Laura Fuentes

menu icon
go to homepage
  • Recipes
  • Eat Healthy
  • Quick Meals
  • Pancakes
  • About
  • Pasta Night
  • Best Chicken Recipes
  • Meal Plans
  • Cookbooks
  • Contact
search icon
Homepage link
  • Recipes
  • Eat Healthy
  • Quick Meals
  • Pancakes
  • About
  • Pasta Night
  • Best Chicken Recipes
  • Meal Plans
  • Cookbooks
  • Contact
×
Home » Recipes » Best Of

Cold Lunch Ideas for Work

By Laura Fuentes Updated Aug 6, 2024

5 from 12 votes

Recipe

This post may contain affiliate links. Read our disclosure policy here.

Quick and healthy cold lunches for the office! You'll love these ideas requiring no reheating, starting with these chicken farro bowls!

Hot lunches are great, but if you need a break from the extra cooking and prepping, these cold lunch ideas come in handy.

This post contains easy lunch ideas perfect for packing to the office plus a sneak peek of each recipe:

What are the Best Cold Lunch Ideas for Work?

These lunches require no reheating or microwave, and are ready to eat when you are! It makes them great for school, the office, or picnic-style lunches.

First, you’ll need to find durable lunch containers, I use these grown-up lunch boxes when I make salads or bowls. Both hold up well, and the Easy Lunchboxes come with divided compartments so that you can pack wet and dry ingredients in one container without the mess. 

Each of these recipes are made with fresh, healthy ingredients and require minimal prep work. They can also be made ahead of time and that’s one less thing you’ll have to take care of this week. 

large bowl of buffalo chicken salad topped with avocado slices blue cheese crumbles and sliced boiled egg
Buffalo Chicken Salad
5 from 32 votes
A healthy low-carb lunch made from leftover buffalo chicken.
Make This Recipe
Healthy Pesto Salad Work Lunch
5 from 19 votes
This stress-free lunch for work is filling, easy to make, and it’s a great way to fuel your brain and body to get through the rest of the work day.
Make This Recipe
7-Layer Mexican Dip
5 from 7 votes
Must-make healthy lunch dip. Layer all your favorites in a small jar and serve with chips. Oh so delicious.
Make This Recipe
cobb salad lettuce wraps
Cobb Salad Lettuce Wraps
5 from 40 votes
All your favorite cobb salad ingredients into a lettuce wrap! A healthy and delicious low-carb lunch full of fresh veggies, protein, and flavor.
Make This Recipe
huge blt salad with dressing in a bowl
BLT Salad (Quick & Easy)
5 from 63 votes
This salad is perfect for anyone doing low-carb who still wants to eat good. Made with bacon, lettuce, tomatoes, and homemade Ranch dressing, it’s the ideal lunch for paleo, keto, or Whole30.
Make This Recipe
Healthy Chicken Salad Stuffed Avocado
5 from 25 votes
Have a ripe avocado you’d like to use up? This low-carb recipe makes a quick and healthy lunch idea you can take to the office.
Make This Recipe
Salmon Nicoise
5 from 23 votes
This is the perfect salad for those who like a little lettuce with a LOT of toppings. Traditionally, this salad is served cold, so you can assemble everything straight from the fridge into a lunch container, and you’re ready to go! 
Make This Recipe
Chicken Farro Bowl
5 from 53 votes
This bowl is loaded with grilled chicken breast, feta cheese, fresh veggies, all on top of cooked farro with tzatziki sauce. It’s everything you could want in a healthy, satisfying meal! Also, no reheating is necessary; they taste great cold, hot, or room temp.
Make This Recipe
closeup of pizza pasta salad
Pizza Pasta Salad
5 from 22 votes
An easy way to use up leftover pasta. Mix it with your favorite pizza toppings, cheese and a light dressing for this epic cold pasta salad.
Make This Recipe
image: closeup of white plate with chopsticks, and a lettuce cup filled with asian chicken salad
Asian Chicken Salad Lettuce Cups
5 from 32 votes
Lettuce cups are a cross between a wrap and salad. They make a refreshing meal and are perfect for using up leftovers like grilled chicken, deli turkey, and cheese.
Make This Recipe
an image collage of adult lunchables
Adult Lunchables
5 from 18 votes
Healthy bento “lunchables” include a variety of fresh ingredients like fruits, veggies, cold cuts, crackers, etc. and they’re perfect when you want something you can prep Monday and enjoy Friday. There’s nothing to heat up or assemble; it’s merely an array of snack foods for a complete meal; here are some of my favorite compilations. 
Make This Recipe

Packing Tips for Cold Lunches

The best part of cold lunches? There’s very little maintenance involved. 

No heating or cooking is required because these lunches come together easy; here are a few tips to ensure your packed lunches stay fresh. 

Keep liquids and sauces in separate containers
This is a big one! Anytime lettuce or veggies with high water content, such as spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. are involved, it’s best to keep the sauces and dressings in a separate container. Many contain sauces contain salt, which causes produce to loose moisture making a soggy sandwich or salad. 

Use a small lidded container, like this one, to pack salad dressing, hummus, guacamole, ketchup, and other dips. 

Ice pack
In case, the office fridge went out, or a work event has you brown-baggin’, throw in an ice pack. They’ll keep everything fresh and prevents anything from spoiling before lunch. 

101 Packed Lunches eBook

All my best lunches from over a decade of creating meal plans. Add some variety to your office lunches with these epic recipes, plus receive my Pack Meals Like a Pro ebook, free with purchase!

packed lunches ebook on a tablet
Buy the Book!

How to Make-Ahead Cold Lunches

I’m all about that #mealpreplife, and what I love about these cold lunches is that you can prep them ahead of time without worrying about them going bad early in the week. 

Following tips like packing the dressings and sauces in a separate mini container or storing wraps in plastic wrap helps the ingredients stay fresher, longer. 

To prep these lunches ahead of time: 

1. Chop, cut, dice all ingredients
Whether it’s for a salad, bento lunch, or wrap, prep all the veggies and fruit so you can have them ready for assembly. 

2. Assemble ahead of time
Lunches like salads can be prepped 1 to 2 days before you plan to eat and wraps the night before. Pack dressings and sauces in a separate sauce container. 

3. Refrigerate in lunch containers
Packed lunch gets no easier than pulling the prepped meal from the refrigerator and tucking them away into lunch bags.

For more office and work lunch ideas that you can pack ahead, go here. 

Cold Lunch Ideas for Work – Easy Chicken Farro Bowls

Servings: 4
Prep Time: 25 minutes mins
Cook Time: 30 minutes mins
Quick and healthy cold lunches for the office! You’ll love these ideas requiring no reheating, starting with these chicken farro bowls!
5 from 12 votes
Print Pin

Watch how it’s made:

Ingredients

  • 1 cup farro
  • 3 cups water or stock
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts, 2 large breasts
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 lemon, zested
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 2 cloves garlic, grated
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • ½ teaspoon kosher salt
  • ¼ teaspoon black pepper
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1- pint cherry tomatoes halved
  • 2 cups chopped cucumber
  • 1 cup kalamata olives, pitted and sliced
  • ½ red onion, sliced
  • 1 cup tzatziki sauce
  • ½ cup crumbled feta cheese
  • Lemon wedges, for serving
  • Fresh dill and parsley, for garnish, optional
  • Tzatziki sauce, for serving

Instructions

  • Rinse and drain farro. Place farro in a pot with salt and enough water or stock to cover it. Bring it to a boil; reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 30 minutes. Drain off any excess water.
  • For the chicken: In a gallon size zip bag, combine chicken breasts, olive oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, garlic, oregano, salt, and pepper. Marinate for 4 hours or overnight.
  • In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high heat, add the chicken breasts into the skillet and cook for 7 minutes, flip, and continue to cook for another 5-7 minutes until the internal temperature has reached 165. Discard marinade.
  • Remove chicken from pan and wait 5 minutes before slicing.
  • To assemble the Greek bowls, place a bed of farro at the bottom of your bowl or meal prep container. Top with sliced chicken, tomatoes, cucumber, olives, red onion, tzatziki sauce, and feta cheese. Sprinkle some parsley and dill, cover with the lid.
  • Divide Tzatziki into lidded sauce containers and pack with the chicken bowls.

Equipment

The Best Homemade Kids’ Lunches on the Planet
Glass Lunch Containers

Nutrition

Serving: 1bowl | Calories: 519kcal | Carbohydrates: 49g | Protein: 31g | Fat: 23g | Saturated Fat: 3g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 3g | Monounsaturated Fat: 15g | Trans Fat: 0.01g | Cholesterol: 73mg | Sodium: 1269mg | Potassium: 967mg | Fiber: 11g | Sugar: 5g | Vitamin A: 815IU | Vitamin C: 37mg | Calcium: 83mg | Iron: 3mg

More Best Of

  • an image collage of leftover rotisserie chicken recipes
    Leftover Rotisserie Chicken Recipes
  • an image collage with rotisserie chicken soups
    Rotisserie Chicken Soups
  • an image collage of six black bean recipes
    Recipes Using Black Beans
  • an image collage of size dishes for alfredo
    Alfredo Side Dishes

Comments

    5 from 12 votes (11 ratings without comment)

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Recipe Rating




  1. Kimber says

    December 01, 2020 at 4:13 pm

    5 stars
    These cold lunches are so helpful, especially when I don’t have time to wait on the microwave!

    Reply

Hi! I'm Laura.
Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, mom of three, and the woman behind the world’s best pancakes—here to help you ditch the mealtime drama with recipes your family will actually eat.

More about me →

Let's Be Social!

Facebook Pinterest Instagram YouTube
5 Secrets to Healthy(er) Family Meals

Fresh Favorites

  • large stack of fluffy pancakes with slice of butter on top
    Best Fluffy Pancakes Recipe
  • rotisserie chicken alfredo
    Rotisserie Chicken Alfredo
  • three hard shell tacos
    How to Make Taco Shells
  • 4 fillets of baked cajun salmon served with roasted potatoes and broccoli
    Baked Cajun Salmon

Trending Now

  • large stack of pancakes topped with a slice of butter. a small bottle of maple syrup behind the stack of pancakes.
    How to Make Pancakes Without Eggs
  • copycat canes nuggets and fries with texas toast and two sauces
    Copycat Cane’s Chicken Recipe with Homemade Cane’s Sauce
  • large plate of freshly baked mixed chicken pieces
    Juicy Baked Chicken Pieces
  • creamy garlic sauce in a large pot with pepper on top
    5 Ingredient Creamy Garlic Sauce

Footer

Browse

  • Start Here
  • Eat Healthy in 30 Days
  • Weekly Family Meal Plans
  • Recipe Index

Useful Links

  • Contact
  • Permissions
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy

COPYRIGHT © 2025 LAURA FUENTES · DESIGN BY FUENTES MEDIA

Rate This Recipe

Your vote:




A rating is required
A name is required
An email is required

Recipe Ratings without Comment

Something went wrong. Please try again.