Low-cost lunches can taste great, be healthy
BEYOND PBJ | Nutritionist shares tasty brown-bag suggestions
(Rich Hein/Sun-Times)
If you bring your lunch to work to cut costs and are bored with the menu, take heed.
By applying a different take "on simple things" and utilizing food items that people typically have in their homes, "taking your lunch doesn't have to be boring, and it doesn't have to break the pocket," says Lynnette Mensah, University of Illinois Extension program nutrition and wellness educator.
It also needn't be limited to cold cuts and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, she added.
Working with breads, cheese, raw vegetables, fruit, eggs, poultry, seafood and other food items, she shared some nutritious and tasty lunch ideas she priced out at costs ranging between $1 and $2.50, excluding beverages.
Among dishes she prepared:
• • A tortilla wrap, stuffed with refried beans, grated cheese, lettuce and tomato, with salsa on the side, served with tomato soup
• • A grated cheese salad served in a pita with cucumbers and tomatoes, and veggie slices on the side
• • A chicken salad sandwich with lettuce and cheese on a wheat bun, also served with soup.
"You can use several different types of bread," said Mensah, noting that adds variety.
The chicken salad she pointed out came from leftovers.
Among other dishes she shared is a tuna salad made with apples and nuts, served on a bed of lettuce with wheat crackers and oranges on the side; and a veggie sandwich topped with sliced boiled egg served on toasted whole wheat bread and served with nonfat yogurt.
To add more variety, "why not take breakfast for lunch," she said.
Consider bringing your favorite cereal and milk, add some fruit to it and a boiled egg for protein, she suggested.
For peanut butter lovers, she didn't prepare the typical P&J sandwich.
"I know we all get tired of peanut butter sandwiches," she said. "But there are a lot of things you can do with peanut butter, and peanut butter is a healthy food."
She mixed it with raisins and pumpkin seeds and spread it on cinnamon scroll bread.
She also made a peanut butter bar that she served with apples. The recipe:
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups uncooked quick oats and 1 cup chopped nuts
Blend that together, roll into a 9-inch-by-13-inch pan, and put it in the refrigerator for firmness. Cut into 30 squares.
Mensah regularly takes her lunch to work.
"I spend little or nothing," she said. "I really just throw together whatever I happen to have in my refrigerator. I try to have a healthy lunch.
"Take some cereal once in a while. Make a salad. Take a home-made soup. Consider leftovers. All of these are ways that you can save money," she advised.