Taking own lunch to work challenge

[Junebug123]

Is anyone doing this? How are you getting on? I'm trying to and managed every day so far. It's to try and be healthier and also save some money. I actually prefer my own lunch as got so tired of m and s sandwiches etc. Used to spend £3-4 a day so should make a difference.
I just need motivated to make it night before. Got a brilliant bento style lunch box. Would love some lunch ideas. Currently making big salad with avocado, cheese and crackers. Satsumas, apple, yoghurt, dark chocolate rice cakes. Thinking a back up lunch I can have left at work is a good idea like soup.

I mostly use take away tubs for non leaky stuff and Systema clip tubs for salad if it has a dressing.
I freeze single portions of home made meals and soups in take away tubs and microwave for supper. It's not really convenient for me to eat those at work, I used to at the last place though.
I also have to take everything in with me as I have no set desk, no locker, no drawer :(

I regularly make packed lunch for my kids then can't be bothered to make one myself which is just stupid. I'm starting a new job soon where there are no cafe/shops to pop out to so this thread has been good for ideas 😊

Yes I am also amazed to read how cooking pasta in the morning is the quick option!
I've recently been a student so have been thinking of options that don't need to be chilled.
I often buy a quiche from the butchers. Slice and freeze individual slices. If I get one out of the freezer in the morning it's defrosted at lunch time.
My other option was peanut butter sandwiches.
If I do have a fridge I love making a huge bowl of salad on Sunday night, add some cooked pasta and grated cheese. Does me for a few lunches and usually a couple of dinners too. I mix in houmous.

I have a 'bento box' with 5 compartments, I'm not working at the moment but I try to do:

1 carb
1 protein
1 fruit
1 veg
1 other

So it might be:
cous cous or rice or a bread roll
hard boiled eggs, cheese, tuna or ham
mixed salad or cherry tomatoes and olives
satsuma or melon pieces
a yoghurt or a bit of chocolate

I have some tiny tubs that I put salad dressing in so I can have dressed salad that isn't mush.

I'm doing this for me, DH and DS (3.5). I've had really bad pregnancy sickness for 15 weeks but now is subsided I'm feeling up to it. My DS is fed up of nursery dinners so I'm really happy to be sending them both off with food and hopefully saving a lot of money in the process! :) I'm craving my own lunches anyway (can't beat a cheese and ham sw with coleslaw!) only prob is I eat it all before lunchtime because I'm freaking starving all the time!

And for me, it IS a challenge to get up and make an interesting lunchbox for everyone everyday, is very easy to fall into the mindset of eating out all the time. Why do challenges have to be complicated? It's like jumping on someone's back for attempting to run a 5k, because you've just done a half marathon. Pipe down and get off the thread of it's not to your taste!

make more of an evening meal and have leftover.
make up some mince and make some pasties or do some veggies ones..some burrito style wraps.
tortilla pinwheels are something different yet really easy
jus rol pastry rol ups with cheese and pesto
have you a freezer at work.you could freeze a container of soup
do you have a roast.make it into salad the next day.
chicken and tomato and pine nut couscous big tub then decant.
a batch of garlic onion celery and carrots cooked.add some pepper tomatos and some stock.then pearl barley.it makes such a warming little Tupperware this time of year.so hearty and healthy
morrocan chickpea and couscous salad with a lemon vinegrette dressing.
turmeric and frozen veggie rice.
coronation chicken
jacket potato.you could pre bake then take in foil and finish in microwave.
if you don't like cold pasta would a different type like orzo be nicer.you can make lovely salads and risotto type dishes with it.

oh and get yourselfves a set of travel spray bottles for dressing and if a thicker sauce Is wanted for things buy travel shampoo squeezy bottles.

Well thanks to this thread I have bought more Tupperware today!

Made boring sandwiches today and going to try all week instead of going for fat thursday/friday.

Had burritos tonight, so the left over rice and chicken is tomorrow's lunch.

Thermos food flask is the way! £20 outlay, but paid for itself within a week- home made soups, left over chilli/stew...my colleagues get pretty jealous!

This really is a challenge for me and the thing I find hardest is I like variety in what I eat and get bored if I eat the same thing too often.

I make DH a packed lunch most days but he is happy with a cheese salad sandwich every day. That's my idea of lunch hell, but easy to make while I'm in the kitchen making dinner.

I have to put some thought into my lunches when I do my food shop at the weekend, but find that having a stock of things that I can grab out of the cupboard in a hurry helps e.g.

Potatoes and tins of tuna (jacket spud)
Soup
Tins of beans (beans on toast)

Or batch cook and freeze left over portions.

I understand taking a lunch is a challenge in foresight and prep time, but surely going out and buying something is even more of a challenge - I work in central Oxford, but even then the time commitment to go out and buy "eats away" my lunch break when I usually use it to madly get done as much admin as I can just to keep my head above water. If you have time for an hour lunchbreak but not 20 minutes at home to cook and prepare an easy lunch, the balance is wonky.

My recommendation is mass roasting veggies like squash, get in jars of olives and sundried tomatoes, tins and packets of soup, and stick lots of wraps in the freezer for when you are out of bread (they also take up very little space). I also pre-make hummus and freeze it in batch sized portions. Homemaking things when you're doing a dinner that sits in the oven half an hour or more and freezing bits so you have things you can take out quickly helps develop a habit. Get in potatoes which you can microwave at work for cooked meals and add leftovers to small boxes that you can put in the potatoes. Couscous can be cooked by pouring boiling water over at work in the morning and leaving for later. Giant couscous is more fun and easier to porton size.

When you grate cheese, grate too much and put it back in the bag, so when you're making a lunch in a hurry it's there to grab a handful.#

I am also trying to bring my lunch and breakfast - I leave at 7.15am on my days in the office and don’t get home until 8.30pm if the girls have activities and I have got into the habit of buying breakfast and lunch on the way into work.

Anyone fancy posting links to their lunch boxes (love the idea of the bento style) that doesn’t leak?

I often buy a quiche from the butchers. Slice and freeze individual slices. If I get one out of the freezer in the morning it's defrosted at lunch time.

Now THAT is an amazing idea

I usually take sandwiches, but will take soup, pasta or noodles in a wide necked flask circa once a week.

Marking place. I always need inspiration for lunch, usually take either sandwiches, soup, or a little ready meal I pick up in the reduced section of the supermarket. I am always lusting for warm things to eat. Some lovely ideas.

Before Christmas I did make a katsu chicken curry to take and reheat which was lovely.

My company provides no cutlery, plates, bowls, glasses, mugs etc, nothing at all.

So, if I want to eat leftovers it has to be stuff I can eat in the tub I bring it in, plus I have to carry everything as I have no base, no desk, no locker. So, needs to be eat in the tub. Today my tub leaked balsamic vinegar into my lunchbag which failed to contain it so now my whole rucksack (which was brand new this weekend) smells of vinegar.
I have to carry lunch, breakfast, snacks, spoon, fork, bottle of water, reusable cup with green tea in (they do provide hot water!).......as well as all my actual work stuff.

It would be waaaaaay easier to buy something (especially as we have a canteen and cafe)! I think I managed 15 mins for lunch today but was still finishing on my next conference call.

Luckily I'm fasting tomorrow so just need a small tub of cherry tomatoes and two crisp bread.

but surely going out and buying something is even more of a challenge

You are coming at this from the wrong angle, going out and buying a healthy meal is easy hence why the meal deals, and supermarkets offering salads are apparent.

It's about being committed enough to make your lunch, I can get the most awesome healthy vegan meal for $10 everyday, trying to eliminate that is the challenge

I make soup usually with beans, veg and or lentils to make it filling.

We have hummous with crudites.

Mackerel pate and cucumber slices

Yoghurt and nut/seed granola

Dinner leftovers

Salads

Quiche

I bought a tonne of tupperware at ikea, the glass stuff and I batch cook and freeze. I don't like the idea of reheating stuff in plastic containers but it does take up a lot of freezer space.

I can easily buy food within a few minutes of my workplace, but it will cost me more than a packed lunch.

I make stuff that can be stored easily as I don’t always have access to a fridge.

Pitta bread with falafel and hot sauce
Wraps with hummous and salad
Various sandwiches
Crimudites, crispbreads and dip

DIY pot noodles - www.rivercottage.net/recipes/diy-pot-noodles. Pack the pot then just add boiling water at work. I do 3 or 4 at the weekend.

You don't have to stick with this recipe, its just to show the concept. My versions use a different set of flavours and rice vermicelli because I think the vermicelli cooks better. And I don't use posh glass jars because of the weight. I do take poncy chopsticks to eat them with though

I’m either really good at this or absolutely shit. A couple of weeks of taking lovely salads in followed by 3 weeks of drive thru, M&S sandwiches, co op cheese straws and whatever else I can drive to.
I’m going to make it a mission from next week and will spend the weekend preparing nice stuff.
I think I tend to not bother a lot of the time because I want to take something that’s delicious and end up procrastinating and not wanting to cook a chicken breast at 7am because I haven’t marinaded it the night before.
I don’t mind making things like a taboulleh salad or a roasted veg cous cous and keeping it in the fridge, but leafy salads are not good made the night before so it’s a case of assembling it all together at work and adding the dressing separately. Which means finding a tiny pot suitable for dressing. And I know I can never find one which means I just don’t bother at all, and end up buying some crap!
Will make a soup and a taboulleh at the weekend to see me through next week.

CakeNinja plane/travel spray bottles and shampoo bottle are the way to go for keeping your sauces and dressing.if you think of those liquids they are made to keep in.they work perfectly.