Easy Road Trip Lunch Ideas You Can Make-Ahead
Pack Your Road Trip Food
Your route is planned, your packing list is checked off, your vehicle has been serviced, but what about the food? If you are looking for some ways to save money or perhaps you have some dietary restrictions to take into account, brining your own healthy snacks and meals can aid in a fun road trip. Whether you are taking a short few day road trip or are headed off on a long road trip, finding some lunch ideas you can make ahead is always a great idea. Maybe you don’t want to eat a gas station lunch on your long trips. Perhaps you don’t have room for a cooler in your car or you just don’t wanna deal with one. Either way, I have some great options for your next road trip that won’t break the bank.
Short Road Trip Considerations
It is always a good idea to plan your snacks and meals around the kind of road trip you want to take. For short road trips of 4 nights or less to get to our destination, we tend not to bring a large cooler with us. We will bring a small lunch box just for keeping our drinks and water bottles cold. The cooler tends to take up a fair amount of room in our vehicles. Needless to say on shorter road trips my lunch ideas need to be something that does not need refrigeration.
However, bringing a cooler on your short road trips is a great way to expand your food choices. You can pick up what you want at your local grocery store and make your meals ahead of time to store in the cooler.
Longer Road Trip Considerations
For longer road trips a good cooler is a must have for us. We have tried many different brands of cooler over the years and the one we use all the time is our Yeti. When it comes to packing our own food this cooler is the best way to store anything perishable.
I also keep a “snack bag” with us for our non perishable items. We keep things like small bags of potato chips, crackers, homemade trail mix, a jar of peanut butter, some fresh fruit, fruit snacks for our sweet tooth, electrolyte powder packet, sunflower, seeds, dried fruit, beef jerky, granola bars and maybe even some candy bars stored in our big “snack bag.” These are the best road trip snacks that you can also pair with your lunch. We always some healthy road trip snacks with us as well as something not so healthy.
Also located in our snack bag stored in an airtight container is a sharp knife, utensils, can opener and some napkins. For longer trips I will put a small cutting board in it as well.
Road Trip Lunch Ideas Without A Cooler
As I said earlier, on short road trips we don’t usually take a food cooler. We still don’t want the extra cost of eating our lunch at a restaurant or gas station while in route, so I have come up with a great option for lunch we can make ahead to take with us. We also make some on the road while on a stretch break at a rest stop or roadside attraction.
When we travel without our cooler I will also put things like pita pockets, loaf of bread or sub rolls, canned or packet of tuna & chicken, pepperoni or salami and a hard cheese. I also like to have some veggies with us so I pack a small can of olives, jars of three bean salad, pickled beets, mushrooms, sauerkraut, sun dried tomatoes and roasted red peppers. You can get small jars of theses which I have found to be perfect for two people making sandwiches.
I also put in condiment packets. Condiment packets are great because they do not require refrigeration. You can gets yours by savings them from take out of you can purchase them at the grocery store.
My Top Non Refrigerated Road Trip Lunch Ideas
- Classic Peanut Butter and Jelly with Sliced Apple
- Salami & Cheese Pita Pocket
- Tuna Salad Sandwich- I make this at a stretch stop.
- Pepperoni & Salami Italian
- Charcuterie
- Chicken Salad Sandwich or Pita Pocket
- Veggie Italian
Most of those easy road trip meals you can make ahead of time, with the exception of the tuna and chicken salad. I want to have a balanced meal so we will pair our main item with fresh fruit, veggie and nuts. I have found those are the best foods for our non cooler road trips.
Cooler Road Trip Lunch Ideas
So you have decided to bring your cooler along on your road trip. Now you can really open up your make-ahead meals game. We will still pack the same things in my snack bag so that there is more room in the cooler, but I will add in some small plastic storage containers and sandwich bags. I like to use a combo of ice packs and ice cubes to keep my cooler cold on a long drive. Putting the ice packs on top of the ice cubes and this helps keep everything from getting wet while in the cooler. Let’s face it, no one wants a soggy sandwich!
When bringing the cooler I like to make at least three days worth of lunches for the trip ahead of time. It makes it easy when it comes time to stop for lunch. Plus we get more time to enjoy wherever we are if our lunch is all ready.
My Top Cooler Road Trip Lunch Ideas
- Fruit and Yogurt Parfait
- Turkey Club Wrap with Pasta Salad
- Chef Salad
- Veggie & Hummus Wrap
- Ham & Cheese Wheels
- Caprese Sandwich
- Lox- Smoked Salmon, Cream Cheese & Onion on a Bagel
All of the above lunch ideas can be made ahead of time and while you are on the road. The most important meal of the day for us is lunch. We aren’t big breakfast eaters and we tend to eat a smaller dinner so when it comes to lunch I want to make sure we are getting healthy foods.
Travel Tips
When you are getting ready to hit the open road on a longer trip, you will want to take into consideration how many days of food you want to have with you. We like to keep 4 or 5 days with us. It is about all we can fit in the cooler. To avoid grocery shopping at a gas station I make a list and we head to the grocery store. Because we don’t travel on the highway and take the scenic route through small towns, we have never had an issue finding a grocery store.
Make sure you are disposing of your food waste and trash properly. The last thing you want on your family road trip is for your vehicle to smell like rotting food. I make it point to empty out the trash daily while on the road. You will always find a trash bag in our vehicle so we can throw stuff away as we eat. Then we just throw out the bag at the end of the day.
Prepping Food While On The Road
Finding an easy way to prep your food on the road can be a little bit of a pain. Somethings I do to make food prep easier is we will stay at a bed and breakfast or rent something with a full kitchen for the night on our food restock day. I have found that most bed and breakfasts will let you use kitchen and dinning area to prep your food. You can also just rent something with a full kitchen for the night. Both options make it way easier when you are prepping your road trip food.
You can do your food prep in a hotel room or at a campground. I personally prefer to have access to a kitchen. It just makes it easier.
As I mentioned earlier, we go grocery shopping while on the road. This is always a good option because it saves money and you get healthy foods. We also love to stop at farm stands to get our fresh vegetables & fruits. It is not only a great way to enjoy seasonal foods but you get to meet some really great people. We always love it when we can talk to a local or two!
Hitting The Road
As you get ready to head out on the open road don’t forget that you can eat healthy and save money following my tips and healthy road trip food ideas. You can have so much fun trying different types of foods on your epic road trip by eating whats in season in that area. And you never know, we just might see you on the road!
