Struggling for lunch ideas with everyone at home

[Mimx]

We’re getting fed up of sandwiches, jacket potatoes and things on toast on rotation - the DC are even missing their school dinners just for the variety! But don’t really want to do masses of cooking at lunch just to do it all again for dinner. What have you all been living on?

I seem to be cooking constantly! How about some of these, some require more cooking than others!:

Omelettes
Pasta/pesto
HM soups
Noodles
Wrap pizzas (wrap/tomato puree/cheese & toppings)
Cheese & onion rolls/sausage rolls and salad
Picky stuff: cheese, ham, tomatoes, cucumber etc
quiche
pasta salad
cous cous

Cous cous salad with chickpeas, peppers, spring onion
Tuna pasta salad
Soup
Fritata
To be honest we just vary the bread most the time, baguette, bagels, crumpets, pitas, wraps, muffins.
Toasties and panini’s

• Scrambled eggs and ham or salmon, on bagels
• Fried eggs with toast and salad
• Omelettes, as someone else suggested
• Sandwiches with cheese, and either ham/yesterday’s chicken/chorizo
• A slightly varied side salad most days
• Soup (Heinz is a big favourite currently with my toddler, but also homemade butternut squash with bacon bits on top)
• Leftover mushroom pasta

That’s kind of it here tbh!

I tend to move towards the freezer for lunch:

Chicken dippers, salad wraps

Hot Cocktail sausages/mini sausage rolls with veg and salad sticks and dips

Toasted sandwich ham, cheese etc

Toasted bagel with bacon and fried egg

Have a lie in till 11am and then cereal for brunch

This week we've had easy things
Cheese toasties
Mac cheese
Pasta carbonara
Left over dinner
Beana on toast
Scrambled eggs in toast

DH also introduced our dd to fried egg sandwiches. She's 3, the yolk was still soft. Such a yellow sticky mess was made of my child 😂

We've been having a lot of big bowls of soup followed by a big chopped up fruit platter. I don't know why but if it's all chopped on a plate they wolf it down, if left in a fruit bowl grab your own it'd go off.

Some days i do some sliced meats, cheeses and fresh bread.

Noodles about once a week

Jacket potatoes bit I often forget to put them on.

Pasta and pesto is quite a quick and easy every one eats it one pan meal.

Ocassionally hotdogs.

Hot chicken wraps - I'll cook up a bag of frozen chicken breasts and use what's needed in wraps the rest then gets tossed in a few gently fried spices and turned into a curry ready for the evening.

Biggest break through has been getting DH and the DC to muck in a bit more. Nothing fancy but they can make toast, lay the table, get the meats and cheese out, they can all do a pasta Bolognese. They also do the clearing up.

I batch cook my curry veg sauce, Bolognese mix, chilli, casseroles etc so we always have easy grab I can't be bothered to cook stuff in the freezer.

I do curry for dinner once a week and do double the rice for a quick stir fry for lunch next day, soup a couple of times a week, once with wraps filled with cheese and sweet corn and fried (quesadilla type things), pasta, beans on toast, sandwiches, shop-bought pasties with beans. I agree it’s a slog doing 3 meals a day every day!

Wrap/bagel pizza, even toddler dc can get involved in making them so your school age dc should manage fine

Wraps instead of sandwiches make a nice change

Omelette\egg muffins

Salad with chicken, coleslaw etc

Beans, spaghetti hoops, fried eggs on toast

Jacket potatoes with tuna/beans/ cheese

Soup & bread

Stir fried straight to wok noodles, with whatever pepper, grated carrott etc you’ve got with some soy sauce

Toasties

Pancakes

Sausage sandwiches; dippy egg + soldiers; loads of tomatoes + mozzarella on ciabatta, drizzled with olive oil and put under the grill.

Jackets in the oven in the morning on low. So good after a few hours.
Tortilla wraps fried in the pan With melted cheese and ham.
Sausage casseroles in the slow cooker sausages, tin of tomatoes, beans, peppers onions,
Spag bol, once with pasta,leftovers with jackets.
Pasta and sauce.
Cheats toad in the whole, sausages done in the over. Chuck a bunch of aunt Nessie’s Yorkshire’s on top for the last 5 mins. Bisto Gravy.
Ploughmans.
Subway delivered!

Aunt Bessies!!

Stuff cooking at lunchtime! Sandwiches made by the eater here. DS has to find 2 fruit or veg to have with his, but he sorts it. DH and I are both working FT, and I barely have time to stuff lunch down between meetings, so we don't eat together

Surely people don't need a 'proper' meal at lunchtime, if there's dinner later?

Sarnies
Toast
Cheese and crackers
Tin of soup
Croissants stuffed with cheese and cooked until it melts
Pitta, hummus, and carrots
Egg cob or egg on toast
Sausage roll
Scotch pancakes with yoghurt and berries

That's as complicated as things get here.

We are liking a big sit down lunch followed by a snooze, afternoon walk and a snacky tea at the moment.

Quiche and salad
Pasties/sausage rolls
Hot dogs
Wraps
Quesadillas
Nachos
Sandwiches
Bagels
Soup
M&S runny scotch eggs from the Castro pub range
Leftovers
Eggs on toast
Pancakes

we have been only shopping once a week so the first few days are bread buns/bread in some form with various fillings, bacon/egg/cheese/ham etc then after that we get on to pizza, pasta, soup, fry up, crackers, home made scones,

Soups
Salads
Sandwiches
Toasties
Eggs
Quesadillas
Wraps

Same issue here. We rotate in pasta and sauce, quick, cheap chicken noodles with added veg, tinned hotdogs in buns. Plus DH and I take it in turns to make lunch to reduce the load.

Stir-fry veg, + chicken, prawns etc, + different herbs & seasonings to make it Chinese, Indian, Italian etc. Quick & easy.
I usually spiralise/shred/grate the veg in bulk & it keeps in the fridge for a few days, or use a pack of stir-fry frozen veg.

I usually just do leftovers
But if that’s not for you

Pitta/veg sticks and hummus
Falafel
Soups (leek and potato, spicy parsnip, cauliflower and harissa)
French bread pizza
Pasta salads
Stir fry

I've been doing brunch and dinner to make it only 2 meals on some days.

Goodness, we have the same thing five days a week (the meat in their sandwiches varies slightly). I don't think it's ever occurred to anyone to complain (they have the same when not in lockdown too). It's like breakfast - most of the time it's the same thing every day.

I do have a strong suspicion there's a family tendency to the ASD spectrum...

Cheese, crackers and "bits"
Soup and bread
Toasted pittas with houmous, salad etc.
Omlette
Left overs, risotto balls (bit fiddly this), pasta, fried up new potatoes etc
Stuff on toast
Toasies

Think thats it, but it's hard work!

I like Asian style soup for lunch, broth with finely chopped veg, shredded chicken or flaked fish, sometimes noodles or gyoza. You can use Knorr stock or tinned consommé or HM broth.

Another quick lunch is gnocchi (cooks in minutes) with things like diced salami, Parma ham, mozzarella cubed, semi dried tomatoes, stirred in once drained. So, not a sauce, which would be too time consuming for lunch, just tasty things to add interest.

Slices of frittata, fishcakes, toasted sandwiches are also good.

Soooo bored too. Taking notes.