Veganuary: Vegan Work Lunch Ideas

No matter what your diet is, preparing work lunches can become uninspiring and tiring pretty quickly. I've put together a quick post of some ideas I have found that have worked really well, so whether you're doing veganuary and don't know where to start or you're looking for something new hopefully you'll find something here!

Fresh Lunch Pots

A healthy but filling lunch: a bol pot and banana chips

Sometimes, supermarkets will have pots full of fresh veg such as the 'bol' pots on offer, making them a cheap and healthy lunch! These can be whacked in a microwave once you're at work for a few minutes, so they're quick too. If you have time, you could even make your own! Some flavours already out there include Sri Lankan Sambar (pictured), thai curry, falafel tagine and paella.

Soup

Be careful when buying soup from the supermarket - most of them tend to contain cream of some sort, and sometimes meat too. Amy's kitchen do a range of vegan ones which can found in the "Free from" section of Tesco. Baxter's healthy bean and Mediterranean tomato are vegan too. If you have time, you could even make your own - if you're stuck for inspiration, I have recipes for tomato and red pepper soup and spiced butternut squash soup on my blog!

Instant Snack Pots

Not all of these are particularly good for you, but are ace for a quick and fuss-free lunch. Tesco's WICKED brand now do coconut rice noodles and 2 types of vegan macaroni cheese, which are with the other instant noodle pots. Kabuto do a couple of ones that are labelled SFV, and TWISTD do an east Indian spiced lentil pot, though watch out because some of their other ones that look similar have milk in. Itsu also do two lovely one - chilli miso and satay - which are labelled SFV too. 

Sandwiches

The Walker's baked veg crisps are first class imo 

This may be an obvious one, but there's so much you can do with bread! I find buying a pack of 6 tiger rolls from Tesco works well for the week, and if you go in the evening you can quite often find them for 17p! They freeze really well too. You could also use other breads that travel well such as bagels, granary bread, white bread, wraps, or a crusty roll.

There are lots of fillings to think about too! Quorn ham and chicken are great, not too expensive and aren't too many calories too if that's something that concerns you. My favourite way to have these is to have spinach, sweet chilli and Quorn chicken rolls or a roll with Quorn ham and a violife slice! Sainsbury's sell some tofurky slices which have a really lovely flavour. If you have time, you could even make your own 'egg' filling with tofu, vegan mayo, turmeric and black salt if you have any (this gives things an 'eggy' flavour). Of course, there's always the standard marmite or PB&J if you want too. 

Meal Deals

My favourite Boots meal deal

If you're in a real hurry and are lucky enough to live in close proximity to a supermarket, you could always grab a meal deal. Tesco have their falafel and hummus wrap in theirs, but sadly their Wicked range isn't part of the meal deal and cost around £3 for the sandwiches alone. M&S have a wide range of vegan meal deal options including a hoisin 'duck' wrap, 'turkey' sandwich, a 'tuna' mayo sandwich and even a vegan egg & cress sandwich! My personal favourite is Boots - I loved their vegan Christmas sandwiches (the sausage one is pictured) but they've recently released some new ones including a vegan southern fried chicken wrap.

Pasta

This can be really handy when you've made too much for dinner the night before. Pesto pasta works really well - my favourite is tesco free from pesto, quorn ham fried to be like bacon, mushrooms and spinach! You can warm it up it eat it cold if you prefer. 

Snacks

Some ideas for vegan snacks:

• Banana chips (make sure you check they don't contain honey! Sainsbury's own do :( )
• Apple slices
• Strawberries/blueberries
• Alpen jaffa cake cereal bars (they are on offer for 99p for 5 in Tesco at the moment!)
• Any flavour of nakd bar
• Chocolate bourbon biscuits (double check for milk but most brands are SFV!)
• Apples/Banana
• Orange or satsumas
• Crisps (Ready salted are usually ok, double check salt and vinegar flavour as some brand put milk in! If you're stuck, Kettle and Pringles label which of their flavours are vegan).
• Gingerbread men (Tesco sells these in boxes of 30 so they last you a while!)
• Salted mixed nuts