Sponsored Post: We’ve teamed up with Farm Promise to bring you versatile recipes featuring their wholesome, delicious pork raised to not only sustain us, but the land too.
This Thai style dish of larb rice bowls is the perfect recipe to meal prep and pack for lunch or serve at the end of a busy day when there’s no time to cook dinner.
Are you new to the idea of meal prepping work lunches for the workweek? Easy meal prep recipes for beginners can feel hard to come by. I mean, those pretty bowls on Pinterest look like they take forever to assemble! 
Plus, I don’t know about you, but I’m not on any special diet or meal plan, like paleo, 21-Day Fix, Whole30, etc. And sometimes it seems like every meal prep recipe out there is geared specifically to some sort of diet or meal plan.
Don’t get me wrong; diets and special meal plans are awesome for some. But when I go to search Pinterest or Google for meal prep recipe ideas, I find myself wading through bodybuilder and paleo sites and have trouble finding what I want: a make-ahead lunch that is simple, tasty, and portable.
That’s why I’m starting a new series of recipes, for those of us who want make-ahead lunches but aren’t especially following a specific diet or meal plan. And to kick off this series, I’ve teamed up with Farm Promise pork to make these crazy easy, super delicious Thai Larb Rice Bowls.
Thai Larb Gai is a traditional meal from Laos, a southeast Asian country near Thailand. On your typical Western-style Thai restaurant menu, it’s usually served as seasoned ground meat with red onions and other veggies, on a bed of lettuce and drizzled with a bright and zesty lime dressing. I took that standard appetizer dish, layered it with rice, and turned into a perfect working lunch. These Thai-style rice bowls make an awesome meal prep recipe for beginners, and they come together quickly. Plus, they taste even better as the week goes on!
Bonus: this meal prep recipe works as a hot or cold lunch option! This means you don’t have to have lunchtime access to a microwave or stove in order to enjoy it #LunchtimeWins
A big part of what makes these Thai Larb Rice Bowls so good is using quality pork from Farm Promise.
Farm Promise recently reached out to me to see if I would be interested in developing recipes highlighting their new pork products, which are sold in ShopRite stores throughout the New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland.
Once I looked a little more into their standards and promises and discovered what a quality brand they are, the offer was an easy one to agree to.
You guys know that I’m not one to advocate for a specific brand or company unless I 1,000% believe in it. It’s simply not worth my time or yours to recommend a product I’m not excited about.
But Farm Promise is good stuff. Farm Promise farmers don’t use antibiotics in feed for their pigs. They’re raised humanely on family farms, fed a vegetarian diet, and are raised without growth promotants.
Basically, it’s farming like it should be, on local farms run by families that care about their products. And it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to buy, either.
To make these Thai Larb Rice Bowls, ground pork is browned in a hot pan with brown sugar, garlic, and lemongrass paste.
After the pork browns in the pan, it’s taken off the heat and tossed with a simple lime juice, fish sauce, and basil dressing. Divide the pork over cooked rice, and you’re good to go! If you’ve already got rice prepared, the whole dish comes together in about 10 or 12 minutes.
It’s the perfect amount of food for 4 on-the-small-side lunches; if you’re serving this dish for dinner, it makes enough for 2.
Meal Prep Recipe: Thai Larb Rice Bowls
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon peanut or vegetable oil
- 2 cloves garlic chopped
- 1 tablespoon lemongrass paste
- 2 tablespoons light brown sugar
- 1 pound Farm Promise ground pork
- 3 tablespoons lime juice
- 3 leaves basil roughly chopped
- 1 ½ teaspoon fish sauce
- ½ teaspoon Thai chili paste optional
- 4 cups basmati or white long grain rice
Instructions
- Cook the rice according to the instructions on the package.
- Heat the oil in a large pan over medium heat.
- Add the garlic and lemongrass paste and stir, cooking until fragrant, about 2-3 minutes.
- Add the brown sugar and stir until melted, then immediately add the pork to the pan. Cook, breaking the pork up with a wooden spoon as it browns until the pork is cooked through completely and no pink parts remain.
- While the pork is cooking, combine the lime juice, basil, fish sauce and (optional) Thai chili paste in a small bowl, stirring to mix.
- After the pork is cooked through, remove the pan from heat and stir in the lime juice mixture.
- Divide the rice into four meal prep containers (or bowls, if serving immediately). Top each container with an even amount of the pork mixture.
- Cool to room temperature, then store, tightly covered and in the refrigerator, for up to 4 days.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Category: Main
