12 Foods To Avoid When Packing Make-Ahead Lunches

Ah, lunchtime: Buying lunch is easy but expensive (and who has extra money to burn these days?), but throwing together a home-packed lunch every morning is inconvenient and often straight-up impractical. Make-ahead lunches are the answer to this conundrum. Packing lunches ahead of time, whether you set up the whole week or just tomorrow's meal, is a great way to keep things manageable without blowing your budget.

It's a project I have a lot of personal experience with. As a parent, I packed daily lunches for my kids and myself, and as a chef, I supervised a kitchen that prepared thousands of packed lunches every week. I've also been a food safety instructor, and food safety is definitely something you'll want to be careful about. While make-ahead lunches make a lot of sense, not every food — for practical or food safety reasons — works in that scenario. Here are 12 foods you should avoid.

Fruit is a great thing to include in lunches, whether they're for you or the kids. Most Americans don't get enough fruit in their diets, even though it's good on many levels. Fresh fruits are generally packed with nutrients and fiber, and eating fiber-rich fruit before your meal may help you feel full for longer and eat less throughout the rest of the day.

The problem is that not all fruits work well in the lunchbox. Some fruits are pretty durable: Whole apples, citrus, and fresh grapes spring to mind. Those are all fine in make-ahead lunches, but many other fruits aren't as reliable and more prone to perishing. Strawberries, fully ripe pears or peaches, and cut-up apples, bananas, or melons all tend to deteriorate pretty quickly. 

Not to mention, bananas and delicate berries, including raspberries, blackberries, and even blueberries, are all too easy to smush in the lunch box if you're not careful. Yes, you can protect against physical damage with appropriate containers. Soft berries can go into standard food containers, and specialized banana keepers guard the odd-shaped fruit. Unfortunately, these are still highly perishable, so either pack them in the morning of or — if you're prepping on Sunday for the week — restrict them to Monday and Tuesday.

Alfalfa sprouts, bean sprouts, peppery radish, mustard sprouts, and many other sprouts are popular additions to salads, sandwiches, and bowls. All of them are lunchtime staples, but raw sprouts are sadly problematic for make-ahead lunches.

The same conditions that favor sprouting (time, humidity, and moderate temperatures) also favor bacterial growth. You wouldn't have to look very hard to find extensive recalls of alfalfa sprouts or bean sprouts, and some of the outbreaks that spurred those recalls resulted in fatalities. If your sprouts are contaminated with bacteria, the longer you wait to eat them, the more time they'll have to multiply and reach a level that can make you sick. In food safety, that's referred to as the "infectious dose," and for some strains of E. coli or shigella (for example), the infective dosage can be less than 100 individual bacteria.

So, if you want to avoid food poisoning (and you really, really do), raw sprouts aren't something you should include in your make-ahead lunches. That doesn't mean you can't have them at all. Cooking bean sprouts makes them safe to eat, and adding very fresh sprouts to a sandwich that you'll eat a few hours later significantly lowers the risk.

Aside from sprouts, a lot of salad greens should also be on your no-go list for make-ahead lunches. It's partly because of food safety — always keep an eye out for recalls, but it's more about durability if you're packing lunches for a whole week.

Those bags or plastic containers of spring or mesclun mix are super convenient, but the delicate greens won't hold up very well in packed lunches throughout your work week. Neither will the more delicate types of lettuce, like leaf or butterhead lettuce. Romaine and the unglamorous but reliable iceberg are sturdier, though even those may not last all the way until Friday without getting limp or turning brown. A good compromise is to prep the rest of the lunch ahead of time, then add your lettuce in the morning (or, at most, the night before).

Another option is to swap out your lettuce for firmer alternatives. Lots of greens are perfect for salads — including baby kale and chard, Shanghai pak choi (sometimes sold as "baby bok choy"), Napa cabbage, and frisée, to name just a few — are much more durable and bring a range of novel flavors and textures to the party.

On a related note, fully dressed salads are something to avoid in make-ahead lunches. Even if you pack each day's lunch the night before, leafy green salads are likely to wilt before lunchtime rolls around.

Delicate greens, like most lettuces and mesclun mixes, are already flimsy, and tossing them with dressing makes them wilt even faster. That's especially true of thick and heavy dressings like Caesar or ranch, which make things worse by flattening greens with their physical weight. There are some pretty well-established ways to work around this, starting with packing your dressing separately in its own container. Another option is switching to sturdier greens and creating lettuce-free salads that will let you add the dressing ahead of time.

If you're really committed to your light green salads, consider using the mason jar meal-prep hack. Start with your dressing on the bottom (oil-based dressings are better for mixing in a jar), then add any garnishes and crunchy toppings, and finish with the greens on top. When lunchtime rolls around, just give the salad a good shake to mix the ingredients.

Close your eyes and think of some of your favorite vegetables. What is it about them that appeals to you? Often, it's a combination of flavor and texture: the lush juiciness of a ripe tomato, the crisp freshness of a cucumber, and so on.

Unfortunately, many of our favorite vegetables, including tomatoes and cucumbers, have a high moisture content that can be problematic. Once sliced or chopped, they tend to release the extra moisture. When you're planning a week of make-ahead lunches, that means you definitely want to avoid them. Otherwise, they'll leave you with watery salads and soggy sandwiches, which is nobody's idea of a good time.

You should especially avoid them in salads that double as sandwich fillings. Diced tomatoes or cukes should never be used in chicken salad or tuna salad, for example, because it gives you both a watery salad and a soggy sandwich all in one dejected mouthful. Pro tip: This advice isn't just for lunches; moisture-rich veggies can make your casseroles watery as well.

There are some things you really should just go out for (or order) rather than packing them at home. Sashimi is an obvious example, but there are a lot of other foods at the high end of the risk scale. A few others include soft-cooked eggs, shellfish, soft cheeses like queso fresco, and homemade custards or mayonnaise.

The common thread that ties these ingredients together is a high risk of foodborne illness. Eggs frequently contain salmonella, shellfish can contain vibrio, soft cheese can be contaminated with listeria, and so on. Worse, all of these things provide a fertile breeding ground for bad bacteria (the FDA's aptly named Bad Bug Book is a great resource to keep on your phone for this kind of information).

It's not that you can't ever bring these things for lunch, but be aware that they're high-risk options. It's best if you have access to a staff fridge at work, though thermos-type containers and cooler-type lunch bags can help if you don't. Following the USDA's advice for food-safe lunch prep also goes a long way. Even so, choosing specific foods to avoid food poisoning is a safer plan.

Leftover fried chicken is not necessarily a great option for make-ahead lunches. This is partially due to food safety and also for practical reasons. First, crispy fried foods don't reheat well. The breading on the chicken loses its crispness pretty quickly, and you probably don't have a toaster oven or air fryer at work (that's how you should be reheating your chicken). Few of us have that luxury, and even if you do, you'll also run the risk of overcooking the chicken in the process. Also, you may have stacked the odds against yourself when you packed up your leftover chicken. You should always store your extra fried food with paper towels inside the container to absorb any excess moisture. That's especially important if the chicken wasn't entirely cooled when you packed it.

That, in turn, brings us to food safety. It's really important to let any food cool completely before you pack it up because it can't shed heat as quickly in a closed container. That means it spends more time in the temperature "danger zone" of 40 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit, potentially incubating harmful bacteria. You can bypass reheating issues by simply eating the chicken cold, but then you come up against the USDA's advice to heat all leftovers to 165 F(not to mention the need for refrigeration). On the whole, it's probably just not worthwhile.

Here's the thing: Although deli meats in sealed packages have freshness dates, the math changes once opened — they're only good for three to five days once the seal breaks. If you're prepping lunches for the whole week, that doesn't give you a lot of wiggle room. An even bigger factor is simple human error. Take a look in your fridge, right now. Do you honestly remember when you opened every package? For sure?

It's a really big deal in restaurants, where chefs spend a lot of time making sure that things get used on a "first in, first out" (FIFO) basis. This means diligently labeling and dating everything once you open it. If you have those dates in front of you, lunch-making gets a lot simpler. If you opened a given package on Saturday, for example, you'll know to only use it for Monday and Tuesday lunches.

Here's another thing to think about. The main ingredients in your sandwich, wrap, or salad may last three to five days, but what about the garnishes you've chosen to put on them?

A number of the popular garnishes are problematic in one way or another. Sliced cucumbers and tomatoes are high-moisture and will release that moisture into your sandwich and turn it limp and mushy in the process. Sprouts are perishable and a food safety risk as well. Avocados discolor and turn to mush in just hours. The farther in advance that you prep your lunches, the more difficult it becomes to pick suitable garnishes.

One option is picking ingredients that will hold up in the long run. Think olives, pickle slices, or well-drained kimchi to add flavor and texture to your wraps and sandwiches. Otherwise, it's best to add the perishable ingredients to your lunch each morning so they're always at their best. You can stack the deck a little by dipping your avocado slices in lemon or lime juice, which helps keep avocados from turning brown, as does a thin coating of oil (avocado oil is the smartest choice).

This one will hurt if you enjoy a little something sweet after your lunch. Sure, you may feel like you deserve a treat after surviving a long morning. But too many sweet, high-glycemic carbs at lunchtime can mean a sugar crash in the afternoon, right when you may already be struggling to find some energy.

You can compensate by doubling down on coffee or energy drinks for the caffeine boost, but it's better to just avoid the issue in the first place. Still, it's not to say you should swear off sweets at the end of your meal — just choose better options. Instead of a couple of chocolate chip cookies or a packaged snack cake, scratch that itch with a granola bar or energy bar instead. Those usually still contain sugars, but their fiber content helps slow your body's absorption of sugars (oats are especially good at that).

Fruits and nuts are another great after-lunch option. Both are nutritious and high-fiber, and fruit (especially dried fruit) is naturally sweet. Some argue that those natural sugars are healthier than added sugars, which may or may not be true, but a crisp apple or juicy orange definitely packs more nutrition than a chocolate chip cookie.

If tuna salad or chicken salad are your favorites, good for you! Chicken and tuna are both excellent sources of lean protein, and there are a lot of mayonnaise alternatives that won't add a whole lot of fat, like Greek yogurt. Egg salad is another high-protein choice, though yolks will dial up the fat and cholesterol a bit.

That said, there are potential issues with those salads in make-ahead lunches. One is add-ins with high moisture content can make the filling sloppy. Also, if you use the salad in a sandwich or wrap, the moist filling will tend to make the bread or wrap soggy after it sits for a while. In short, you're setting yourself up for mushy disappointment.

There are a few ways to work around this. One is to seal your bread or soft tortilla against the moisture by buttering your bread or spreading the tortilla with cream cheese. You could also encase the filling in lettuce leaves so it doesn't contact the bread, but you still have the issue of the lettuce wilting. Those tips will only earn you a couple of extra days at best, so you should still plan to eat them early in the week. Alternatively, pack the filling separately in its own container and then assemble the sandwich or wrap at lunchtime.

Messy foods like sloppy Joe are something to avoid if you don't want to stain your clothes. This is a real concern if your meal prep routine skews heavily toward using leftovers as lunches. Spaghetti in tomato sauce, lasagna, overstuffed burritos, and anything else that's saucy and could drip should really be avoided. It's especially true for things that could be extra difficult to remove as a stain, like those tasty turmeric-laden curries. Showing up to your next meeting with stains on your clothing isn't a good look. Sure, you could wear a bib, but that's a hard look to pull off with any style, and there's still a risk of staining floors, upholstery, and even your workspace if you tend to eat at your desk.

There are some things you can do to minimize the risk, of course. Cutting your spaghetti into bite-sized pieces will help, and so will stirring that curry into a scoop of rice so the rice can absorb the extra sauce. For sandwiches or wraps with sloppy filling, the easy lettuce hack of wrapping it around the fillings can help keep the messy ingredients in place (at least, until you bite into it). All in all, though, you'd be better off leaving the messy stuff for weekend meals instead.