What are some healthy lunch meals/recipes?

A bowl of thick vegan chowder, bean or veggie soup with some fresh dark greens on top.

If you’re the cook, most soups start with sautéing some chopped onion, celery, carrots (leeks, shallots, garlic?) in EVOO. Then add vegetable broth and your choice of beans, pasta, and vegetables. Simmer until everything is tender. Almost anything goes.

Soup sounds good, but I never feel full with soup.

Something I really like is Tuna or chicken salad stuffed tomatoes or avacados. Shrimp is great also. Another healthy and low cal lunch is the same tuna/chicken salad mix stuffed into celery stalks. Cottage cheese with a sweet chili sauce drizzled over it and whole grain chips as a dip is awesome too!
Another thing I really like is a big bowl of stewed tomatoes with french bread and extra sharp white cheddar cheese.

I also make a cucumber, grape tomatoe and black olive salad with light red wine or Balsamic dressing.
A baked potato with salsa and light sour cream is delicious too!
Brown rice with pinquito or black beans is very good also and creates a complete protein.
Quiche is another favorite along with BLTS made with low fat turkey bacon, or you can make a “mock” BLT with bacon bits instead of real bacon.
Another favorite is a veggie burrito with beans, diced tomatoes and cucumbers and alfalfa sprouts. Really good!

Oh man..I am getting hungry now lol

You can check out Jamie Oliver’s 30 minute meals on Youtube.

Like this Thai Curry

If there’s a microwave available, you can take anything you’d have at home and zap it.
And some things that are usually eaten hot are also pretty good cold. Pizza is one.

Leftovers make great lunches.

If you use less fluid and more filling (such as quinoa, brown rice, barley) in addition to the legumes and veggies, you call it stew.

I was going to suggest soup too. If you eat a good hearty soup along with a good piece of crusty bread it should provide a satisfying lunch, but since you said you don’t want that I’ll try again. Course I’m not talking about Campbell’s soup from a can. I’ll post a few and see what you think.

Don’t discount salads that are complete meals (not just lettuce and tomato). And sandwiches too, but not just your average PB & J or tuna sandwiches. Here I go:

Hummus and Grilled Vegetable Wrap

Mexican Chicken Salad (Note: you can sub Vegenaise for the regular mayo if you want.)

Asparagus Pesto Pasta Salad (Note: I’m not a big fan of whole wheat pasta, but to boost the nutritional content I often use Ronzoni Smart Taste Pasta which has added fiber and protein, but tastes like regular pasta) Also, you could probably sub broccoli for the asparagus to change it up or you could also add some cooked chicken breast.

Multi-Bean Soup with Turkey Kielbasa (This would be good served with some Cornbread

Greek Chicken Salad Lettuce Wraps

Salmon Salad (Note: can also be served in a hollowed out tomato as per @Coloma‘s suggestion or in Cucumber Cups)

Fresh Spring Rolls with Shrimp

Minestrone Soup with Kale and Yukon Gold Potatoes

Spicy Roasted Sweet Potato Salad with Fresh Pineapple

Grilled Portobello and Red Pepper Burgers (Note: I usually use whole wheat burger buns like these from Oroweat)

Turkey Joe’s (You can use the whole wheat buns for these too)

Turkey and Black Bean Chili (which can also be served over Ronzoni Smart Taste Pasta mentioned above)

Vegetable Potsticker Soup

Grilled Salmon Salad with Orange Sesame Vinaigrette

Spicy Peanut Butter Asian Noodle and Chicken Salad

Chinese Chicken Salad

Russian Borscht with Turkey Sausage (would be very good with a slice of Rye Bread)

Curried Apple Waldorf Salad with Chicken (note: I usually sub dried cranberries or dried sour cherries for the raisins, gives it a real tangy punch).

Low Fat Mushroom Quiche (Note: I’ve made this multiple times and I’ve tried it with some tasty whole wheat crusts that I got at Whole Foods, you can also add some broccoli if you like or some low fat grated cheese)

Hopefully something on this list will tickle your fancy. Most of these things can be prepared the day before, and if you have a microwave at work/school, most of these will be fine. Enjoy!

Wow helpful answers. Thanks everyone!! I’ll be referring back to this. Thanks for the Thai recipe.. my dad’s side is from Thailand and here at work is the restaurant they own next door so I eat Thai food a lot. They say it’s unhealthy (can be) but I don’t know how they eat fattening curries and still stay thin lol.

@chelle21689 Who is the “they” that says Thai food is fattening? Your observation that Thai people tend to be thin is more valid than “they” are. I suppose coconut oil in great quantities could be fattening, but I don’t see it used in great quantities in Thai cooking. Enjoy it!

For the past week I’ve been snacking on small curd cottage cheese, granola, and berries.

It’s SO easy, especially if you have an office/refrigerator at work. I just leave a bowl at my desk and when I start feeling hungry, I just add a few spoons of each. SO good, and filling too!

I just found www.skinnytaste.com. Amazing~

What I just had. Start with a large flour tortilla. Spread cream cheese and refeer beans on it. Then add lettuce, tomato, salsa and cheese. Roll up, poke holes in it, smother with cheese, nuke for 2 minutes. SOOOO yummy and good for you! You can make some in advance. They’ll stay in the fridge for a few days.

@Dutchess_III I do hope that you meant refried beans and aren’t really sitting around huffing on a big burrito-sized doobie : )

but then again…

American sandwiches are a disgrace. Deli meats are filled with nitrates, sugar and salt, and tuna is even worse, with an unsafe level of mercury. I strongly recommend making nice homemade dinners and taking leftovers to be heated in the microwave if you have one, or placed into a vacuum-walled stainless thermos if you don’t have a microwave. Spaghetti! Homemade chicken soup! Leek and Potato soup! Lasagna! The list goes on and on.

@JaneraSolomon: Most chickens do not belong in the stock pot either. They have terrible lives, eat lethal feed, are loaded with antibiotics and are killed in a most dreadful way.

The sanitized version

@gailcalled, as you can see by my responses in this question:
http://www.fluther.com/139185/is-this-how-i-should-condition-my-rooster-not-for-fighting/
I have many years experience in raising and butchering my own birds. Also several decades experience in organic vegetable gardening. I know where every one of my ingredients come from and what goes into my food and my birds. I’m also a trained chef and also certified in sanitation and food safety. Your assumptions about terrible lives, lethal feed and antibiotics do not apply to home/family farms, 4H clubs, organic and kosher bird farms and 3rd world countries and a variety of other sources, but rather only to the few massive factory farms that supply birds for food service and some supermarkets. I don’t buy such birds, thanks.

@JaneraSolomon: but rather only to the few massive factory farms that supply birds for food service and some supermarkets.

Some supermarkets? Are there any supermarket chains in the US that do not carry mostly factory farm chickens? And there is a lot of abuse in kosher bird farms as well.

Kosher chickens

I live in a rural area where many people (including my sister) raise free-range chickens for the fresh eggs. However the coyotes and foxes have picked most of them off.

But very few of us are eating the chickens any longer.

I think you mistake vegan misinformation and hysteria for fact. Empire Kosher does not use “lethal feed and antibiotics,” whereas some factory farms use ground chickens and chicken waste in the chicken feed. Why? because it’s not kosher. They use 100% vegetarian feed that is antibiotic free. And the assertion that kosher or halal killing methods are cruel, well I don’t agree. They are specifically meant NOT to be cruel, why? Because it’s not kosher to be cruel. What is REALLY a cruel death however is when a well-meaning misinformed vegan releases a chicken or domestic rabbit into the woods and thinks they’re doing it a favor, only to have the poor animal ripped apart by a wild dog, fox, raccoon, or other creature. Nature isn’t kind.

I do not consider myself either misinformed or hysterical.

I didn’t claim you were, but there are indeed vegan/PETA groups that do spread hysterical misinformation, and “United Poultry Concerns” which you cited is one of them. Among the activities of UPC was campaign to abolish the production and sale of “rubber chicken” toys, saying that they are “cruel and obscene” and have “pornographic implications.” Referring to the terrible loss of life in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, UPC founder Karen Davis argued that “the people who died in the attack did not suffer more terrible deaths than animals in slaughterhouses suffer every day.” She’s not the sort of person I’d invite over for dinner.

@gailcalled I haven’t been keeping up with this thread, but b/c your most recent response was a one liner amid a pile of paragraphs I read it.

With that being said, do you think anyone who is misinformed or hysterical considers themself so? I don’t know I just read that one line and that’s the first thing that came to mind.

My few hysterical friends always fess up.

Wow…never met anyone so quick to pick a fight!

I like to make lettuce wraps. I fry up some hamburger with garlic, ginger, soy sauce and chopped water chestnuts. I add a little cornstarch to the soy sauce to make the juice a little thicker. Then I just take a portion of the filling and a bunch of lettuce leaves to work, nuke the filling and eat.