Ideas for cold lunches?!
Ideas for cold lunches?
Trying to come up woth stuff for my boyfriend so he won't buy fast food. Looking for any ideas for cold lunch except sandwiches. Thank!!
Additional Details1 week ago
Has cooler and ice pack ;)
1 week ago
You guys are awesome!
Answers:
1 week ago
Has cooler and ice pack ;)
1 week ago
You guys are awesome!
I'm guessing he doesn't have refrigeration available where he works. If there is a fridge available, disregard the note about the water bottle.
Fill a water bottle 13 to 1/2 full. Lay it on its side in the freezer and freeze it overnight. In the morning, pull it out and fill it with water. That way, there will be ice water to have with lunch. (Unless it's regularly at least 100 degrees Fahrenheit where you keep your lunch, freezing a whole bottle doesn't give you much to actually drink as it doesn't melt fast enough.) You can also freeze punch, lemonade, or tea and fill the bottle with that in the morning instead of plain water. If the ice core melts too quickly, fill the bottle 1/2 full but freeze it standing upright. That'll make a more solid pack of ice that won't melt as fast.
Ok, now that you can keep a lunch cool without a fridge, here are a few suggestions of what to put into it:
Diced chicken in a pasta salad or green salad. Use Italian dressing, or some other dairy-free type that won't spoil or smell rancid.
Bumps on a log -- celery stalks with peanut butter and raisins in them. To keep them neat, place two together with the PB sides facing and the celery stalks showing. Wrap it with a good plastic cling wrap.
Cheese sticks and meat sticks (beef, ham, chicken, whatever) with a little container of dipping sauce. Cooked meat will keep a few hours next to a thawing water bottle just fine. Raw meat wouldn't, but who wants raw meat for lunch?
Cold fried chicken. Remove the skin before flouring the chicken, and it's much nicer when cold because there isn't that cold greasy skin stuff under the flour. Season your flour with salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, and paprika. Use a lot of the seasonings because only a little bit willend up on each piece of chicken. (To 1 cup flour add 2 tsp salt, 1.5 tsp pepper, 1 tbl garlic powder, 2 tsp onion powder, 1 tbl paprika. Yes, make it strong.)
Sliced assorted cold veggie sticks and cheese dip, peanut butter dip and/or Italian dressing for dipping. Make peanut butter dip by thoroughy mixing 2 parts PB and one part margarine. It makes the PB lighter and more easily 'dippable.' If your boyfriend likes things sweeter, add a little honey as well.
Any kind of 'wrap' in a tortilla. Hummus works well there, as do many other things.
Email me if you like for details on how to do any of these.
Pasta salads made with tuna or grilled chicken chunks is great - my boyfriend loves 'em and they can be pretty filling, depending on what else you add. I usually make mine with mayo, black olives, onion, celery, carrots...sometimes I add peas, or cheese chunks, too. Add a little salt and pepper, also.
Risotto is nice cold, so is cous cous salads. cheese and biscuits, cold pizza from night before (homemade of course)... is he going to have a cooler to keep it cold?
lol it all depends on what fits his pallet, i used to make Onigiri (Rice Balls) filled with different stuff... Sometimes Salmon, or Tuna, or Bonito. They last for a pretty long time, and extremley filling, like alot of rice dishes.
http://www.justhungry.com/2007/01/onigir...
there is a link on how to make them, you can pretty much fill them with whatever you like, (only use short grain rice!, calrose is good)
Search the web for FIlling Ideas... i've seen the most traditional, which would be plum (blegh..), Salmon, Seaweed, to the most wacked out crazy fillings such as Spaghetti, or Hamburger.
But like i said, it really all depends on his liking.
Fry up a whole bunch of chicken (or bake a whole bunch of chicken) and send him to lunch with cold chicken. Include a green, potato or macaroni salad, some carrot sticks, celery sticks, fruit (apples, oranges, grapes) and a couple little cookies (if he's one of those guys that have to have something sweet with his meal).
Beer
if hes hungry, he could eat anything cold.
Brown Bag Ideas - Fiesta Lunch
1/2 cup chopped cooked chicken or turkey
1 tablespoon chopped celery
1 tablespoon chopped green peppers
1 teaspoon finely sliced green onions
1 tablespoon sour cream
2 tablespoons salsa
1 leaf lettuce
1 soft flour tortilla
tortilla chips
1 container black bean dip
1. Combine chicken, celery, pepper& onion in a bowl.
2. Stir in sour cream& salsa.
3. Place lettuce leaf on soft tortilla, top with chicken mixture, and roll up.
4. Cover with plastic wrap.
5. Serve with chips& bean dip for a fiesta.
Salad,pastas....