Lunch/Dinner Ideas

gaxarlis08

Hi All, I am a very busy student and work 35 hrs a week. I am looking for some QUICK and SIMPLE meal ideas mainly for lunch but also dinner too. Please help me out with some suggestions! TIA

michellej132015

I boil eggs over the weekend and make a mixture of canned white tuna, garbanzo beans, red onion, celery, olive oil, celery seed, salt and pepper. Then for lunch I grab a Baggie full of fresh spinach. Top it with chopped up egg and some of the tuna mixture. Yummy and filling!

gmamary66

I try and spend some time on my day off cooking. I made veggie egg muffins and meatloaf muffins this week. After they cool, I put each in a baggie and they are ready for me to grab and go.

I also am keeping boiled eggs in my fridge.

I cut up cucumber and cherry tomatoes in a container with one tsp of fat free Italian dressing and shake it up and let chill. Another great grab and go snack.

I keep a small container of roasted chickpeas in my purse as well for emergency snacks.

dearone4cal

gmamary66 - would you share your recipe for the roasted chickpeas? Those sound like a yummy alternative to a chippy type snack. I was recently diagnosed as Type 2 Diabetic and am looking for healthier options.

gaxarlis08

gmamary66 wrote: »

I try and spend some time on my day off cooking. I made veggie egg muffins and meatloaf muffins this week. After they cool, I put each in a baggie and they are ready for me to grab and go.

I also am keeping boiled eggs in my fridge.

I cut up cucumber and cherry tomatoes in a container with one tsp of fat free Italian dressing and shake it up and let chill. Another great grab and go snack.

I keep a small container of roasted chickpeas in my purse as well for emergency snacks.

Thanks for all the great ideas! Do you have a recipe for meatloaf muffins?

martyqueen52

Here's what I do weekly for lunches, I just switch the sauce I cook the chicken in:

- Get a 3lb. bag of frozen, boneless / skinless chicken breasts
- Get a crockpot
- Get 2 SMALL / MEDIUM or 1 LARGE bottle of BBQ sauce, or wing sauce, or salsa or whatever you want.
- Throw chicken + sauce in crockpot, covered, for 8 hours on low heat.
- Remove meat after 8 hours, shred it, and you're done.

You have lunch for the whole week. Just take as much as you want. Throw it on a salad, make a wrap, mix it with veggies, or eat it alone.

wkwebby

My lunches are usually my leftovers from dinner. Fajitas are always nice and simple (package of seasoning from store with chopped up skirt steak or hamburger meat with chopped up onion and peppers). The Crockpot is my weekly savior on dinner time madness though. 15 min prep, dump into crockpot and set all day for dinner when you get home. Sometimes the recipe will call for another 15 min or so after you get home, but it is my go-to for faster dinners when I know I'm coming home later at night. I use mine at least once a week. I don't know how I did without it now that I've been using it for a year.

Crockpots can make chilis, stews, and other great dishes (too many to name). I usually search the web for all sorts of recipes for the crockpot too so that we don't get too sick of any dishes. I highly recommend picking one up on sale (I got an Emeril 6-8 quart size for <$100 on clearance at an outlet). Now in addition to that, I pick up crockpot liners in the supermarket so it makes clean up that much quicker as well.

Deekay8008

Best tip I was ever given. Take a sweet potato, wash, cut it up into wedges put them straight in the George Forman with either no oil or a couple of oil sprays, 25 minutes later you have really tasty sweet potato chips, which are not high cal and are a great complex carb. Also I like to pan fry a salmon fillet with very little oil and boil an egg, I then put the fillet in a wrap with the chopped up egg, some lettuce and a little lighter than light mayo, very quick meal high in protein and quite low in cals if you have a small flour wrap.

Deekay8008

Homemade Soup

Red lentils - for quantity cover bottom of your soup pan, stop pouring once bottom of pan is covered in a layer. (rinse in cold water to remove starch first)
2 chicken / veg stock dissolved in 500ml water
3 carrots and 2 small onions blended with the stock in a blender
2 large / 3 smaller carrots cut into circular slices
cut turnip into cubes (half a standard size turnip)
Add potatoes - 5/6 small white or 1 large / 2 medium sweet potatoes cut in cubes.
Add fresh parsley - large handful with stalks removed
2/3 cloves garlic (use garlic crusher)
Salt/pepper
top with water
After 30 mins add frozen peas (about half a small bag)
Leave to cook for another hour or until all veg is soft and cooked.
You end up with low cal, low cost soup which you can have every day for about 4 days and will fill you up. You can also put into bags once cooled and freeze portions as it can be cooked from frozen when needed.

gaxarlis08

wow thanks everyone for all the suggestions!!!