What's for Lunch?

[Attached Mama]

I need ideas
I'm not a very big breakfast eater and usually just have about a 16 oz smoothie of milk and yogurt with about 5 strawberries or milk and kefir with about 5 strawberries. We don't get up very early around here so lunch follows breakfast with only a few hrs between.

By lunch I'm hungry! I've recently lowered carbs dramatically due to blood sugar issues - and I'm finally back to pre-pregnancy clothing 3 yrs after dd was born. I've lost weight and my body /BMI espec has gone way done.

But w/o many carbs, I just don't know what to eat for lunch that isn't very labor intensive to make.

This is a bit complicated because I don't like straight meat - I was veg for 5 yrs and didn't ever eat much meat the rest of my life. It has to be very flavored like taco meat or sloppy joes or something.

I usually save my carbs for dinner. I can eat a certain amount each day and be ok, but beyond that I notice drops in blood sugar.

[lynchyk]

How about a big salad with cheese/meat/hard boiled egg??? Egg salad is easy too.

It is hard to think of lunch without breads or crackers...

[Ms. B. Sprout]

My lunch standby is black beans. I make a huge pot & freeze in 2 cup portions. I make soup & a variety of Mexican-style dishes with them, with all the trimmings. They're super fast & easy.

I don't know whether black beans are high glycemic index or not. I know that different beans vary in the way they effect blood sugar.

I eat them with abundant fat (bacon grease for frying, full-fat Greek yogurt on top of them, cheese on top too), which might help temper their effects on blood sugar.

If beans are out of the question,then I'm sorry for having made you read this!

[mbravebird]

Canned wild alaskan salmon, prepared like tuna salad? Open faced on bread, or just added to a bed of lettuce?

[Koalamom]

Yesterday I had:
local cheese
org lettuce
raw butter, vinegar, olive oil (mayo replacement)
chicken (leftover from bone broth chicken)
all on 2 slices of fresh homemade WW sourdough bread
and a cultured pickle on the side

My 2 yr old devoured a whole sandwich too. She begged for more lettuce since she wanted to be like a bunny.

[Shakti77]

attached mama, I have sugar issues as well and I'm in a low carb diet (have carbs for breakfast and then no carbs for lunch/dinner).

What usually works for me is roast a whole chicken in the crockpot and remove the meat, shred it and flash freeze it for a while, then transfer it to a ziploc.
I use this meat for different meals - sometimes I just stirfry it with onions, ginger, garlic, curry powder, spices... sometimes I make it like taco meat with taco seasonings.. sometimes I throw it in a curry (thai red/green/yellow curries) or a soup with lot of veggies.. or chili or a salad While I can use frozen chicken directly in the curry/soup/chili, I have to thaw it before adding to salads.

I also use it for quesadillas, burritos, etc - but that wouldn't be a low carb solution, if you are trying to avoid carbs.

I have stopped roasting the whole chicken in a crockpot now, since the meat tastes a bit different. These days I roast two chickens in the oven simultaneously, and save the meat for later.

Also, bean soups - they fill up well and lets me go long before the next snack.

You can also bake chicken nuggets, fish nuggets and flash freeze for later. Meatballs freeze really well (both cooked and raw ones). I bake a large batch of meatballs and keep them handy for sudden lunch hungers. Can be put it soups, sandwiches, curries, or eaten on its own too.

Sometimes I also keep 1 cup portions of cooked beans in the freezer. Canned ones work in a pinch too. for soups, salads, etc.

[quietserena]

is meatloaf too 'meaty'? can freeze it in slices too and only get out what you need.

[covertlycrunchy]

Lunch is usually my big friggin' salad meal. If it is vegetarian I usually add a lot of olives and make sure to put on a lot of olive oil on the salad and some roasted almonds/walnuts. Love beets with it too. I can toss on some canned chicken or leftover from a roast (I too make 2 roast chickens just for the leftovers) or maybe some canned salmon (quick heated w/ some dried dill) or fried/hardboiled eggs. YUM.

[Tcarwyn]

Pizza made with a tapioca flour crust (very thin so low in carbs, and grain free) mozarella cheese, homemade (and home- canned from last summers heirloom tomatoes) tomato sauce, black olives, sardines, and chickweed (its everywhere right now and the kids love to pick it and eat it) and fresh oregano and chives.

That was definately very yummy

tanya

[blueridgewoman]

I do the big salad thing-- I prewash and shred a head of lettuce at a time and store it in the salad spinner in the fridge. I also premake dressing out of raw honey, grain mustard, ACV and olive or walnut oil AND fry bacon in the evenings.

So all I do when I need lunch is chop a pepper and a carrot, crumble some cheese and bacon, whack up an avocado and sprinkle a few olives over a handful of lettuce and dump the dressing on top. I usually have a side of fruit and a big glass of milk.

It's tasty.

[BetsyPage]

Originally Posted by bluebirdmama1

Yesterday I had:
local cheese
org lettuce
raw butter, vinegar, olive oil (mayo replacement)
chicken (leftover from bone broth chicken)
all on 2 slices of fresh homemade WW sourdough bread
and a cultured pickle on the side

My 2 yr old devoured a whole sandwich too. She begged for more lettuce since she wanted to be like a bunny.

That sounds right up my alley! Yum!

Question... was that meat that had cooked for a LONG time, or did you cook the meat, take the chicken off, and continue with the broth? I hope my question makes sense... trying to figure out how to get meat usable for other purposes when making chicken broth...

[CrunchyChristianMama]

Every Sunday night is soup night. I make a triple batch so that it will last for lunches all week long. I rotate between beef stew, butternut squash with spicy chicken, taco soup, and chicken and quinoa. I just think soup warms up so much better than any other leftover.

[Attached Mama]

maybe i need to make more big salads - and could use the shredded chicken on those...

Yes, meatloaf is too meaty lol

And I love beans, but they make me feel *awful* - both gassy and i get so sleepy i can't even stay awake from blood sugar dropping.