Rather than the usual recipe plus explanation of why you should try it, this week I thought I’d give you a week’s worth of lunch plans. It’s the summer. Did you guys notice? It’s hot. Here’s what happens for me when it’s like this. My appetite goes down during the day and I basically just want to eat watermelon. Then the sun goes down and I’m ravenous and cranky. Not the best or smartest way to live. I think we can all agree.

Enter cold noodle salads. I can always make room for some cold noodles for lunch! And they are so fast. The slowest part is waiting for the water to boil for the noodles. So let’s get efficient and commit to noodle lunches all week and cook them all in one big batch. Then all you have to do is grab your cooked noodles and toss them with whatever you have in the fridge. And did I mention this is pretty darn inexpensive?

These “recipes” are based on the stuff I had in the fridge, what I enjoy, what is seasonal (what was about to go off in the case of the broccoli) so follow this precisely as I did or use it as a suggestion. You could do one or two of these salads and have them a few times if you have a less diverse fridge-scape than I did this week. Of course you can double or triple if you are cooking for more than one. And yes, they make a great brown bag lunch too.

So here are 6 recipes. The first shoudn’t even count. It’s just “cook 12-16 oz of noodles” and store them. Make the noodles in a big batch and then take them out, 1/5th at a time, add the other stuff, toss and enjoy.

1. Please don’t worry about making these to exact specifications.
2. Don’t stress about exactly splitting your noodles into equal 5ths.
3. Enjoy the simple flavors and the act of making it! You have got this.

This is what cooking for yourself is all about.

I’ve put them in the order I would suggest eating them, starting with tomatoes on Monday. Basically if you do your food shopping on the weekend this is a good order so that things will stay fresh and tasty when you have them. You don’t want those tomatoes getting moldy, it is too sad. The sesame noodles on Friday are great because they are made mostly with stable pantry items (plus some leftover cucumber you hopefully have from Thursday).