Top 3 Easy, Healthy and Cheap Lunch Ideas for the Office
Saturday, July 22, 2017 @ 5:50 PM
When you work in an office it is often very tempting to eat or order out. However, this quickly becomes very expensive. When I worked in an office, I found that lunch costs were eating into my monthly finances, and I decided to start making my own lunches.
Top 3 Cheap Healthy Lunch Ideas
There are many ways of putting together cheap lunch ideas for the office. The great thing is that many home made lunches are often healthier than lunches bought from a deli or take-away. Making your own lunches will not only save you money, but also make you healthier. I had some favorite lunches which I used to make, and I thought I would share some of them with you.
How to Make a Quick and Easy Tomato Soup
Tomato soup is really easy to make. I never used fresh tomatoes, instead I opted for tinned sieved tomatoes which works just as well. This simple lunch idea can be made in a crock-pot or cooked on top of the stove for 10 minutes.
For this recipe you need two tins of sieved tomatoes, 2 sticks of celery, one onion, one stock cube and 4 cups of water. You can add your own favorite spices, and mine were basil or rosemary, but thyme is nice as well.
Put all the ingredients in a pot and crumble in the stock cub. If you are using a crock pot this recipe will take about 2 hours, but on the stove it only take 10 minutes.
If you can't heat your soup up at work, invest in a good quality Thermos flask. This healthy lunch option tastes great with a crusty bread roll.
Top Tips for a Healthy Sandwich Lunch
A sandwich lunch is always amongst the top the of cheap healthy lunch ideas. There are many different versions of this lunch, but a nice idea is your classical chicken sandwich. Chicken is rich in protein and will give you energy for the rest of the afternoon.
If you want to be extra healthy, you can always replace the mayonnaise with a yogurt dressing. Carrots and celery both mix well with yogurt style dressings. Add an apple and you have a really healthy energizing lunch. Just what you need when you are busy at work. By the way, why not spice up your lunch time sandwich with some guacamole.
Make Your Own Salad Lunch
You can't eat tomato and chicken sandwiches all the time, so a salad lunch is a great summer option. Lettuce does tend to go limp quickly, but green sprouts such as alfa alfa will stay fresher for longer. Sprouts have a high nutritional value, and are fun and easy to grow yourself.
There are many ways of making your salad lunch tasty. Try to experiment with different pastas, dressings and main ingredients. A really healthy main ingredient is cold water fish such as tuna or salmon. Cold water fish are rich in Omega 3 Essential Fatty Acids, and will help to keep us healthy. Tinned tuna is just fine in your salad, but you may want to buy fresh salmon. Steamed fresh salmon is really tasty, and goes well with many different dressings.
I could carry on with many more cheap healthy lunch ideas, but I learned that it is really important to experiment in your kitchen at home. There are so many healthy foods which are easy to use. However, I would like to point out that cheap healthy lunch ideas should never be boring. The key to a good lunch is always variation, you don't want to eat the same thing every day.