Healthy Lunch Ideas

Recently I shared some healthy breakfast ideas, and I wanted to follow that post with some clean eating, healthy lunch ideas! While I have certainly not been eating perfectly during this time at home and beginning of pregnancy, I have been striving to eat as many vegetables as I can. Lunch is typically a mix of leftovers, a veggie sandwich, or a giant salad.

I also included some snack ideas at the bottom of the post.

Healthy Lunch Ideas

Chopped salad with cucumber, spinach, tomato, hemp seeds, bell pepper, and Tessemae’s lemon garlic dressing + leftover chicken + simple guacamole + sauerkraut + half a slice of paleo bread.

I either buy Wildbrine sauerkraut from Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s brand kraut. Both are great!

Leftover wild rice and chicken sauteéd with some frozen broccoli + avocado + sauerkraut.

This is a plate of mostly dinner leftovers: wild rice + sauteéd squash, zucchini, bell pepper + an easy broccoli salad + Grillo’s pickles wrapped in turkey.

The broccoli salad is a side dish that we’ve had often lately. Simply mix chopped raw broccoli, chopped/halved grape tomatoes, chopped almonds or pecans, sheep’s milk parmesan, and Tessemae’s lemon garlic dressing. Season with salt and pepper as needed.

This is an O’Dough’s gluten free bagel thin with Kite Hill dairy free cream cheese, tomato, turkey, avocado, and pickles.

I find the bagel thins in the freezer section of Harris Teeter near the other gluten free breads.

For turkey, I always buy it fresh sliced from the deli. Ideally, the brands I go for are Boars Head Simplicity, Applegate, and another brand you can find in the deli of Whole Foods.

This salad was greens, cucumber, blackberries, blueberries, and some leftover chicken. Tessemae’s lemon garlic dressing has been my light go-to these days.

A snack plate for the boys that could have easily been lunch. Raw cashews, apple slices, banana, almond butter. Plus pistachios, pickles, cucumber, carrots, and hummus. Sometimes simply plating food differently entices them to eat more variety.

For a few days I loved the kale salad crunch mix from Whole Foods. It’s their store brand, and it is basically a mix of raw, chopped organic kale plus cabbage mix. I would toss that with apple, cooked chicken, goat cheese, pumpkin seeds, and Tessemae’s honey poppyseed dressing – so yummy! This bowl has some of that, plus some leftover brussel sprouts salad. The brussel sprout salad is Natalie’s recipe, and the only tweak I make is that I use sheep’s milk parmesan. It’s a family favorite! The cucumber slices are topped with Kite Hill dairy-free cream cheese, turkey, and everything but the bagel seasoning.

Above is a chopped veggie salad topped with Tessemae’s avocado ranch, hemp seeds, and sauerkraut.

You guys know my love for lettuce wraps! These have red leaf lettuce, mayonnaise, tomato, cucumber, turkey, Grillo’s pickle, avocado, and pepper.

Sandwiches

I don’t have any pictures for this post, but I wanted to talk about gluten free bread options for sandwiches. During my first trimester, I craved veggie sandwiches! Our favorite bread for those was Simple Kneads sourdough. You can have them ship it to you, or find it at Whole Foods. I also have liked Canyon Bakehouse (found at many grocery stores).

To make a veggie sandwich, we included so many things: bell pepper, tomato, cucumber, lettuce, spinach, pickles, carrot slices…anything crunchy and fresh! And of course mayonnaise, salt and pepper.

Snack Ideas

Snacking has been vital for me the last few months, especially with pregnancy nausea. I have eaten more between meals than I typically would, but I’m not stressing about that. Lately I have enjoyed the following snacks:

• decaf coffee. Haha! I used to have a regular cup every afternoon, but because of pregnancy I have switched to decaf. Still a nice treat!
• Perfect Bar. I usually only have half. They do have a little dairy, but it hasn’t bothered me.
• Gluten free GG cracker with peanut butter or avocado mash.
• Apples with cashew or almond butter.
• Simple Mills crackers.
• Tortilla chips – but definitely no salsa. Chips and salsa is typically my favorite thing ever, but I can’t handle it right now.
• Pickles. Yes, it totally fits the stereotype.
• Boiled eggs. Protein seems to help the nausea.

So there are some lunch and snack ideas! Happy Friday, you all!