A high-protein work week without a fridge

High protein meal prep for five working days can be five pouches in a desk drawer: 172 g of protein between them, and nothing in the office fridge. The week starts and ends with Meal No. 01 Chicken & Rice, 41 g of protein in 430 kcal, and the three days in between are beef chili, bolognese and lentils with chorizo. Each one takes 300 ml of water, from the kettle for eight minutes or cold for about 20.

Monday to Friday, pouch by pouch

This is the week as the Work Week Pack lays it out, one pouch a day, with the figures printed on each pouch.

The spread is narrow on energy and wide on protein. Every lunch sits between 430 and 450 kcal, while the protein runs from 28 g on the bolognese to 41 g on the chicken. That's why chicken and rice appears twice: it carries the most protein for the fewest kcal of the four.

If one lunch isn't enough on a training day, the extra pouch is the same 110 g and the same wait. Two pouches of chicken and rice come to 82 g of protein and 860 kcal.

The 20 % line, worked through

EU Regulation 1924/2006 allows a food to be called high protein only if at least 20 % of its energy comes from protein, counting each gram at 4 kcal. Take Monday's lunch: 41 g × 4 kcal = 164 kcal from protein, out of 430. That's 38 %.

Tuesday's chili gives 32 × 4 = 128 kcal of 440, or 29 %. The bolognese gives 112 of 450, which is 25 %, and the lentils give 120 of 440, or 27 %. All four recipes clear the line, so all four pouches carry the claim, and the claim is recalculated from the declared values whenever a recipe changes.

Across the week, 688 of the 2,190 kcal come from protein. The rest is mostly carbohydrate from the rice, pasta, beans and lentils, with fat between 8 g on the chicken and 14 g on the chorizo day.

What the drawer needs

A sealed pouch keeps 36 months at room temperature, so the drawer is the larder. There's no cold chain to manage and no tub to bring home on Friday. Keep the box out of direct sun, and away from the radiator in winter.

At lunchtime you need three things that every office already has: a kettle or a bottle of water, a mug or jug to measure roughly 300 ml, and a spoon.

1. Open the pouch at the notch and lift out the oxygen absorber.
2. Pour in 300 ml of water at 80–100 °C, straight from a kettle that has just boiled.
3. Stir right into the corners, zip it shut and wait eight minutes.
4. Stir again and eat from the pouch. It stands on its base, and there's no bowl to wash.

With no kettle, or a kettle with a queue, pour in 300 ml of cold water instead, stir, zip it and wait about 20 minutes. The time varies with the water and the recipe, and lunch comes out cool and softer. It's cooked food, so eat it within a couple of hours.

The prepared lunch weighs about 410 g. An opened pouch should be eaten the same day, and a prepared one straight away, so make it when you're ready to sit down.

A second week in reserve

Because a sealed pouch keeps 36 months, there's no reason to buy exactly five. A box of ten covers two working weeks, or one week plus the days when a meeting swallows the lunch break and the canteen has closed by the time it ends. Put the newest pouches at the back of the drawer and eat from the front. The best-before date is printed on the base of each pouch, next to the lot number, so checking the order takes a few seconds.

For days away from the desk, the same recipes come in a bigger pouch. Rations No. 01 Chicken & Rice is the chicken and rice in 120 g, with 469 kcal and 45 g of protein, and it takes 330 ml of water instead of 300. It's the one to pack for a site visit or for a day on the hill at the weekend.

What the Sunday tub costs

Cooking a week of chicken and rice at home is cheaper per portion than any pouch, and if you enjoy a Sunday at the hob, that's the better deal. The tub has two costs that don't appear on the receipt. One is the afternoon it takes to cook, portion and wash up. The other is the fridge: five days of cooked rice and chicken needs cold storage from Sunday to Friday, and a shared office fridge isn't always a cold one.

The pouch moves the cooking to Stock Up and the storage to your drawer. Each meal is cooked first, then freeze-dried whole, and nothing is added between cooking and the pouch.

The other three recipes follow the same rules. Meal No. 02 Beef Chili & Rice is rice and beef with kidney beans, tomato and red pepper, spiced with cumin, paprika and chilli. The lentils with chorizo carry the most fat of the four and the bolognese the most carbohydrate; the nutrition table on the back of each pouch gives both.

Buying the week

A single Meal costs €9.90, so five bought one at a time come to €49.50. The Work Week Pack costs €44.90 for the same five pouches, two chicken and rice plus one of each of the other three recipes, and it clears the €39 line for free shipping to mainland Spain.

On subscription, five Meals cost €40.40 and ten cost €80.80, delivered every two or four weeks with shipping included in mainland Spain. You can pause, skip a delivery or cancel from any of our emails, and the details are on the subscription page.

Allergens differ by recipe, and they're printed in bold in each ingredient list. Chicken and rice has no declared allergens; the bolognese contains wheat and celery. All four recipes, with their numbers side by side, are on the Meals page, where you can compare kcal, protein, fat and salt before you choose which lunch goes on which day.