Are you having a hard time coming up with low carb lunch ideas to meal prep? It's something many struggle with until learning that planning ahead and meal planning makes for easy keto meal prep lunches and dinners.
Healthy meal prep ideas make it so much easier to stick to your low carb or keto meal plan and make it easier to skip the take-out at lunch.
Whether you prefer salads, soups, casseroles, one dish meals, or recipes that double for dinner, we have 30 super delicious low carb and keto meal prep ideas for when you're on the go or need healthy work lunch.
⭐ On Keto? Grab our FREE keto foods list here OR Snag our Keto Binder HERE ⭐
And be sure to check out our other meal prep posts like our 16 easy keto bowls to meal prep, 16 Whole30 Meal Prep recipes, and 30 healthy meal prep ideas for weight loss.
Keto Meal Prep Ideas: Getting Started
The first step to creating amazing and easy low carb lunch ideas for meal prep is making sure you have the right tools for the job. We personally love to use glass containers that store well, can be reheated, and can even go in the freezer too.
Meal prepping in advance and batch cooking your low carb lunches makes sticking to a healthy lifestyle so much easier. Here's a list of our favorite meal prep resources:
Plastic BPA free meal prep containers - We love these, especially for meals that don't need to be reheated, but even if they do, they're BPA free. Buying a sturdy plastic container is the least expensive way for low carb and keto meal prep.
Glass Meal Prep Containers - 5 pack - Glass meal prep containers work great for your low carb lunch, they heat well and are very sturdy. The downside to using glass is they're heavier, they cost more, and don't stack as well as the plastic containers.
Brandon Hearn has a highly rated Keto Meal Prep Cookbook you can actually read for FREE if you have an Amazon Kindle subscription. If you don't have Amazon Kindle you can also try it one month for free to download lots of healthy and low carb cookbooks. That's what we did to download free travel books before we went to Europe last summer.
Low Carb Lunch Ideas
We posted some of our most popular low carb lunches on our website plus included tons of keto lunch meal prep recipes from other foodie websites too.
Big Mac Salad
Making a low carb keto Big Mac Salad is a fantastic way to get the flavors of a cheeseburger without all carbs. Layer your ingredients in meal prep containers and then add the special sauce when you go to eat it.
Greek Chicken Meal Prep Bowls
This incredible recipe for Greek salad bowl with meal prep chicken is seriously addicting and will feed you a low carb lunch for days on end.
The chicken is so good in this recipe you'll find yourself making it just to eat on its own for dinner too!
Antipasto Plate
Threading antipasto on a stick not only makes a quick and easy keto meal prep idea for lunch, but they're easy to customize plus it's a great way to use up a little bit of this and that in the fridge. While we love it as one of our favorite low carb lunch ideas, they make the perfect appetizer too!
Taco Salad Lunch Bowls
Keto meal prep ideas can't get much easier than making our quick and healthy keto taco salad. Whether you make it with ground turkey, beef or chicken, this will definitely become a low carb lunch staple.
Broccoli Ham Crustless Quiche
No one will miss the crust when you make our ham and broccoli crustless quiche. Not only is it easy to change the ham to bacon or use different veggies, it's delicious served for lunch or breakfast, or hot or cold!
Smoked Salmon Sushi Bowl
Our 15 minute smoked salmon sushi bowls are low carb as is, but to make them keto complaint you'll want to swap the carrot sticks and edamame beans for lower carb veggies of your choice or load up on the other ingredients.
Eggroll in a Bowl (aka Crack Slaw)
If you haven't yet tried eggroll in a bowl, it is seriously a MUST. It comes together in JUST 15 minutes! I'm not sure what's up with all of these crack names, but this is also commonly called keto crack slaw. This is probably one of the most popular low carb lunch ideas in the keto world, which of course is amazing for dinner too.
Fish Taco Bowls
Low carb fish taco bowls come together in less than 30 minutes and make a light and refreshing lunch (or dinner) any time of year. Don't forget the low carb margs on the side (if you work for yourself lol)!
Pizza Chicken Meal Prep
Recipe and picture by Meal Prep on Fleek
Pizza chicken? This is definitely a win! You still get your favorite pizza flavors but lighter and without the high carb crust. This makes for terrific low carb lunch ideas and would surely be a family-friendly healthy weeknight dinner too! Make sure to double the recipe so you can include this in your keto meal prep ideas.
This yummy and gooey chicken pizza cooks up in less than 30 minutes from start to finish.
Low Carb Chicken Fajitas
Recipe and image by Life Made Sweeter
Life Made Sweeter prepares this on a sheet pan and offers both a low carb chicken fajitas version and also an option for those wanting corn tortillas too.
Fajitas of all kinds are one of our favorite low carb lunch ideas since it cooks up fast and stores well in the freezer for batch cooking. We often use pre-cooked chicken and frozen mix bell peppers to whip up fajitas in a flash.
Substituting beef, pork, shrimp or portobello mushrooms are great low carb fajita options so you can vary things up.
Low Carb / Paleo Korean Beef Bowls
Recipe and image by Whole Kitchen Sink
So many Asian dishes are filled with sugar, MSG and other ingredients we just don't want to eat. Finding healthy versions of our favorite take out dishes makes sticking to a low carb lifestyle so much easier.
These super yummy low carb Korean beef bowls by Bailey of Whole Kitchen Sink are the perfect solution! You won't ever miss the sugary sweet sauce since this includes so much flavor.
The recipe makes 4 servings, so this is definitely a low carb lunch I'd want to eat 4 days in a row!
Zucchini Noodles Meal Prep
Recipe and picture by Kirbie's Cravings
I don't know about you, but shrimp and noodles is one of my favorite combinations.
What's even better is that you can whip this dish up in under 15 minutes! So whether you're in a hurry on a busy morning, or you're looking for speedy low carb weekend meal prep, this is your recipe.
This particular recipe has 13 net carbs since she uses honey and a sweet chili sauce to sweeten the recipe. This will of course work for a low carb lunch. However, if you're looking to make this for keto-friendly, you can make easy substitute stevia for sweet and sriracha for heat.
Chicken, Bacon, Egg Meal Prep Salad
What I love about this low carb lunch meal prep idea is that other than the meat and making hard-boiled eggs, you simply add in any leftover vegetables you have in your fridge. Very resourceful and easy!
Making a meal prep salad is even easier when you start with precooked chicken, bacon and hard-boiled eggs.
Recipe and photo by Meal Prep on Fleek
Cilantro Lime Cauliflower Rice
This cilantro lime chicken with cauliflower rice will definitely become one of your low carb lunch favorites. The chicken cooks up in a flash and you can simply add whatever veggies you have handy.
She does mix in a small amount of black beans with the cauliflower rice, if you're following a keto diet then just leave them out, but even as is the recipe is still only 9 net carbs per serving.
Recipe and image by Fit Foodie Finds
Low Carb Coconut Curry Meatballs
Here's another wonderful low carb lunch meal prep idea from Fit Foodie Finds. I don't know about you, but we're curry obsessed here at WLY and could eat it over and over again.
She uses a little rolled oats in the meatballs, if you're looking for a keto lunch meal prep idea, you can simply substitute almond flour for the rolled oats.
We always use almond flour as a binder for any meatballs we make and it works like a charm.
Recipe and photo by Fit Foodie Finds
Keto & Low Carb Lunch Ideas (Even more!)
More Salad Ideas
Keto Cobb salad - Cobb salad with precooked or canned chicken is one of our regular low carb lunch options and can easily be whipped up. We love to stock up on the real bacon pieces at Costco to make this recipe even quicker, and of course rotisserie chicken works great too. This is a great recipe when you need to make a low carb lunch that doesn't feel like a boring salad and it'll actually fill you up.
Keto Italian Sub Salad - I promise you'll never even miss the bread when you take all of the toppings from an Italian sub sandwich and turn it into a hearty salad. This truly makes the best low carb lunch or keto meal prep idea! Plus, it keeps well in the fridge so you can eat it multiple days in a row.
Spicy tuna stuffed avocado- If you're a sushi lover, you're in for a treat. You'll never miss the rice with this sushi inspired spicy tuna stuffed avocado made with sushi-grade ahi tuna.
No Cook Ideas
Buffalo Chicken Celery Sticks- These yummy 10-minute buffalo chicken celery sticks not only make a great low carb lunch, but they're perfect as a party appetizer, snack on the go or even as a light dinner. Here are more keto buffalo chicken recipes if you're as obsessed with buffalo chicken as we are.
Smoked salmon lunch box - The Kitchn not only has easy to assemble keto meal prep ideas with smoked salmon, but their posts also includes numerous other great quick lunch box swaps.
Low carb charcuterie plate - Assembling a mini grab and go low carb and keto charcuterie board is another easy 5-minute keto meal prep idea. We always try to keep no carb and low carb ready to go healthy snacks in the fridge like cheese balls, olives, salami, celery, low carb nuts, celery, and artichoke hearts.
Dinner Doubles
These keto lunch meal prep ideas also are great suggestions for dinner too!
Stuffed Peppers without Rice - Savory and cheesy stuffed peppers make the ultimate low carb lunch comfort food.
Chicken Bacon Ranch Skillet - Takes only 20 minutes to cook and it's also Whole 30.
20-minute beef stroganoff - One of our personal favorite keto meal prep ideas, you can easily substitute ground beef, turkey or chicken for the steak strips. This is also paleo and pairs well with riced broccoli or cauliflower.
Bacon and Cheese Pinwheels- If you believe everything is better with bacon, than these quick and easy pinwheels will make the best low carb lunch for you. The recipe whips up in 30 minutes and makes 10 servings. The hard part will be keeping them away from others!
Keto chicken broccoli casserole - When you start with precooked chicken, this casserole is done from start to finish in less than 30 minutes. Yummy and easy keto casseroles are one of our favorite low carb lunch meal prep ideas since they're quick to put together and can easily give you 6-8 servings from one pan.
Philly cheesesteak wraps These keto Philly cheesesteak wraps come with a link for a low carb tortilla, you can also use lettuce leaves or just eat the hearty filling out of a bowl.
No Carb Meals
No carb meals are perfect when you're looking for low carb or keto meal prep ideas. Eating almost no carbs at all for some of your meals is a way to quickly get your body into ketosis. What worked really well for my husband was to have one no carb meal like a no carb lunch so that we could have a few more carbs at breakfast and for dinner.
Here's some of our favorite one carb to no carb snacks you can easily combine to make a simple and fast no-carb meal:
- 1-minute pepperoni chips
- dill pickles
- olives
- cheese
- artichoke hearts
- beef sticks
- parmesan chips
Be sure to download our full list of thirty 0-1 carb snack ideas!
30 Meal Prep Low Carb Lunches: Big Mac Salad & More!
When you're searching for keto lunch meal prep ideas and low carb lunch ideas, look no further than our list of 30 meal prep recipes. We've included the instructions for our most popular meal prep recipe, Big Mac Salad!
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground beef
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 teaspoon minced garlic
- 1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
- 4+ Dill pickles, sliced
- ½ cup minced onion
- 1 head Iceberg lettuce
- ½ teaspoon Sesame seeds
- BIG MAC SAUCE
- ½ cup mayo
- 2 tablespoon low carb pickle relish (or chopped pickle with juice)
- 1 tablespoon ketchup
- ½ teaspoon yellow mustard
- ¼ tsp+ monk fruit (increase if using chopped pickle for the relish)
- ½ teaspoon garlic salt
- ¼ teaspoon onion powder
Instructions
Cook The Beef
Over medium-high heat, warm a large skillet and add 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the pan. Add the ground beef, salt, pepper, and garlic clove. Stir and cook the ground beef until it's no longer pink in the middle, which will take about 6-7 minutes. Drain some of the grease.
Set aside and let cool down while you prep the remaining low carb Big Mac salad ingredients.
Prep The Salad Ingredients
Prepare the remaining salad ingredients by slicing the pickles, mincing the onion, shredding the cheese, and chopping the iceberg lettuce. Set aside.
Make The Sauce
In a small bowl, add all of the ingredients for the Big Mac sauce, including the mayo, pickle relish, ketchup, yellow mustard, sweetener, garlic salt, and onion powder.
Combine
Lay the lettuce in the bottom of 4 bowls, or for as many low carb Big Mac salad bowls as you're making. If you're a hearty eater, this recipe might just be 2 servings.
Sprinkle the burger meat on top of the lettuce. Then add the pickles, onion, and shredded cheese. An alternative to sprinkling over the top of your salads would be to group each topping individually in a bowl. It adds a fancier presentation getting served that way.
Drizzle lots of Big Mac sauce over the salad or serve the dressing on the side. The sauce and yummy toppings are what give the salad so much flavor. Feel free to add as many pickles, onions, and cheese as desired. Add salt and pepper to taste if desired. Enjoy!
Notes
Iceberg lettuce is what they use at McDonald's but go ahead and try little gem, romaine, spinach, or any other type of lettuce.
Feel free to add some tomatoes for color and to increase the veggies.
Ground turkey or lean ground beef can be used to make a lighter option than full-fat cooked beef. You might need to increase the seasoning when swapping leaner cuts of meat.
Not in the mood to make your own dressing? Swap out the homemade sauce for keto-friendly Thousand Island or Sir Kensington's Special Sauce (burger sauce).
Try to find a sugar-free pickle relish to keep the carbs as low as possible.
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Nutrition Information
Yield 4 Serving Size 1Amount Per Serving Calories 530Total Fat 44gSaturated Fat 17gTrans Fat 1gUnsaturated Fat 32gCholesterol 140mgSodium 1143mgCarbohydrates 6gNet Carbohydrates 3gFiber 3gSugar 9gProtein 39g
Where Can I Get a Low Carb Lunch?
If you're on the go and forgot to pack your low carb lunch in advance, here's an entertaining video by Keto Connect. Here they show you the best 5 low carb and keto fast food stops and what to order.
More Keto Lunch Meal Prep Ideas
- 21 Easy Keto Meals for Beginners
- 30 Quick Healthy Meal Prep Ideas
- 14 Easy Low Carb Wraps
- 16 Keto bowls to meal prep
Come connect with us on Instagram! Be sure to tag us (wholelotta.yum) when you make a recipe. You can also find us on Facebook, and Pinterest.
And be sure to post our 30 low carb lunch ideas to meal prep post to Pinterest so you can easily find it again later!
Susan says
Omg… Thank you SO much for all of these awesome ideas!
WholeLottaYum says
You're welcome! Glad I could help 🙂
Cin says
Did you know the Mc D's sauce contains anchovies?
hayat says
thanks for sharing that with us really gave me ideas
Steve Archie says
Informative and well written article, thanks for sharing these 10 keto lunch meal. This is very helpful.
WholeLottaYum says
Thanks Steve! I hope you enjoy the keto lunch ideas!