I love to cook and love eating even more!  I don’t have the time or money to go out to lunch when I’m working.  Every Sunday I spend about one hour prepping and cooking lunches for the Mr. and myself.  The total cost for ten healthy and delicious lunches is about $12!

Shopping/Ingredient List

1. 2.5lb bag of boneless skinless chicken breasts
2. 1 c quinoa
3. 1 red bell pepper
4. 1 green bell pepper
5. 10 mushrooms
6. 1 bunch of asparagus
7. olive oil
8. balsamic vinegar
9. minced garlic
10. lemon juice
11. red pepper flakes
12. pepper to taste

*The veggies I use vary by the season and what is on sale.

Directions

I am someone who rarely measures ingredients when I am cooking.  I marinade the chicken breasts in the bag they come in and marinade the veggies in a gallon zip-loc bag.  I use the same marinade for both.  I drizzle olive oil in each bag, I would guess about 1/3 c.  Then about 1/3 c of balsamic vinegar, followed by 1/3 c of lemon juice.  I like spicy food and I put about 2 tbsp of minced garlic in each bag, followed by a 1 tbsp of red pepper flakes.  I then sprinkle cracked pepper over each.  I let everything marinate while I start the quinoa and my gas bbq.

I use a rice cooker to cook quinoa, because it is so easy and comes out perfectly cooked every time.  I put 1 c of quinoa in the rice cooker and 2 c of water. My rice cooker automatically shuts off when it is done.

Next I fire up my gas bbq, all burners on high.  When the bbq reaches 500 degrees I turn the burners to low, off, low and put on the meat and veggies.

After about 15 minutes on the grill I turn over the chicken and vegetables and let them cook for another 15 minutes or so before I remove everything from the grill.

When everything is done, I begin dividing all of the food into pyrex snap and go containers that I picked up at Costco.  I really like these because they are glass and I feel a lot better about microwaving glass containers instead of plastic.  I usually put about 1/4 c of quinoa in each container, about 4oz of chicken and I evenly distribute the veggies between the 10 containers.  I will add a drizzle of balsamic vinegar to each and a little more pepper and red pepper flakes.

This hour of meal prep makes my week go so much smoother and saves a ton of time and money throughout the week.