Get a food jar, not a plastic container.

For soup, the answer is a wide-mouth stainless steel food jar from a real thermos brand — not a plastic container and not one of those thermoses with the little attached cup lid.

The key is a leakproof lid with a silicone gasket and a wide enough mouth that you can actually eat out of it. My pick is the Zojirushi food jar — it keeps soup hot till noon and genuinely doesn’t leak if you close it properly. Stanley and Thermos make solid ones too. Hydro Flask’s food jar is fine but heavier.

Plastic meal-prep containers always find a way to leak soup, and cheap “soup thermoses” with the press-button lids are leak statues waiting to happen. The screw-on gasket lid is what separates the good ones from the garbage. And since it’s double-wall stainless steel, you’re not eating out of hot plastic.

One more thing: don’t microwave these. The insulation works too well — the outside stays cool while the inside gets nuclear.

Future-you will appreciate lunch that’s still hot and still in the container.