What does everyone make for lunches at work?

[HoopaLoo]

Need inspo. Have been terrible recently at getting meal deals etc for work lunch. I want to start brining my own but I am fussy (eg has to be made the night before I won’t eat 2+ day old food; don’t like cold food like cold pasta and I can’t bare to spend Hours / ages making food that will be inhaled in 2 minutes - I have a big appetite .. butttttt…. I am also very busy full time working mum to a very active toddler with little time in the evenings) shall I just get a cook??! Joke! . I am very bog in to flavourful foods and something satiating to balance blood sugar levels through the afternoon. Any suggestions?? Thanks in advance!

Any dinner that freezes well gets doubled in quantity and taken in for lunches. I reheat in the morning and put it in my Thermos King.

I need stuff that will happily sit in my bag all shift and not need reheated (I never know when I'll get a break or how long I'll get). So healthy picky food!
I do roasted chickpeas, then batch cook some baked goods so take half a slice of HM cake and mini flapjack.
Then more nibbles! ('healthy' crisps, Nakd bar, sesame snaps).

I'm also looking for ideas, but am sharing my usual lunch in case anyone might like it:
2 hard boiled eggs or some cooked or smoked salmon/mackerel, plus salad of lettuce and spinach leaves, cucumber, tomato and black olives, with a squezze of lemon. I sometimes add feta or avocodo . Then some fruit.
Sometimes I'll have soup, which I portion out into jars, it keeps for a few days in the fridge or you can freeze it - usually some kind of veg soup, plus toast and a few slices of cheese.
But I'm bored with it, and tbh the salad doesn't fill me up for long enough.

When I cook a meal I often box a smaller portion to freeze for work. Today I had spicey sweet potato and peanut curry.

Merchant gourmet lentils - in various flavours, sun dried tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, pickled red onion, cheese, nuts.

Or sainsburys spicy tomato and lentil soup with nairns cheese oatcakes.

Or last night's left over veg chilli with sour cream and cheese.

I know you said you don't have much time to cook but if you can , put a few hours aside one Sunday a month and do a heap of batch cooking then frezze it into individual portions. I use ( and reuse ) tescos extra small snack bags for the main part of the meal then another for the rice / pasta / spuds
This is about a ¼ of what I have in my frezzer .

If you do this make sure you put a sheet of kitchen towel or baking paper between each one or they will stick together.

Don't bother with special frezzer labels, masking tape is much better and cheaper.

I have about 4 different currys, roast beef , sweet and sour chicken, chicken in lime, chilli and ginger , pork in honey and sesame seeds and goodness knows what else .

DD doesn't like sandwiches, a food flask has saved huge amounts of money in school lunches over the past 4 years!

Hot stir fried rice or noodles, various types of pasta and sauce, mashed potato 'pie' (layered with spinach, bacon, fried onions and cheese), chunky soups, beef and bean casserole...

Any 'one pot' meal would work

Cheese sandwiches.
Made them for my lunch every day of my entire 41-working years.

Soup in winter. Find some time of an evening to make some and freeze some too.

Pouched lentils, roasted veg and feta

Salad with chickpeas.

Mostly leftovers though.

Salads
Pasta salad
Veg fritters
Hummus and pittas
Leftovers
Quiche
Soup
Noodles and vegetables
Lentils with veg and chicken

I WFH now, but when I went into the office, I would always make an extra couple of portions of stuff like chilli, spaghetti bolognaise, dhal, curries etc etc and freeze them. Then take a portion in with microwave rice or whatever and heat it up if there's a microwave. I did work in a couple of places without microwaves (or only one between 50 people 🙄) and had a really good quality flask for those which obviously required a bit more morning prep to heat the food first but still pretty quick.

Salads are good in summer but around this time of year I start to really appreciate hot food! I don't get on well with bread so sandwiches etc are out. For cards in salad I'd usually make it into a rice or pasta salad but I think you said you didn't like that kind of thing?so salad and a bread roll or maybe croutons (kept separately so they don't go soft!).

Great suggestions all thank you!

Also very much looking forward to soup season. A giant veg soup bagged up in the freezer seems like a great idea!

Going to keep the fruit bowl in the staff room stocked up too.