'Lego lunch' is the genius meal prep hack we should all be using
Meal prep has been popular for years, but now a new way to organize your eats has entered the chat. Meet “Lego Lunch,” a trend that involves freezing various types of batch-cooked food in rectangular trays for easy mix-and-match lunches throughout the week. The main appeal? Your food freezes into perfect blocks, and they all fit into a lunch container for easy transport. The colorful stacks of frozen food look just like, you guessed it, good ol’ Legos. Durable, food-grade silicone freezer trays, like Souper Cubes, are the best way to try out this trend.
The Lego Lunch Experience
I’m a beans-and-greens lover, so I decided to make a Mediterranean white-bean and tomato stew, blanched kale, and quinoa. After prepping a big batch of each, I froze them in individual portions in the ½-cup Souper Cubes trays.
Lego lunch with quinoa, tomatoey chickpeas, and kale
The next day, I popped out a block of each, arranged them in a ceramic lunch container, and, when it was lunchtime, microwaved the whole thing until everything was warmed through. Then I mixed everything together and topped it with shredded Parm. I’m going to be honest, lunch has never been so delicious.
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Lego Lunch Learnings
My biggest learning from this whole experience is that I can freeze way more of my meal prep than I had thought possible. Sure, I’ve frozen soups and stews and even casseroles before, but I had never thought to freeze blanched kale—or honestly, any type of cooked veggie—and I was amazed how well it worked. I’d also never tried freezing quinoa, though I knew most grains freeze well.
On another more specific note, I also learned that it’s important to pack the food together (like how you’d pack brown sugar into a measuring cup) if it’s not bound by liquid. This ensures that it freezes into a solid block and doesn’t fall apart when you try to take it out of the Souper Cubes trays. And if you’re freezing grains, freeze them just after cooking, while there’s still enough moisture to help them bind together.
My Honest Review Of The ‘Lego Lunch’ Trend
Lego lunch with quinoa, tomatoey chickpeas, and kale
It’s undeniably convenient to have a bunch of individually portioned mix-and-match lunch options just waiting in my freezer for me. That aspect of the Lego lunch trend is a complete home run. At the same time, I don’t think the individual portions necessarily needed to be frozen into perfect rectangles that fit neatly into my lunch container for the concept to work. Was it super satisfying to see them all lined up like that? Absolutely. Was it a deal-breaker if they weren’t? Not really.
In short, while it’s cute and fun (and yes, very aesthetically satisfying), I don’t necessarily need the concept of “Lego Lunch” to make meal prepping work for me. That said, I could see the satisfying aesthetics really motivating some people to actually do the meal prep in the first place—and if that’s you, I’m in full support of it. Bring on those Souper Cubes!
