How to meal prep wraps: healthy & easy

Knowing how to meal prep wraps will significantly expand your lunch options especially for those busy weeks. Not only are wrap recipes quick and easy but with the right ingredients they can be incredibly delicious and nutritious. With low calories and easily balanced macronutrients, wraps are some of the easiest recipes to dial in for your specific diet.

Meal prepping wraps have another amazing advantage. Tons of different recipes can be turned into a wrap. This means you can add a ton of variety into your meal routine while keeping some of the preparation consistent. The versatility of wraps or burritos is one of the reasons they’re so popular today. From Greek style wraps to Mexican burritos, just about every cuisine has a wrap of some style.

Why meal prep wraps over sandwiches? Sandwiches are a go-to favorite for most lunch meal preppers. They’re easy to make and eat, they’re familiar, and can be changed up easily. Traditional sandwiches have limitations that wraps don’t have though. The softer bread soaks up sauces too fast and doesn’t always fare well as a meal prep lunch. The flat bread or tortilla used in wraps is not as absorbent and can keep its texture and structural rigidity for hours. Sandwiches are also not well designed to keep too many loose ingredients contained. Wraps by their very nature contain ingredients much better so they’re easier to eat on the go. Lastly, if you are calorie counting, there are a lot of great flat bread options that are healthy, low calorie, and gluten free. 

Portion control is one the main reasons that meal prepping is a popular option for adjusting eating habits. Making the food ahead of time and sticking to a routine, lets you dial in your calorie and nutrient balance. Wraps can help with this too. Even if you’re changing up the internal ingredients, using the same size tortilla will limit how much filling you can add. If you know that one full size wrap fills you up, it’s much easier to meal prep without as much of a need to calculate calories or gauge volume. This built in limitation is a handy method for speeding up the whole process.

How to meal prep wraps like a pro:

Balance wet ingredients and dry ingredients. A wrap that is too dry can still be saved with a dipping sauce but ideally you have a good combination of dry and wet ingredients in the wrap itself. This will help it stay together and provide a better texture. Be careful not to go too wet. It’s not the end of the world if your wrap leaks but it does make more of a mess and ruin the wrap texture.

Lettuce as a barrier to the wrap. Just like with balancing dry and wet ingredients, the layout matters too. Use a lettuce barrier between wet ingredients and the bread to maintain texture longer. You can also use thick sauces like hummus or beans as a binding ingredient to help keep it all together. Spread it on the tortilla first, then add lettuce, then add your wet filling. 

Don’t over fill. This is probably the easiest mistake to make at first. You want all of that amazing filling you made to be in the wrap but over filling the wrap will prevent you from getting a good all around seal. It will end up becoming an open faced sandwich which is less enjoyable to eat and much messier. Take it easy on the fillings and always feel free to remove fillings if you have any difficulty wrapping the tortilla.

Wrap tightly. Now that you have just the right amount of filling for your wrap, make sure it’s tight. Not only will a tighter wrap stay together better but it will also last longer in the fridge. Less air around the ingredients means they’ll keep freshness longer. Practice your wrapping and you’ll get to a tight a wrap in no time.

Use durable flat breads or tortillas for wrapping. Not all flat breads and tortillas are designed for wraps. Experiment with different options and plan for the types of fillings you’ll be using. You can use a dryer bread if the ingredients are going to be saucier. While a softer bread is better for more dry wraps.

Storing meal prep wraps is also quick and easy. You can complete the wrap with foil wrapped around it tightly, store the wrap in a sealable container, or slice the wrap into pinwheels to maximize storage space. Depending on the recipe or ingredients, wraps are only going to be good for a day to a few days stored this way. Even durable flat breads will start to get soggy. Another approach is to have the fillings ready to go and simply complete the wrap the day before you need it. This will maintain freshness of the ingredients as well as offer versatility if you find yourself looking for a mid week pivot.

Meal Prep Wrap Recipes