Ideas for reasonably "healthy", easy, office lunch?

DorsetDude

DorsetDude

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Getting slightly p'd off with on site shop and electron microscope sliced cheese and ham in the sandwiches so thinking of bringing stuff in. Have tried Mugshot/potnoodle pots. Not too bad but dangerously "splashy" and not all that filling.
Anyone got any ideas? Am thinking bringing in cold pasta meals of some sort possibly the way to go.

Cheers
 
I alternate between nice sarnies and wraps.
get some right nice bread and some good fillings.
depends if you sarnies and stuff.
I have a light lunch as I generally eat a small bowl of granola or muisli at my work desk first thing.
 
Quite often I just over cook the amount for dinner the night before and take some in for lunch.

Other times I knock up a batch of something to last me the week and just take a bowl full each day. Ie a big batch of bulga wheat, quinoa and lentils cooked up with whatever herbs and spices give you a desired flavour, I like a bit of curry myself. Then add in some black eyed peas, chick peas etc. Some veg, peppers mushroom, sweetcorn and finally a couple of grilled chicken breasts flaked and mixed in. Maybe a little minted yogurt dip in an old film pot to add just before serving.
 
bass_junkie83 said:
Quite often I just over cook the amount for dinner the night before and take some in for lunch.

Other times I knock up a batch of something to last me the week and just take a bowl full each day. Ie a big batch of bulga wheat, quinoa and lentils cooked up with whatever herbs and spices give you a desired flavour, I like a bit of curry myself. Then add in some black eyed peas, chick peas etc. Some veg, peppers mushroom, sweetcorn and finally a couple of grilled chicken breasts flaked and mixed in. Maybe a little minted yogurt dip in an old film pot to add just before serving.
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yep similar here, often wife makes some chicken fajitas mid week so I get fajita wraps thurs/Friday bloody nice.
 
S*l*d sticks and dip? Celery and carrots with a pot of humous or similar is fairly easy to eat and reasonably filling. A slice or 2 of decent bread will help bulk it up too.
 
bass_junkie83 said:
Quite often I just over cook the amount for dinner the night before and take some in for lunch.
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Makes sense. Although a lot of my evening meals are microwave jobs. Captain Healthy or what. Not.
 
End of the day how badly do you want the healthy aspect?
UK companies full of people who apparently eat ham salads every night and make the office chairs weep.

if you don't like fruit and sald its tough but are you willing to try more stuff?
A nice sald with a side dressing and some chicken tikka...yum
 
I still make bread at home - preparing the dough at night, leaving it for the following night for shaping, final proving then cooking - so use that to make sandwiches for work. My favourite fillings are tuna mayonaise (with capers and green chillis) and homemade chicken tikka (I marinate it overnight, then cook the following evening under a hot grill. I add lettuce and tomatoes.
 
I have to say I am very lucky as my wife is a great cook and generally when she is prepping tea which most nights involves a salad she will come up with a cracking lunch for us.

it all comes down to time, good healthy food takes time to prep and also to carry to work,
sometimes it involves a bit of faff, ie two plastic containers, one for salad and one for the filling, meat or salmon, tuna and then a bottle of dressing which you can keep at work in your drawer etc.
 
I too cook extra the night before and take the surplus for lunch at work. Today was tuna and chargrilled veg. The chargrilled veg comes frozen from Tesco, I daresay other supermarkets do similar. I put just enough milk in a saucepan to cover the base, empty a bag of the veg, a couple of hanndfuls of fresh spinach then a couple of tins of tuna. You can add a touch of curry powder for added taste if you like. Then just heat in the saucepan. Takes no more than 15 minutes to prepare and cook. The milk keeps it all moist and prevents it from being dry.
Alternatively replace tuna with chicken breast peices pre grilled in a George Foreman type grill.

Reheat in microwave for a couple of minutes.
 
nilagin said:
I too cook extra the night before and take the surplus for lunch at work. Today was tuna and chargrilled veg. The chargrilled veg comes frozen from Tesco, I daresay other supermarkets do similar. I put just enough milk in a saucepan to cover the base, empty a bag of the veg, a couple of hanndfuls of fresh spinach then a couple of tins of tuna. You can add a touch of curry powder for added taste if you like. Then just heat in the saucepan. Takes no more than 15 minutes to prepare and cook. The milk keeps it all moist and prevents it from being dry.
Alternatively replace tuna with chicken breast peices pre grilled in a George Foreman type grill.

Reheat in microwave for a couple of minutes.
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That sounds........really yuk, but at least you're making an effort.


Umm, its not easy to have something for lunch that is decent and at the same time quick and convenient.
I think you just have to go the extra mile and make something at home the night before, its tough, its a bind, it requires effort at a time of night when you don't have much effort in you, but you do get used to it after a while.
I make myself a chicken/ham/sausage/whatever salad every night, and take an apple and a banana, its not glam, its not roast beef and yorks pud, but it doesn't require heating in a salmonella oven, its functional that is all, and I can eat what the hell I like for an evening meal.

anyway, If I sat at a desk all day buggering about on the internet, I wouldn't even bother with the salad...:D
 
oh wait.....breakfast, gotta have breakfast before you leave the house.
Something cooked, beans on toast, scrambled eggs and tomatoes, porridge with fruit.
If you don't have time for that, its because you're not getting up early enough, its all about making the effort.
Yeah, I know people like that, I have work colleagues like that, they jump out of bed and straight in the car, by half past 9 they could eat a scabby donkey and they're off to the sarnie shop, 20 minutes going there, 20 minutes when they get back to eat 800 cals of sh1te, and about an hour to recover, sometimes they don't recover, useless...:ROFLMAO:
 
Soup! it's that time of year.
 
For best results, do not eat at your desk. Take a break - you are more useful afterwards.

As for evening meals, it is not difficult to prepare something, if the alternative is sitting on the couch. An omelette with toast with a garnish of radishes, tomatoes and cucumber.
A quick fried steak marinated in some oil and a pre-mixed spice rub, with frozen veg cooked in a pan with some water, butter salt and pepper.
Grilled or pan fried lamb also rubbed in a spice mix, sliced up on top of cous cous.

All of these take 15-25 mins to prepare and cook.

If you cant spare time to pamper yourself, whats the point?
 
another vote for soup. Usually do at least one pot of homemade soup a week, great for lunch.
 
joxby said:
oh wait.....breakfast, gotta have breakfast before you leave the house.
Something cooked, beans on toast, scrambled eggs and tomatoes, porridge with fruit.
If you don't have time for that, its because you're not getting up early enough, its all about making the effort.
Yeah, I know people like that, I have work colleagues like that, they jump out of bed and straight in the car, by half past 9 they could eat a scabby donkey and they're off to the sarnie shop, 20 minutes going there, 20 minutes when they get back to eat 800 cals of sh1te, and about an hour to recover, sometimes they don't recover, useless...:ROFLMAO:
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I'd have to get up at 3am in order to have breakfast before I go to work, I just can't eat too soon after getting up. I take a protein shake to work which does me until lunch.
 
I vary between salads (top tip ask a vegetarian for decent recipes), stuffed wraps or pittas, homemade soups (again big batches with three or so portions refrigerated and the rest frozen until the night before and left over dinners.
 
People eat some strange things these days, when I worked outside we always had a caff breakfast.
Egg, bacon or sausage and chips or bubble, two slices of bread and butter and two teas.
Lunch was usually a pint or two with cheese or ham rolls in the pub, sometimes pie and mash up Roman Road
Dinner was either meat and two veg or few more pints and sandwiches for supper
Take away on the way home was another option, elephant leg kebab or burger and chips from the Starship all night place.
 
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I usually use wholemeal bread or sometimes a pressed rye bread (pumpernikel type) for variety, making a single round with 'nice' cheese, salami or pate and perhaps a bit of Chinese leaf in there. Pud is a yoghurt and an apple. Not super-healthy, but decent quality, satisfying food.

Healthy, to me, is eating sensibly with good nutrition and in a way that will help you sustain yourself through the day. It's not about who can shovel down the most salad or roughage, nor is it about eating as little as possible.
 
dunno what bulga wheat, quinoa is
dunno what a tatie pie t cake is either, but if I had to have one and to hell with which is healthier, the bulga wheat thing sounds more palatable...:/

on the strange scale, they both score pretty high
 
joxby said:
dunno what bulga wheat, quinoa is
dunno what a tatie pie t cake is either, but if I had to have one and to hell with which is healthier, the bulga wheat thing sounds more palatable...:/

on the strange scale, they both score pretty high
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Guessing the tatie pie t cake is spuds in some form and definitely my choice, the others sound like laxatives
 
I usually buy salad, couscous and coleslaw on Monday and make it last all week.


Steve.
 
One of my faves is a lentil salad. I do this for dinner and cook plenty to have leftovers next day. Cook green puy lentils for 25 mins in chicken stock, and add quinoa after around 10 mins. Quarter cherry tomatoes, cut cucumber into similar size, same with beetroot (jar is fine), feta (or goats cheese), dried cranberries. Sometimes I will add chopped sundried tomato and in season fresh strawberries. Mix and add the drained lentils, although allow them to cool a bit if possible. Add olive oil and red wine vinegar to taste and have with grilled chicken/steak.
 
I used to take two things, either a cheese and tomato bun or a tub of mixed fruit, apple, orange, pear, grape and pineapple, something like that. I used to make a big tub of chopped fruit and keep it in the fridge and it'd last most of the week.
 
BBR said:
Mudies?? I remember it well. I always had double pie. Delicious.
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That name doesn't ring a bell, think it was Kelly's, but I also had double pie.
Another one I went to was in Exmouth market up near Mount Pleasant

Just sorted out todays grub, nice helping of liver, bacon and mash with thick gravy.
Quite like cooked liver cold in a buttered roll, now that is a healthy option with all that Vitamin A

So much of the so called healthy stuff tastes like crap, I'm bleedin sure it ain't butter spreads and milk that looks like water the white emulsion brush has been washed out in.
Tea is never the right taste or colour without real milk in it, preferably red top (homogenised)
 
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tijuana taxi said:
That name doesn't ring a bell, think it was Kelly's, but I also had double pie.
Another one I went to was in Exmouth market up near Mount Pleasant

Just sorted out todays grub, nice helping of liver, bacon and mash with thick gravy.
Quite like cooked liver cold in a buttered roll, now that is a healthy option with all that Vitamin A

So much of the so called healthy stuff tastes like crap, I'm bleedin sure it ain't butter spreads and milk that looks like water the white emulsion brush has been washed out in.
Tea is never the right taste or colour without real milk in it, preferably red top (homogenised)
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Kelly's in West Ham is being refurbished at the moment and will reopen in 2018.
I haven't had liver and bacon for ages, because I associate it with school meals, where the liver was always chewy and smelly. However, this Christmas I will be making pate instead of a pork and chestnut terrine, so liver will be making a well deserved comeback. I will also add smoked streaky bacon as a wrap.
 
andy700 said:
Kelly's in West Ham is being refurbished at the moment and will reopen in 2018.
I haven't had liver and bacon for ages, because I associate it with school meals, where the liver was always chewy and smelly. However, this Christmas I will be making pate instead of a pork and chestnut terrine, so liver will be making a well deserved comeback. I will also add smoked streaky bacon as a wrap.
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Thinking about it I'm sure it was Kelly's up the Roman, are you sure about the West Ham bit.

No chewy liver here, cut the big old tubes out of it, if you want to stop it pen and inking soak it in milk for an hour or two
 
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