Packed lunch options

Nelliegrace

Leftovers from the previous dinner? Hard boiled eggs, or cheese, or cold meat, and a variety of salads, crudités and a pot of humus or peanut butter, a flask of soup, home made lentil was my first choice, quick and frugal. Refill a small with natural, Greek style, full fat yoghurt from a larger pot and add a few berries, frozen are often cheapest. 

JIL

I agree with @Katiehound I buy a loaf or rolls at the weekend. I make my packed lunch for Monday and Tuesday on Sunday and that goes in the fridge.
I then pre slice and butter the rolls, or if its bread, take the slices and butter them for the rest of the week.
They then get frozen. 

 Tues night I do Wednesday and Thursday, takes less than 10 mins to be ok to add fillings.

I take tuna, quorn, cheese, mozzarella, brie, hummus and carrot.  I often put salad in the sandwich but also may add baby Tom's and cucumber into my lunch box.

-taff

make extra of your supper and put that in a container for the next day. Make salads but think outside the lettuce tomato cucumber box, with pasta and pesto, beetroot and cottage cheese, grated cheese, shredded lettuce, noodle salad,, rice salad [ Italian delis have a thing called insalata di riso which is a smal jar of chopped up nice things to add to rice to make a salad, but it's basically things like capers, baby frankfurter slices [ in the non veg one] artichokes, peppers, olives etc, chuck in the juice as well if you like, it's lovely. You can also add mozarella, or cheese cubes, or whatever takes your fancy. Make your own hummus with chickpeas, garlic, oil and tahini [or leave out the tahini, it's just as nice but if you do use it, whizz the tahini up for a bit first without the chick peas, was a tip I read somewhere for the texture, works really well] and add in what you like, like chopped coriander and lemon juice, or a few slices of the jarrred roasted red peppers, then add your own crudites to dip.

annieb64

Cheese , ham and other cooked meat sandwiches will freeze. I used to make DH's sandwiches once a week and freeze them. He'd take things like fresh cherry tomatoes to eat with them.

bouicca21

Greek salad
Thermos of soup and a roll
make sandwich with frozen bread - it will be defrosted and really fresh tasting at lunch time
mixed salad with bits of ham or chicken
hummus and raw veg and/or flatbread
cold meat and coleslaw

Pollycat

I second the pasta suggestion.
You could do similar with rice, adding peppers, mushrooms, onions, tuna.

When we were working I always rang the changes by having different bread.
Sometimes rolls, sometimes bread (but always good quality.
I buy malted rolls and oat topped rolls from Aldi and like the ancient grains rolls from Tesco.

For topping I do corned beef, tuna with mayo and very finely chopped red onion into it, cheese salad, various ham usually bought YS from Tesco. Aldi do nice different types of ham, and various chicken slices like tikka, coconut & lime, piri piri.

ellenvan

Another suggestion - cooked chicken portion with sides of babybel cheese, cherry tomato , grapes or banana

Rosa_Damascena

I have stopped feeding unwanted bread to the birds and have been turning leftover wholemeal bread into huge trays of bread pudding. It gets better with time and it occurred to me it could be a good breakfast option, but I'm sure it could be taken to work for a snack. It's also much cheaper to make than fruit cake but tastes similar.

The side effect is that it is making me incredibly fat.

kboss2010

Bento boxes - you can have little bits of a lot of different things and switch it up each day.

I have a 3-layer bento box I bought for about £7 off SHEIN & a few examples of my lunches would be:

Day 1
- Tuna & veg sushi rolls (very easy to make yourself - buy sushi rice, rice vinegar & nori sheets) & soy sauce for dipping
- Ritz crackers
- A small yoghurt
- sliced bell pepper & houmous
- A handful of grapes

Day 2
- Tuna & sweetcorn mayo pasta salad
- A small yoghurt
- A banana
- Carrot sticks & houmous

Day 3
- Ham & cream cheese bagel
- Ritz crackers & cream cheese
- A small apple
- Cucumber sticks & houmous

Day 4
- No-crust ham quiche (easy & quick to make & can be frozen)
- Grapes
- Bell pepper slices & houmous
- Ritz crackers

Day 5
- Ham, pepper, cucumber, carrot, apple & grape salad with mayo, black pepper & mustard dressing
- A banana
- Ritz crackers & cream cheese
- A small yoghurt

And that’s just an example of using the same basic mayo, crackers, salad veg, tuna, ham & cream cheese for different lunches.

kempiejon

I've never enjoyed the soulless sandwiches in packed lunches. Well not since mommie made them for my school lunches. There is not much food I will only eat when hot so whatever I have for Tuesday evening meal I have for Wednesday lunch. Work colleagues didn't understand that I was quite happy to have roast parsnip, potatoes and turkey with a square of stuffing on Monday lunchtime. I'd often use little gem lettuce leaves like bread.

When there's no left overs just take food. So I'll pack some carrots and tomatoes,  peanuts, crackers a slie of cheese and a few bits of fruit. If there's a microwave at work there are plenty of tins that just want warming, shelves of it at my supermarket. Beans and sausages, macaroni cheese, ravioli, 5 bean salads. Ring pull tins are easy but a can opener is no problem.

If you're really dedicated to saving money do a job lot of daal and take a tub of that. You can liven it up with salad veggies. Or raost a try of chicken wings and take a couple of them each day.