Healthy, balanced but cheap lunch ideas?

ClaireLR

I'm trying to cut down on what I buy for packed lunches but at the same time eat healthily. At the moment this is what I take:

2 slices of wholemeal bread with lean meat/tuna/cheesespread
2 pieces of fruit (or 1 piece and a pot of fruit)
low fat muller light yoghurt (for calcium)
alpen light or ryvita goodness bar (both of these are not to many cals but have lots of fibre).

the yogurts work out to be 34p a pot and the cereal bars 40p so over a week/month this adds up to be quite a lot of money (there's me and OH) does anyone have any suggestions for things I could replace these with? I know really I need to stop buying the pots of fruit and just take normal fruit (and stop buying the ridiculously overpriced but delish pink lady apples). Any other suggestions for healthy lunches?

Thanks

(BTW I did check the other thread about lunches for work but I'm particularly after healthy lunch ideas as opposed to just cheap ones)

love2shopforbargains

Is it possible that you could make your own high fibre bars, not sure how to do it etc but I do remember seeing threads about that kind of thing before. You could make up a big batch and then freeze and then bring out as and when you need them.

Rather than bread, maybe try wholemeal wraps or wholemeal pitta pockets. You could maybe try a pasta or rice based dish instead of using bread.

Gingernutmeg

Have you looked in your local 99p shop? Mine has some great things for lunchboxes - cereal bars, fruit pots in juice, nuts, dried fruits etc - and it's cheap (although do be careful, some things can be dearer than supermarkets, it's worth keeping an eye out ... and obviously there's a lot of 'rubbish' there too). Also the own brand yogurts are fine. I've been buying Sainsbury's which are £1ish for 6 (I think ...) and they're lovely. Asda also do 'friendly bacteria' type ones which are about £1 too, and they're nice. The Sainsbury's value ones are perfectly ok too, and they're 28pish for four. If you don't like the packaging you could always decant them into a small tub and put muesli (99p shops seem to have Jordan's light atm) on top for a parfait kind of thing You could do this with the value plain yogurt too, and add your own fruit.

I think some small tubs are a good investment anyway, as the little 'lunch box' sized portions of stuff are horribly expensive when you work it out. You could take things like hummous, with celery, cucumber and carrots for dipping - with a wholemeal pitta that's healthy and filling.

Also, value fruit can be great. Often it's 'value' just because it's oddly shaped, not because it's poor quality and choosing that over the expensive stuff can save a lot.

SunnyGirl

I use small/medium tubs regularly for healthy lunchbox ideas. I put salads in them - either a mixed salad, a pasta/rice salad or a mixture of things like grated carrot & chopped peppers. I also make up a fresh fruit salad using things like apples, pears, satsumas, tinned pineapple in natural juice, grapes, frozen mango, strawberries etc. Pour some fresh juice, pineapple or apple is nice, and put into tubs for work. It should last 3 days in the fridge easily and is there for snacking on when you are at home i find frozen fruit to be very cost effective. Asda, particularly, have it on offer regularly and you can then take out as much or as little as you'd need.

Make some hoummus (recipe in the recipe index at the top of the grocery challenge) or another veggie dip & cut up some sticks of carrot, celery, cucumber, halved cherry tomatoes, peppers or breadsticks for a change to sandwiches. HTH

Edited to add: Sorry if I've repeated some of what other posters said re dips!

greenbee

I'm like SunnyGirl - I have some tubs that I use regularly (I take breakfast to work too... so I have small tubs for that and larger ones for lunch).

Breakfast is muesli, yogurt & fruit. I make my own muesli, buying all the ingredients (porridge oats, jumbo oats, buckwheat flakes, quinoa flakes, wheatgerm, wheatbran, oat bran, millet flakes, linseeds, almonds, brazil nuts, dried apple, dried cranberries, dried peaches, dried pears, dried blueberries etc) and mixing it myself. I either buy or make a large pot of natural yogurt, which lasts a couple of weeks quite happily in the fridge, and a chop up an apple, pear, strawberries or a banana to mix in as well.

Lunch is a salad made up of:

any or all of the following: lettuce leaves, beansprouts, cucumber, tomato, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, radishes, avocado, peppers, grated carrot, apple, baby corn, mangetout, soya beans, peas, asparagus tips (cooked)

plus some kind of protein: flavoured tofu, cold chicken, smoked mackeral, hard boiled egg, cottage cheese, goats cheese, tuna, ham, cold beef

plus some kind of carbohydrate: pasta, rice, millet, couscous or quinoa (frequently leftovers!)

I also take a couple of pieces of fruit and some almonds in case I'm working late and need to snack. The plastic bowls I use mean that my portions are controlled, so I am eating roughly the same amount each day.

I have fruit juice before I leave the house, then drink water during the day (we have purified water at work, so it tastes OK, but in the past I filled bottles with filtered water from home).

thriftmonster

Like the other posters I would try to think outside the "sandwich" box - I make P/lunches for dh and ds1&2 every day and they rarely have sandwiches per se. Today they have chicken and sweetcorn soup in flasks - HM stock, spring onions, sweetcorn and a little chicken - I flavoured the stock with garlic and ginger.

Yesterday they had (leftover) skinless chicken thigh in a lentil curry sauce, bengali carrots and peas and I made wholemeal chapatis to eat with it - Indian is quite nice cold the next day - and they got protein, wholegrains, pulses and veg.

For fruit, sometimes I buy the big jars of bottled Polish fruit in Tesco - cherries or plums when on offer - and decant portions into lock n lock containers - they keep for ages in the jar in the fridge once opened.

HTH

jonny2510

Watch out for the "low fat" own brand yoghurts. I used to get them for the DW because they were low fat, and cheap. That was until I noticed the stupid amounts of sugar present in them.

ClaireLR

jonny2510 wrote: »

Watch out for the "low fat" own brand yoghurts. I used to get them for the DW because they were low fat, and cheap. That was until I noticed the stupid amounts of sugar present in them.

Funny that you should mention that, I was in Morrisons yesterday and picked up their "bettabuy" yoghurts, looked like a bargain (30p for four I think), but the main ingredient was sugar :eek: ended up sticking to the muller light yoghurts for this week at least!

robpw2

pasta salad .. cheap and tasty

you need pasta , peppers, eggs oil , mustard powder

cook your pasta in water .. whilst doing that using a food processoer spin your eggs and mustard powder adding the oil untill thick should be yellow colour mmm

then mix pasta to mayo

Aril

Could you take a small pot of cold stewed fruit in for a change? You could cook up a batch and then freeze it in portions.
Aril

tessie_bear

could u have a go at making your own yogurt ? some initial outlay but might be worth it if u eat a lot....id stop buying the pots of fruit and buy bits of fruit...u could make pots of sugar free jelly and chuck some fruit in that....could u buy the bread when reduced and keep a good stock in the freezer....like wise with your sarnie fillings could u buy what ever is on offer or reduced....stuff that meets your dietary requirements.....u could have a go at making a fibre bar such as a flapjack...also home bargains has some cheap snack food in at times