I will second the hummus in a pita. You can also add feta, olives, vinaigrette, tomatoes, black beans, and spinach leaves or other items of your choosing. Just half a pocket is enough.
My current favorite no cook lunch is a chickpea salad… use this recipe as a general guideline.
The nice thing about this is it’s a great way to use up little bits of veggies you have lying about. A half a red bell pepper, a quarter of a cucumber left over from making a salad? Dice it up and put it in.
Use whatever cheese you like, or no cheese at all… whatever amount of oil and vinegar and spices that seem like a good idea.
It also holds pretty well in the fridge so you can make a decent sized batch and eat it over the course of a few days.
Has anyone here used other beans for this type of thing?
A tupperware of rice and a steamed salmon filet on top.
Rice should be stir fried in a wok with some finely chopped grilled white onions (not the red ones) and finely chopped celery. Add a bit of salt if you want.
Steam a whole big filet of salon that’s been sprinkled on both sides with paprika and garlic salt. Sometimes I use a glaze of honey if I want it sweeter. Finish with some chopped green onion and garlic on top. Salmon may not be as cheap as you want it though a big filet will only cost about $10 so you can spread that out over 2 or 3 meals if you add more rice to fill you up
Also, I second the curry + rice idea
Baked potatos are easy and cheap
The Reuben Bowl:
It a tupperwear bowl mix:
3 tbs sauerkraut
4 slices corned beef - torn apart
2 slices swiss cheese - torn apart
Seal the bowl with lid and put in your insulated bag.
1 tbs of Russian Salad Dressing (keep jar in fridge at work or bring in small container)
Nuke contents of tupperware bowl for 2 minutes in microwave. Pour salad dressing over now warm contents of tupperware bowl and mix. Enjoy hot reuben bowl.
Do you have a crock pot? Usually we take leftovers for lunch but on nights when I know we aren’t going to have leftovers the next day I will toss some potatoes, carrots, and a pork roast or a brisket or something into a crock pot, cover with some type of liquid (water, broth, cream-based soup, etc.) and set for 8 hours overnight to take for lunches for the next couple of days. When you wake up it is ready to go and is a delicious, filling lunch. If you don’t have a crock pot I would recommend making a double batch of a casserole of some kind and portioning out individual servings and freezing it to take for lunches since you have a microwave.
And also, if you don’t have a crock pot find a garage sale or a wal-mart somewhere and buy a dang crock pot already! You can toss in ingredients for chili, soup, roast, chicken, etc. and have an entire meal cooked overnight while you sleep or all day while you are at work. It is an excellent investment.
Hot Pockets.
Here’s my tip for making salads for lunch:
To buy:
1 bag of mixed greens
1 container of grape or cherry tomatoes
1 cucumber
1 package of Craisins
1 package of chopped walnuts
1 container of gorgonzola or feta cheese
1 package of pre-cooked chicken strips (if you would be too exhausted to cook your own)
1 bottle of raspberrry vinaigrette or your choice
On Sunday, I get out 5 ziploc storage containers and put a good amount of greens in each bowl. Add a handful of tomatoes, craisins, walnuts, and cheese to each one.
Now get out 10 snack-size baggies. Fill 5 with cucumber slices and seal. Fill 5 with chicken strips and seal. Put a baggie of cucumbers and chicken in to each ziploc container and then put the lids on each salad.
Put all 5 salads and your dressing in a grocery bag and take them to work with you on Monday. Store in the work fridge. Now you have salads prepared and available for the whole week. And they won’t go bad because the tomatoes are whole and won’t ruin the lettuce, and the cucumbers and chicken are kept separate from the lettuce and won’t cause it to wilt. You can even keep the cheese in its container and add it at lunch time - but that’s up to you.
Of course, you can always use this a base mix and put different things in each container to give it more variety. But I found it to be a simple and easy way to make 5 lunches at once.
Beans as salad are excellent =)
I make a mock antipasto that is quite good aged for several days while taking it in to work as leftovers =)
1 bag mixed cauliflower and brocolli florettes
1 sweet onion [vidalia or wallawalla] chopped
2 tomatoes diced without the oozy seedy goop or skin
1 can each drained and rinsed clean kidney beans, garbonzo beans and green beans
1 can artichoke hearts rinsed and chopped a little bit so they arent huge pieces
1 can pitted jumbo black olives
your favorite italian type dressing, I like good seasonings zesty italian made with balsamic vinegar and olive oil
add some slices of ham, or salami, or a hard boiled egg for protein and you are good to go =)
Hmm, great ideas so far. Most have ingredients I don’t like, but that’s obviously adjustable. No crock pot, though I do see the suggestion to buy one.
Too bad so many involve leftovers; I usually use leftovers for dinner instead of lunch. Of course, there’s nothing stopping me from making something quick and easy on a Sunday night for the express purpose of lunch.
Lots to think about here. Keep 'em coming!
You gotta get a crock pot, even if it’s just for two. Check out Amazon, they run $20 a pop for a 2 quart one. It’s such a cheap and easy way to cook dinner, you can’t not get one. It’s the sort of thing where once you get one, you can’t imagine living without it.
Here’s my favorite recipe for the crockpot: EatingWell’s Pulled Chicken. Had it Tuesday night and today for lunch. It’s awesome. Wanna know what’s even better? The fact there is no cleanup for roughly $.50 a meal.
…or you could just get a pot, put a piece of tinfoil between the lid and the pot and toss it in the oven. I’m not a fan of crock pots; they seem to give food a weird mushy texture from overcooking.
Easy lunch for me is make some rice, portion it out and put in tupperware. Then I get chicken thighs and marinate them in a couple different flavors. Broil, shop and add to the rice. easy peasy. Current faves are teriyaki (soy, sugar, ginger, and a hit of oyster sauce) fake curry (curry powder, cumin, honey, a splash of red wine vinegar), and French (olive oil, garlic, herbs de provence, mustard, pepper)
Don’t forget the Sriracha sauce! Sriracha sauce makes everything taste better.
How do you feel about beans? I have a great, very nutritious and easy-to-make recipe for three bean quinoa salad. The recipe calls for green beans, edamame and kidney beans, but you can substitute almost any bean–garbanzos, white northern beans, etc.
Here you go:
Ingredients
1 cup uncooked quinoa
Salt and ground black pepper
1/2 pound green beans, trimmed, cut into 2-inch pieces, cooked and rinsed in cold water
1 1/2 cups frozen Shelled Edamame, thawed
1/2 cup chopped roasted red peppers
1 (15-ounce) can Kidney Beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup Italian Dressing
1 teaspoon dried tarragon
Method
Rinse quinoa under cold running water and drain. Bring 1 3/4 cups water to a boil in a small pot. Stir quinoa and a pinch of salt into water. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until tender and liquid is absorbed, 15 to 20 minutes. Uncover and let cool. Put cooled quinoa, green beans, edamame, peppers, kidney beans, dressing, tarragon, salt and pepper into a large bowl and toss well. Serve chilled or at room temperature.
Nutrition
Per serving (about 9oz/244g-wt.): 270 calories (70 from fat), 8g total fat, 1g saturated fat, 0mg cholesterol, 460mg sodium, 33g total carbohydrate (8g dietary fiber, 4g sugar), 17g protein
I got a small crockpot for $9 at Walmart - it was large enough to fit in 6 boneless chicken breasts - so don’t let the size fool you!
Everything I thought of has been mentioned! BBQ beef? Cook and drain hamburger (or thin shredded sandwich steak, or chicken or pork), mix with your favorite sauce, bring cold to work. There you will heat it in the microwave and pour on bread or buns. (I know it’s technically a sandwich, but it’s not a cold sandwich!) You can cook some rice or noodles, put them in containers, and then cook and drain your hamburg, ground pork, ground chicken or turkey - mix with gravy or a cream soup (and/or cooked veggies) top with shredded cheese if called for, pour that over the rice/noodles, cover and freeze. Done! (I used to cook ahead for the week on Sunday like this, but if the family was at home they’d come to see what smelled so good and…well, it either got kind of ugly, or I’d have nothing to bring in during the week, lol.)
LOL! I cook a few days ahead each week and I practically have to stand in the kitchen door with a whip and a chair to keep my fiance from coming in to eat everything that has been set aside for the week. Even explaining, “This is for lunches. If you eat it now we will not have lunches this week” is met with, “At this moment I am totally okay with that. I need a fork!”
If you can find a copy of Steve Martin’s Cruel Shoes, it’s got a great article on how to fold soup.
Except for the fact it’s completely unsafe to leave the oven on while you’re not at home for hours on end. And that it uses a lot more energy and makes the house hot in the summertime.
Do you have my SO on loan? Your fiance’s words were literally his - except for the utensil - when I was making ahead a few dishes last week. “This is okay! Don’t worry about it. Can I get a spoon?”