Nourishing lunch ideas
Cathy asked what we eat for lunch. I generally don’t post my lunches in my menu plans because about 90% of the time we are eating leftovers. Our family is still fairly small so it is easy for me to make a few extra servings for dinner and then just reheat them for lunch the next day. It also helps that my husband doesn’t mind eating cold leftovers the next day for his lunch at work.
When I make something like eggs for dinner where there are no leftovers I have to come up with something for everyone. I like it to be quick and simple. Here are a few ideas:
Soup. This can be a fast and easy soup of canned beans, vegetables and broth or something from the freezer. If we have enough leftovers I like to freezer small portions of leftovers in 2.5 cup containers and pull something out when we have no leftovers for lunch.
Sandwiches. If you have a whole wheat sourdough or sprouted grain bread you can make a nourishing sandwich out of egg salad, tuna salad, leftover meats, cheese or even good old peanut butter & jelly.
Breakfast foods. These are so quick and easy that they make great lunch foods as well. Scrambled eggs, omelets, french toast, pancakes, etc. My toddler loves eggs so he really enjoys this as well.
Beans. One of my go-to meals I make when I have no time and very little ingredients is tostadas. Traditionally tostadas are made with a fried corn tortilla, but I like to simply put corn tortillas on a sheet pan to crisp in a 400 degree oven. I then top them with canned beans (or leftovers if I have them) and then put cheese on top and pop them back in the oven until the cheese melts and the beans are warmed. We like to eat salsa and lettuce with these. Other bean options could include bean bowls or burritos.
Pasta. We don’t eat a lot of pasta, but when I’m really in a pinch I will put some brown rice pasta on to boil. One of our recent favorite sauces to go with this involves a basic tomato sauce with canned tuna. I would have never thought that this would be so tasty!
Snack lunches. These are usually the easiest. I just take a quick inventory of what I have on hand and throw a few things together. In the warmer months we like yogurt smoothies for lunch along with some nuts, a salad or bread or muffins. We’ll also often eat yogurt with fruit & nuts for lunch as well. Other snack ideas include a plate of sliced cheese, fruit, nuts & seeds, veggie sticks (with or without dip) and crackers.
I’m a bit of a minimalist so I like to keep lunch really, really simple. Also, I generally cook both breakfast and dinner so I really don’t like to take more time and make more dishes cooking a big lunch. Of course with a bigger family this may be more difficult. I am always looking for more lunch ideas.
Thanks for addressing my question. I think you hit part of it on the head and that is that my family is outgrowing my leftovers! I also freeze soup in pint containers…the problem is that even with hubby gone we now need three of those for lunch! I’m thinking I might need to make a batch of soup specifically to freeze these days. We do the snack thing for lunch at times already, but I like your tostada idea. Do you make your own corn tortillas or have you found a brand somewhere that is GMO-free? I’ve been wanting to make them but need to look for a recipe that does not also include wheat. We still eat some wheat but I’m trying to get away from having it on a daily basis.
I almost never want to actually cook lunch because we homeschool and are doing that. I also teach piano lessons and a couple of days a week, we are hurrying to finish before the students come.
We eat leftovers almost all the time for lunch. Even when I was feeding 11 every noon (long story, included aging grandmas, etc., plus the 7 kids I had at home at the time), I would make a large casserole (for the noon main meal) and in the evenings we would eat what was left, sandwiches, toasted cheese on bread, garden produce like tomatoes and corn, cottage cheese and fruit, etc. Now that we only have 2 kids at home and eat the main meal in the evening when my husband is home from work, we usually eat many of those things at noon. I still make large batches of chili, soup, ham and beans, etc. and either freeze cartons for lunches or we just eat it for several days until it is gone. (Not my kids’ favorite plan, by the way). We also eat a lot of tortillas and beans and cheese, like bean burritos, only my kids call them “mini” burritos since we are missing most of the ingredients since they ate them up the night before and these are the leftovers. I just buy the tortillas. Also, because I can a lot of fruit, the kids get canned fruit every day for both breakfast and lunch, all they want. I often cut up carrot sticks, sometimes keeping a ziplock in the fridge to pull from each lunch hour when I’m too busy to cut up more.
Also, when I have a morning where I am home, I often “cook ahead” for the week to come. I might make yogurt, a pot of soup, a casserole, some bread or rolls, zucchini bread, etc. that I can use quickly during the week. I then stock the fridge with those things, and we eat away all week.
You can get several kinds of organic corn tortillas. I wish I could remember the brand names, but I can’t off the top of my head. But, in the past, I have bought organic corn tortillas frozen from both Azure Standard and from a couple of different stores that carry healthier foods. Some have been from sprouted corn, some from regular corn. The stay frozen well and make great enchilada casseroles. So, look in the refrigerated case in a store that carries these types of foods or order from Azure if they deliver to your area. (You can go on-line to find out). For the crispy corn taco shells, we use Garden of Eatin’ sometimes.
Shannon, I just found your website. I’m a new mom and am learning to become a SAHM. I actually am writing because of a comment I found somewhere that mentioned you not celebrating x-mas or easter and observing the feast days. My family, my parents, and a few friends of ours do exactly that. In fact we just had a small fellowship that discussed how we deal with different relatives and people regarding xmas. Just wanted to connect with like minds.
Kelli
I am not making lunch for anyone but myself, but I do make a lunch for myself every day. I have a Laptop Lunchbox (www.laptoplunches.com) and I love it! It’s a bento-like lunchbox with small inner containers, perfect for portioning out little bits of this and that. I usually bring leftovers but can’t stand eating the same thing for more than about two meals in a row.
If you click on my name here in this comments section you will get to one of my flickr accounts where there are some photos of my lunches. This link will take you to my other flickr account where it is all lunchboxes, all the time 🙂
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25518572@N00/
Cathy – I have made my own tortillas, but used conventional masa for it, so it probably was GMO. You can make corn tortillas without any wheat, just using masa, water and salt. You can usually find masa in the Mexican section of the grocery store. When I buy them I usually buy sprouted organic corn tortillas from the same company that makes Ezekiel bread. I buy those from the health food store.
Becky – Your way of doing lunch sounds very similar to what my grandmother did. Her and my grandfather were dairy farmers with 6 children, so they had farm hands as well as a big family to feed. She still does the same thing when all of us come to visit. It’s wonderful :).
Kelli – Thank you so much for stopping by. I will have to “come over” and say hello.
Alyss – I love bento! I’ve never actually done it myself, but I love the concept. Thanks for sharing your pics.