy and of course it's delicious so we have our acai bowl here granola goes on there when you get to your location we've got our salad with our sourdough croutons the salad dressing we prepped on day one that goes in your salad when you get to location you can dump that into a bowl that's a good tip bringing a bowl we've got our muffins over here great breakfast or just a snack I'll bring these with me if I go out for a few hours and I think I'm going to get hungry because they transport so well and then that last little salty craving boom that is your work day right there so I just got back from running around all day I'm tired I'm hungry I don't want to make a full meal so I grabbed daily harvest harvest bowl from the freezer I've got some Brussels sprouts and tahini right here but I am gonna customize it just a bit I'm gonna add some of the lamb stock that we made earlier and then just to bulk it up a little bit why not add some of the the lamb meat that came off the bones customization right now this right here is the flavor bomb it's pretty cool dump that in oh yeah a few flavor bombs I've realized that if you add one scoop of stock that's more of like a thicker stew two scoops will give you a bit of a thinner soup add some of the shredded lamb in there these daily harvest balls are saving my ass when you're hungry you need a quick healthy meal these things are awesome and I love the variety the flavors are always unique always different which is very important for cooking for the week you need variety of flavors to keep it interesting and if you guys want to try daily harvest yourself make sure you click the link below in the description and type in the code word brothers green and you will get three free cups off your first order so there you go that is one example of work meals that would get me through around an eight-hour day of work feeling good feeling healthy and remember this series is not about replication I don't necessarily want you just copying these recipes exactly the goal is to give you the inspiration and the tools needed so you can make meals that fit into your lifestyle so you can balance meals for your work life so hopefully you've learned some tips here and there and in the next video in part 3 we're getting into something that I think is so important one of my favorite skills that cooking can provide for you especially when you're running on ingredients towards the end of the week\n"