What do you all eat for lunch?

[BountyBop]

What do you all eat for lunch!?

Trying to eat a bit healthier so looking for recipes/ideas online. But seriously....who has the time (or money) to be cooking chicken, rice, veg from scratch every day for lunch!?

I have a good breakfast and happy to cook properly for dinner but looking for easy, healthy (and hopefully cheap) lunch ideas?

Thanks!

Lunch is often scrambled egg/ tomatoes/ mushroom/ beans on toast, omelette (left over meat or veg) and salad. Leftovers from last nights tea (even if its half a portion so today im having left over Jambalaya small portion with wholemeal pitta bread).
Piece of fruit or two.
I'm on a budget so am careful, I also don't normally have breakfast so can have a few extra calories if needed.

I don’t have breakfast and eat lunch instead. Usually a tin of tuna with a tin of sweetcorn or chickpeas dumped in, sometimes with a bit of wholemeal pasta or rice.

Usually leftovers! I make more than needed for dinner then lunchbox it up in half portions and have for lunch for a couple of days.

Otherwise I'll prepare lunch the night before. Often it's just dead simple, chicken breast lobbed in the air fryer, some salad bits or roast veggies, whack it in a lunchbox, job done.

We're approaching soup and stew season which I'm excited about because making an enormous batch of soup and portioning out and freezing for lunch is my favourite low effort way.

I often don't have breakfast or if I do it's coffee with some fruit or a slice of toast but my lunches consist of:

Porridge
Yogurt with protein powder
Protein shake
wrap (fav filling is raw red cabbage, raw red pepper, cucumber, tomato, grated carrot, raw onion and slither of Mayo - sometimes I'll add meat if it's leftovers from day before)
Hummus and veg sticks
Under 99 calories snacks (crisps, popcorn, pink&whites marshmallow wafers, malt loaf bars, baby bell)
Avocado on toast with lemon and black pepper - sometimes with salmon
Rice crackers/ ryvita/ crisp bread with cream cheese and beetroot
Fruit usually a whole fruit (apple, banana or peach) with some snacking pots of fruit (pineapple, melon or grapes)

I generally fast and only eat in the evening but when I have lunch I ensure its high fat and protein and lower carb otherwise I feel hungry soon after.

Crudités, hummus, cheese and cold meats
Air fried med veg with any protein
Home made chicken soup with a bit of cheese afterwards
Sausage, butternut squash, sweet potato and cherry tomatoes done in the air frier with a bit of seasoning.

I batch cook different soups and freeze in portions. I also do the same with lentil dahl (have with some rice on hungrier days)
I also like having leftovers from the night before. I feel like If I have something hot for lunch (as much as I enjoy a salad now and then) that it feels more hearty and satisfying so I don't feel like I'm watching my calories.

I get the ready made stir fry veg packs and do that with some cooked chicken. Only takes 5 minutes.

Or Tesco do some nice 'healthy' ready meals. There's a nice tomato chicken one with a few new pots and green beans.

Couple of eggs in some form or another, maybe with one slice of brown toast, and a protein yoghurt.

I work shifts 7-7.30 3 days. The days I'm dayshift i tend to have my biggest meal for lunch like Chilli, tuna pasta, lentils and chicken or any other usual dinner. Days I'm off i gave something lighter like a salad, topped ryvita or eggs. If you like tuna i really like the Tuna light lunches and they are less than 250 calories.

Dinner leftovers from night before

Or:
Scrambled eggs with avocado on one slice of wholemeal toast
Hummus and wholemeal pitta with salad
Various veg soups in soup maker plus wholemeal pitta and hummus
Tuna and sweetcorn in Greek yogurt on baked sweet potato
Falafel with yogurt & tahini sauce plus salad
Good old beans on toast!

I buy jars of sauerkraut, beetroot, gherkins etc so can do an easy salad that way

At work I usually have a tin of chunky soup which is 160 Kcal and a protein yogurt at 90 ish Kcal. I might have some crisps or a Dairylea triangle if I'm hungry as well though. This works out to be around 45g of protein depending on the cheese / yogurt / soup.

I also eat leftovers quite a lot but I usually halve the portion from the night before to keep the calories down.

I’m limited to 3% fat per 100 g or less. So today I have some new potatoes with some ham and strawberries with a vanilla yoghurt

You can batch cook rice and freeze in serving size portions. I cook rice perhaps once every 3 months, saves time and energy costs too.

I like quick dry curries with fried eggs, or peppers/toms with omelette.

Today I'm having a curry I batch cooked and froze with some steamed veg.

Purposefully making leftovers is another good option, when we have roasted vegetables for dinner, I make an extra dish of them to have cold, taste like the vegetables you can get from deli counters, but far cheaper! And energy saving cooking it together.

I batch make lots of soup and freeze it. At the moment I'm also partial to a mixed bean salad. I make it up in the fridge and it has about 4 portions, shove it in a box on a morning with some feta cheese, half an avocado or some boiled eggs and chuck in some spinach leaves and balsamic vinegar. Really quick, tasty and filling!

Scrambled eggs and smoked salmon
Soup
Wholemeal pitta with chicken and salad
Smoked mackerel salad
Egg salad
Leftovers from the night before

Thanks everyone! Some great suggestions.

I've stocked up the fridge with some easy/healthy ish options so hopefully my days of eating crisps and rubbish for lunch are over!

I don't find lunch takes long, less than 10 mins to assemble a salad. Or I batch cook roast veg and just add that. I eat bulgar wheat too which takes less than 10 mins in a bowl with hot water then I add fresh herbs.

Leftovers, or salad with cooked chicken (cook some whilst you're cooking dinner) or feta cheese, or tinned soup in the winter (ones with lentils are more filling).

I cook a big batch of lentil/bulgur/quinoa at the start of the week and store it in the fridge. At lunch I chop up veg, herbs, hard boiled eggs, salmon, leftovers from dinner etc etc and stir it in. Squeeze of lemon and some salt and that’s it! Boring but it’s cheap, healthy and most importantly v quick.

I normally have a mixture of things in the fridge e.g. rye crackers with roquefort plus a salad with nuts, evoo, acv, dijon mustard plus saukercrat plus some protein (fish or chicken). It often also has a little of my side from the night before e.g lentils with garlic or a fried rice or bean dish.

I tend to follow with berries and dark chocolate.

Fage 0% fat Greek yogurt with homemade fruit compote, chia seeds and honey. Keeps me full until dinner. I've not tried any of the yogurt with fat in it but love this one so I'm sticking with it. I've recently got into chia pudding and have one made with frozen raspberries and morello cherry and damson compote chilling in the fridge to have for lunch.