What do you do for weekday lunches?

[themusingsofaninsomniac]

Trying to get my shit together again with meal planning, and making a different dish each night for dinner (used to make a max of two dishes per week for dinner meals and just eat the leftovers)

But I don't want to be doing 5 meals a night and also a lot of faff for lunch on top. Just wondering how everyone else does it - do you have dinner leftovers for lunch, a packed lunch or something simple on repeat for the week, or something else?

I know I'm possibly overthinking it but my ADHD brain struggles with trying to get a plan together sometimes 😅

For main meals we have a list I choose from (makes it easier) we then change the list up from time to time currently we have:
shepherd's pie,
Spaghetti bol,
Pork chops, chicken, sausage or fish, vegetables and potatoes (mash. New or roast),
chilli,
Chicken in pasta sauce,
Curry,
Chicken casserole with potatoes and veg,
Fajita,
Cajun Chicken and potatoes curry with garlic baguette
Nandos rice with chicken.
Then for lunches I do sandwiches, salads, soups, toast with eggs, beans, mushrooms or tinned tomatoes, bacon or sausage sandwich, left overs, pitta pizza, Jacket potato or just a toasted tea cake.
Every meal also comes with a piece of fruit.
I find having a list helps me meal plan (I plan and shop every 10 days). I also have two dc with asd and afrid so it helps them too.
I have found this so much less time consuming I have a list on my phone and just slot the meals into my calendar so I know what I'm doing depending on what we're doing. With things like chilli, curry I'll double the recipe and freeze half so I'm not cooking from scratch every night.

If I’m home for lunch it’s always a salad (could do this as packed lunch too though). Leaves, tomatoes, any other crunchy veg I have in, sweetcorn and then either tinned tuna, mackerel or two boiled eggs. Simple dressing. Yum!

Oh and some pitta and hummus if we have it in. Otherwise I’ll have a snack at 3/4 ish as the salad alone wont fill me until dinner.

Quite simple things for lunch like toasted sandwiches (brie with grapes on the side), beans and cheese on toast, jackets with various fillings, soup, poached egg on toast, salad e.g. - pear, walnut and blue cheese with rocket / salad, mozeralla, parma ham and grape / melon. Or sometimes cheese, apple, red cabbage / pickled onions, bread and butter, or that with smoked salmon.

Thank you! Makes complete sense to keep lunches simple and then make more of an effort in the evenings.

I was almost doing it the other way round which my partner found dull.. and worried I'd overwhelm myself by trying to make everything different.

Really great ideas, thank you!

I cook dinner every night, but everyone makes their own lunch (I have a DH and three teen DC). Sandwich, wrap, soup, salad, jacket potato etc.

I make extra portions and freeze so I don't cook every night. I appreciate that it'll take a while to build a store to enable nights off.

So I might make a big batch of Bolognese and cook pasta and use a quarter of it on Monday. At the same time I'd turn half into chilli.

I'd put half of the chilli in the fridge and have on Wednesday, and the other half of the chilli and Bolognese in the freezer for later in the month (2 days where it just needs warming and pasta / rice cooking).