Healthy, balanced but cheap lunch ideas?

rachbc

Replace the yog with natural low fat yog with fresh fruit/ purees fruit/ low sugar conserve.

Make your own cereal bars, wholemeal fruit muffins etc. Often the reason those bars you buy are low cal is because they are so tiny so just keep your portions small!

greenbee

I've just made my breakfast & lunch to take to work tomorrow:

banana - to eat as soon as I come out of the swimming pool so I can make it up the stairs to the changing room!

Breakfast - 3 tbsp natural yogurt, 2 tbsp homemade muesli, 1 pear (chopped), 4 strawberries (sliced) - already mixed up in a plastic box

Lunch - sunflower seeds, little gem leaves, beansprouts, cherry toms, cucumber, grated carrot, orange pepper, cottage cheese

Snack - 2 clementines

Banana is in my gym bag

Cutlery and clementines are in the coolbag, plastic boxes of breakfast & salad are stacked in the fridge, so that when I get up I just have to put them in the coolbag.

Soup for supper is defrosting in the fridge, so that I can put it on as soon as I get home tomorrow evening!

I have also stewed some rhubarb which I will freeze half of, and the rest will be used for breakfast this week.

Nicki

That is a tiny amount to eat! I can't see that it comes to more than about 800 calories, when most people need at least 1800 and more if you are a bloke or a very active woman. Surely you aren't advocating this as an example of a healthy diet plan for a whole day, when you also plan to go swimming?

Penny-Pincher!!

ClaireLR wrote: »

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)

DD (14) has packed lunches 3 times a week atm. Tomorrow, she is having:

Leftover chicken leg stripped from the bone and chopped with boiled rice and shredded lettuce.....she likes it
Fruit flakes in yogurt packet(6 packs for 99p and counts as 1 fruit)
Apple
2 x Yogurt Frubes (Frozen to keep lunch cool and 12 for 99p)
Bottle of water

Cost is 16.5p for the 2 yogurt tubes, 16.5p for fruit flakes, leftover chicken from roast, so wont count it as it needed using, apple 12p, rice 12p, lettuce 5p, water free....total approx 62p....wow...thats cheap and quite a healthy lunch I think!

Other items she has are:

Wholemeal sarnies or wraps with either ham, cottage cheese or marmite and salad etc
Boiled Eggs ( abit smelly though)
Cheese & Crackers
Pasta with chopped up meat and salad
Quiche & salad (cold new pots sometimes)
Banana or Pear or Raisins
Natural Yogurt with honey
Chunk of cheddar
Rice cakes

HTH

PP
xx

Chell

You could make the weetabix cake (search this forum for the recipe). It would be cheaper than the cereal bars.

bouncingstar

Like other people, I get a large tub/pot of bio yoghurt each week and put some into a small pot to take for lunch each day.

I tend to vary it each day with different fruits, and if I'm feeling rather indulgent but still want to be quite healthy, I mix some hot chocolate powder into the yoghurt and then sprinkle a little grated chocolate on top = instant chocolate dessert, yum!!

bouncingstar

Ooh, and just thought of another few current favourites of mine that's filling and healthy...couscous salad (couscous flavoured with some veg stock and tomato puree) with chopped up red/green peppers, cherry tomatoes and anything else I feel like chucking in it.

Also a simple pasta salad by combining some coleslaw or cottage cheese with some pasta and throwing in a few extra bits for interest, e.g. some grated cheddar, chopped carrot, tomatoes, tuna, whatever's in the fridge and needs eating!

crumblepie

If you want a yoghurt I went to Aldi's and bought 4 pack of Biofit Yogs (Ithink that's what they were called) for 99p.

I also bought chocolate and crisps for my lunch (ok not healthy) but cheap enough. To be healthy I did buy their grapes 99p, and kiwi 49p and then wandered over to tesco to buy pineapple on offer £1 which makes a fruit salad which lasts days.. to vary it I add plain yoghurt, but usually just have the fruit salad. And frozen fruit is a good option to add to plain yoghurt. Take out a handful in the morning and its defrosted by lunchtime. I'm finding frozen fruit cheaper than buying fresh at the moment.

I echo what other people have said about having a variety of pots. I bought some baby food tubs ( 3 tubs, £1 - poundland) which are leakproof for the yoghurt, salad dressings, hummus etc.

Some days I feel like I'm having a picnic with everything that comes out of my lunchbag!

wigglebeena

Houmous is great, as other posters have said. Low-fat and much cheaper than cheese or meat as a protein source. Add some toasted wholemeal bread 'soldiers' and you've got a complete protein. Throw some olives in when you're mixing it and it's really delicious (if you like olives).

Chell

Asda have yoghurts in the same shape pot as the Muller Virtually fat free for 20p each. I got some with sell by dates close to the end of May today.