Chicken Shawarma Meal Prep Bowls with Quinoa and Hummus

One tray of spiced chicken, one pan of quinoa and twenty minutes of chopping gives you four lunches with 45g of protein each. Keep the salad and sauce separate from the warm food until you eat, and everything stays crisp.

Lunch

Serves 4

Meal prep containers of chicken shawarma with quinoa, hummus, tomatoes, cucumber and red cabbage

Ingredients

For the chicken
600g skinless, boneless chicken thighs
4 tsp olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp smoked paprika, 1 tsp ground coriander, half a tsp turmeric and half a tsp ground cinnamon
50g 0% fat Greek yogurt
For the bowls
200g quinoa (uncooked weight)
120g hummus
1 cucumber (about 200g), diced
250g cherry tomatoes, halved
Half a small red onion, thinly sliced
150g red cabbage, finely shredded
A small bunch of parsley, chopped
For the garlic yogurt
100g 0% fat Greek yogurt, a small crushed garlic clove, a squeeze of lemon and a pinch of salt

Method

Mix the oil, lemon juice, garlic, spices, 50g yogurt and a good pinch of salt in a bowl. Add the chicken and turn to coat. Leave for at least 15 minutes, or overnight in the fridge.
Heat the oven to 220C (200C fan). Lay the chicken flat on a lined baking tray.
Roast for 25 to 30 minutes, until charred at the edges and cooked through, with no pink meat and the juices running clear.
Meanwhile, rinse the quinoa, then simmer it in 400ml water for 15 minutes, until the water is absorbed. Take off the heat, cover and leave for 5 minutes, then fluff with a fork.
Mix the cucumber, tomatoes, onion, red cabbage and parsley with a squeeze of lemon. Stir the garlic yogurt ingredients together.
Rest the chicken for 5 minutes, then slice it.
To eat now, divide everything between four bowls. To meal prep, spread the chicken and quinoa out on a tray to cool quickly, then put them in containers in the fridge within an hour. Pack the salad, hummus and garlic yogurt in separate small pots.
Reheat the chicken and quinoa until steaming hot all the way through, then add the cold salad, hummus and yogurt.

Why it works

A bowl has about 45g of protein, which makes it one of the highest-protein lunches on the site. Most comes from the chicken. Quinoa, the hummus and the yogurt add the rest.

How much protein do you need? The International Society of Sports Nutrition suggests 1.4 to 2.0g per kilo of body weight a day for people who train regularly. For an 80kg person, that is 112 to 160g a day, so a lunch like this covers around a third. Our protein intake calculator works out your own figure.

The quinoa, chickpeas in the hummus and six different vegetables give over 8g of fibre a bowl. Fibre and protein together are why it keeps you full all afternoon, and why it is tagged for blood sugar.

Storing it safely. UK food safety advice is to eat cooked leftovers within two days. If you want lunches for four days, freeze two portions of the chicken and quinoa on the day you cook. Defrost them in the fridge overnight and reheat until steaming hot. The salad does not freeze, so make that fresh.

Why thighs. They stay juicy when you reheat them, where chicken breast tends to dry out. If you prefer breast, the protein goes up slightly and the fat goes down.

For more on how protein and training work together for hormones, see does lifting increase testosterone and strength training in midlife. For another high-protein bowl, try the chicken burrito bowl.

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