Outside the Brown Bag: Lunch Ideas

Sometimes figuring out what to being to work for lunch can be a trial.  Buying lunch on campus can be incredibly expensive, not to mention a less healthy option.  In the student center where I work the average cost per lunch is about $7, so if you're buying lunch every day for a year that could be $1,715 or more!  I have a couple of ideas for lunches that can be made easily in advance.  Each is more of a formula than a recipe; you can use the ideas as building blocks to suit your own taste.

Salads are a great lunch option when you're able to do your prep work on Sunday, and make your morning routine easier.  This recipe is from my roommate, Christine, who is a veritable queen of salad construction.  This one has spinach, strawberries, red onion, edamame, roasted acorn squash, and feta cheese with a balsamic vinaigrette.  Christine will roast the squash and chop the onions on Sunday an assemble the salad in the morning.  Remember to put the dressing on the side until you're ready to eat to keep the salad from getting too soggy.  Try to stick to dark, leafy greens like spinach, arugala, kale, or some blend of those.  Generally, vegetables that are dark in color are nutrient rich.  Dark greens are a particularly good source of iron.

The second lunch idea I'm variation of an English ploughman's lunch, which is typically a combination of meat, cheese, bread, fruit, vegetables and condiments like mustard or chutney.  The picture above is smoked gouda cheese, summer sausage (a purchase made when I was feeling nostalgic for the Midwest), and a sliced apple (my favorite variety, Pink Lady).  A good formula for this lunch is fruit/vegetable + protein + dairy.  Here are some ideas for each category that you can mix and match:

• Fruits: apples, pears, grapes, pineapple, strawberries
• Vegetables: cucumbers, radishes, broccoli, cauliflower
• Protein: summer sausage, salami, prosciutto, thick-sliced ham
• Dairy: Cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese

You can also add bread or crackers, and a condiment like chutney or a whole grain mustard.

These are a couple of new lunch ideas - I'd love to hear from other #SApros about they types of lunches you bring to work!  Share those in the comments!