5 day Packed Lunch Menu ideas for work?

Question

Please help me with VEGETARIAN & HEALTHY (no sandwiches or mushrooms please!!!) packed lunch ideas for 5 days of the week..basically a 5 day menu!!

I have a fridge at work, but no microwave.

Each packed lunch must include carbs, protein, vegetable, dairy and fruit!

Thankyou so much!!

XXXXX

Answer 1

With an ice pack, you could keep your lunch cold.

1) brown rice crackers with peanut butter, carrots, cheese and an apple.

2) corn thins with veggie meat and mayo/veganaise and sprouts, cucumber slices, yogurt (remember an ice pack) and peaches or mangoes sliced up.

3) quinoa based salad, sliced bell pepper, milk (kept in a thermos) and a banana.

4) pasta salad with mayo/veganaise, green peas and pieces of your fav veggie meat, celery stalks with peanut butter, kefir and an orange.

5) avocado sushi, broccoli florets with dip, dried papaya and yogurt or pudding.

Many ideas and you can mix and match. Lots of ideas at the mentioned site as well. I have the laptoplunch system for my daughter and after one school year of throwing away plastic bags, I decided to do something less wasteful, so that is why I purchased one. I also bought their small lunch jar, but I don't know that it is any nicer than any other thermos. Good luck and have fun!

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

Do you have a food processor/blender at home? If so, houmous is very easy to make and is great for lunch (healthy, nutritious and filling). Good protein source.

This is what I do to get 2-4 servings. The proportions are very approximate so adjust to taste:

1 tin of chick peas (drained and rinsed)
1 dessert spoon tahini
juice of 1 lemon
1-3 cloves of garlic (1 clove for work, 2+ for home ;-) )
olive oil

Drain the chick peas (really important!).
Roughly chop them in the food processor - 10 seconds or so.
Add the tahini and roughly chopped garlic and blitz again to mix.
Add the lemon juice. If you don't have a fresh lemon, use bottled lemon juice (1-2 teaspoon) and a bit of water.
Blitz again.
While still blitzing, pour in olive oil until the consistency is right. I normally use "about a glug" which probably translates as being about 1 tablespoon.

If you want to go to town, add black pepper and fresh coriander (cilantro).

Serve with chopped carrot, spring onion, celery, courgette (zucchinni) etc (crudite), or crackers/bread etc.



Also, tzaziki. Basically yoghurt, crushed garlic and grated cucumber. Serve with the above. Lovely.

If you want to play safe with work colleagues, perhaps keep the garlic to a minimum (or come and work with me, I love the stuff ;-) )

Answer 4

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Answer 5

No sandwiches? Hmm...that makes it tougher. If you included sandwiches on whole wheat bread, you'd have the good carbs and protein part covered.

I'm sure you can figure out the fruit and dairy part on your own but one meal I have often is:
Whole wheat pasta salad with peas, cukes, onion, tomato in a italian dressing.

Answer 6

http://veganlunchbox.blogspot.com/
one day you can pack pasta in a thermos, with shredded cheese on the side for sprinkling, maybe some salad and some fruit
the next day pack a bean burrito, an interesting variation is to use unsweeted peanut butter instead of sour cream or cheese.
The next day pack some fondue in a thermos, with veggies and potatoes/bread chunks for dipping, plus a piece of fruit
the next day make cold soba noodles, trust me its good. Eat with a daikon/carrot salad.
The next day pack a big salad with baby spinach, romaine, bell pepper, carrots, tomatoes, nuts, cheese, olives (yum) and maybe avocado.

Answer 7

1. soy yogurt and granola, apples with peanut butter, red pepper slices
2. carrot sticks and hummus, grapes, cheese, and crackers
3. pasta salad with chopped fruits, veggies, and cheese in it
4. tahini butter and rice cakes, strawberries and cucumber slices and cream cheese
5. seseme sticks, orange, cottage cheese, raw broccoli, marmite

also Nutella and banana is good

Recipes:

Lunch Box Pasta Salad
Makes: 6 lunch box-size servings

Using small pasta shapes makes this pasta salad easy to pack into small containers or shallow thermoses. Feel free to substitute other vegetables that your kids might enjoy—such as green peas instead of broccoli. I like to make this the evening before I plan to send it for lunch. We serve some with dinner, then save enough to pack for lunch the next day.
2 cups uncooked rotelle (wagon wheels) or small shells
2 cups small broccoli florets
1 large carrot, sliced
1/2 cup pitted black olives, halved
1/2 cup cooked corn kernels or cut baby corn
1/3 to 1/2 cup natural low-fat dressing or your choice, as needed
Salt to taste
Cook the pasta in plenty of rapidly simmering water, according to package directions. Just as the pasta becomes al dente, add the broccoli and carrot to the simmering water and allow to cook for another minute or two, just until the broccoli turns bright green.

Drain and rinse under cold running water until the mixture cools. Drain well and combine in a mixing bowl with the olives, corn, and dressing. Season to taste with salt.

If you make this the night before, taste and add more dressing if needed before packing into containers.

Zucchini-Raisin Muffins
Makes one dozen

This is one of our favorite instead-of-a-sandwich muffins. Good accompaniments are a small container of yogurt or a wedge of cheese, plus some fresh fruit. If you won't be using the whole batch within a couple of days, pop some in the freezer for later use. make these simple muffins in the evening, and what a pleasure it is to know that you need only put them in the lunchbox in the morning, instead of making sandwiches!
1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup natural granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 cup organic vanilla low-fat yogurt or soy yogurt
2 tablespoons light vegetable oil
1 cup firmly packed grated zucchini
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 cup chopped walnuts, optional
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Combine the first 6 (dry) ingredients in a mixing bowl. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the yogurt and oil. Stir together until smoothly combined. Stir in the zucchini, raisins, and optional walnuts.

Divide the batter between 12 muffin tins and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the tops are golden and a small knife inserted in the center of a muffin tests clean. Cool on a rack. Wrap well in plastic wrap to send in a lunch box.

Answer 8

I work at an elementary school. Hot lunches are available to me in the school cafeteria daily. I always take my own lunch anyway. It ultimately comes down to personal preference, really, which makes me wonder why you're so upset about this in the first place. If you don't want to pack lunches, then don't. But still. 1) Cost: This is a moot point. You CAN pack decent lunches for cheaper than a school hot lunch. But cost is rarely a motivating factor. 2) Picky kids. This is a big one I see in students. Many parents seem to pack their students lunches for them purely because the kid is picky and doesn't like much on the school menu. Personally, not a reason that would motivate me, but it is a big reason out there. A lot of the parents who have picky kids tend to pack horrible "lunches" consisting of high-sugar juice boxes, cookies, and chips. I also disagree with the parents who do this. But still, just letting you know that for some kids, packing a PBJ is the easiest way to take care of the lunch argument. 3) Health. Sorry, but my school cafeteria does NOT serve food that agrees with my concept of healthful eating. They serve carb, carb, carb, more carb, and a tiny sliver of some kind of protein (usually covered with a breaded coating). I'm not anti-carb, I'm just saying they're way out of balance, and they don't serve whole-grain ever. They add heaps of brown sugar and butter to oatmeal in the morning. They stir Jello mix into applesauce just for more flavor and sugar (they call it "rosy" applesauce). And other such sugary doctorings of food. Most foods are highly processed, prepackaged, and sodium-packed. A lot of parents serve fresh, unprocessed foods at home and refuse to let their children eat different at school. Personally, this is my biggest reason why I myself bring my own lunch to school. I know that the food I bring myself started with fresh ingredients that I myself chopped and cooked healthfully. The food cooked at school comes premade and frozen with less and less effort put in on the part of cafeteria workers. It's often very comparable to fast food in processing and origins. (Note: This is true for the vast majority of school cafeterias these days. However, there are a few notable exceptions scattered here and there where school cafeterias have stepped up and found ways to cook fresh foods for their students instead of prepackaged rubbish. Interestingly, in all of these schools, grades improve and misbehavior issues decline dramatically.) 4) Disagreement with laws. Some parents simply get annoyed at a lot of the rules in school cafeterias. The lunch ladies are bound by goofy laws where everyone has to get a "balanced" meal (or their sad approximation of one, anyway) and have to require students to get an entree, and a certain array of side items. Many kids, as I've mentioned before, are picky eaters. They don't want all the stuff they're forced to accept on their trays, and they throw most of it away uneaten. They aren't allowed to get extra servings of the things they do like to take the place of the things they didn't eat. Students who bring their own lunches often end up actually eating all their food, meaning they're more well-fed than the school-lunch kids often enough. Parents who have figured out the wastefulness of their child throwing away tons of uneaten food or who have figured out that their child eats more heartily when favorite choices are packed-- these parents are another category who start packing lunch for their kids. 5) Food intolerances, allergies, and other reasons for special diets. Nuff said. Still, though, it's ultimately a personal preference.

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Answer 9

How about tomato slices, basil, fresh mozzarella, red onions and balsamic vinaigrette drizzled over it? Yummy!

Answer 10

Leftover whatever last night's dinner was