9 Portable Lunches

It's easy to fall into the same routine at lunchtime, but you know you can do better than grabbing a slice of pizza or packing a peanut butter sandwich every day. Pack lunches for yourself before the work week starts and tasty, homemade lunches will be ready to go when you're rushing to get out the door in the morning.

Click Here to See 9 Portable Lunches (Slideshow)

With summer more or less behind us, we're all starting to settle into a weekly routine, and we decided portable lunches would be an ideal theme for this week's SWAT (Sharing with a Theme) to help ease the transition. We put the Culinary Content Network to the test to come up with easy weekday meals, and here are some of the highlights:

Rini of Healing Tomato brings us Mediterranean Couscous Salad, filled with roasted vegetables and tossed with easy balsamic vinaigrette. Store the dressing on the side for this portable meal.

Mary Helen of Mary Makes Dinner brings us Simple Acorn Squash & Miso Soup, a six-ingredient recipe easy enough to make on a weekday.

This week's winner comes from Christine Ma at Cherry on My Sundae. Stewed chicken falls right off the bone for healthy Moroccan Chicken Pita Sandwiches.

All of the recipes featured can be made at home for about $20 or less, excluding the cost of small amounts of basic ingredients such as butter, oil, flour, sugar, salt, pepper, and other dried herbs and spices.

Asian Noodle Salad Jars
Mason jars are the perfect leak-proof vessel for portable salads, and they look cute to boot! Store the salad dressing at the bottom of the jar with the noodles for an overnight marinade and the vegetables will stay crispy until you shake it all up. Click here to see the recipe.

(Credit: Lori Yates/Foxes Love Lemons)

Steak Sandwich with Caramelized Onion
Steak sandwiches taste great hot or cold. If you're packing this lunch to go, store the buns separate from the filling so the bread doesn't get soggy. Click here to see the recipe.

(Credit: Anna Voloshyna/ Divine Cuisine)

Click here to see more Portable Lunch Recipes

Julie Ruggirello is the Recipe Editor at The Daily Meal. Follow her on Twitter @TDMRecipeEditor.