Packed lunches

I can see from my instagram and blog stats that the most popular posts still tend to be the ones around snacks and lunch ideas so thought I’d do a short post with the salads that I have recently been taking into work and how I made them. I work quite long days so it is always important for me to take in plenty of food for the daytime so that I can fill up and don’t get tempted by other food!

 

Anyway, without further ado, here is the last week or so of packed lunches:

 

1. Rocket, kale, yellow and green courgette/ zucchini ribbons, pesto, pine nuts and feta. Dressing: lemon, mint and basil.

 

This is a really easy salad to make, I didn’t cook the kale I just shredded it till it was really fine and then mixed it with the rocket. I cut the courgettes into ribbons and then briefly pan-fried them until they were soft and then added the pesto and pine nuts (which I had toasted previously). For the dressing, I just mixed two types of basil with lemon juice and a very small amount of olive oil. This salad really was good and I ended up having it for two days in a row and dinner one night!

 

2. Zoodles, samphire, tomatoes, peppers sunflower and pumpkin seeds.

Dressing: pesto.

 

This was basically leftover from my meal the night before and just consisted of zoodles mixed with pesto, then topped with samphire which I pan-fried quickly, and chopped tomatoes and peppers and lots of seeds. Really easy to do as I had most of it already from the previous evening so I just popped it in a box and added the seeds. You can read lots of my zoodles recipes here where there’s loads of ideas!

 

3. Kale, avocado, yellow pepper, cucumber, linseed and pomegranate.

Dressing: tamari and lemon

 

For this one I just popped the kale into a blender and let it process till it was very fine and then topped with chopped avocado and cucumber. I then sprinkled it with golden linseeds and pomegranate seeds and coated it with lemon juice then tamari  (I didn’t bother mixing them together first) and then mixed it all together. This is one of my favourite salads, it’s so refreshing!

 

4. Spinach, basil, rocket, courgette/zucchini and pomegranate.

Dressing: lemon, mint and basil.

 

This one was done in a huge rush so I basically just threw in everything that I had I the fridge and mixed it well together. The courgette was sliced with a julienne peeler into very fine ribbons and was served raw. I used about ¼ of a basil plant which made it so tasty. The dressing was done by crushing basil and mint leaves in a pestle and mortar and then mixing it with lemon juice and a very small amount of olive oil.

5. Quorn pieces, zoodles in tomato sauce, rocket and mixed lettuce, cauliflower ‘rice’, and pomegranates

 

This salad did not have a dressing on it as most of the components were already in a sauce or dressing of some description. As you can also probably tell from the mixture of things in the meal, it was made up of leftovers from the previous couple of days. Basically it was quorn which I pan-fried in some rapeseed oil with garlic, zoodles which were pan-fried briefly then mixed with a sundried tomato and pepper sauce, cauliflower which had been processed to the consistency of rice and then mixed with sour cream, grated cucumber and mint, all served on a bed of lettuce. Again really quick as I basically scooped up things that I already had in the fridge from previous meals.

 

I hope this helps and gives you some ideas, I never spend more than about 10-15 minutes making my lunches and they are so tasty and save lots of money!