For many of us, lunch has taken on a whole new meaning during lockdown. There have been no trips to the canteen or the local sandwich shop and no packed lunches in Tupperware containers. Instead we’ve been stuck with our own kitchens for lunch ideas.
Our default weekday lunch has always been a cheese sandwich. Nothing wrong with that I hear you cry! Absolutely not. We both love cheese. We’re even relatively recent converts to the blue variety, courtesy of the amazing Tysul Blue we discovered when we were living in south-west Wales. (If you haven’t tried it yet, we highly recommend you do).
We’d happily eat cheese for lunch every day but even diehard mice like ourselves need a bit of variety every now and then – so we set ourselves the lockdown challenge of finding some simple, cost effective lunch ideas that we could make with ingredients we could easily find locally.
Here are four of our favourite lockdown lunches.
Lunch idea 1: Soup
Pre-lockdown, our winter favourite was probably the Roasted Parsnip and Parmesan soup from the classic Book of Soups by The New Convent Garden Soup Company. (our copy may be 25 years old but it’s still going strong). It’s been replaced during lockdown though by a new favourite from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Everyday – his 5-root soup with bacon. We don’t always have all five but we do make sure we have the key ingredient. Small cubes of bacon or pancetta which you gently fry before adding the onions, chopped veg and stock (homemade stock always better if you have it). It works a treat every time.
The beauty of soup though is that you don’t always have to follow a recipe as there really aren’t too many rules. It’s also great for using up whatever veg you’ve got left in the fridge. Our standard base is to gently sweat 150g of onions (or leeks or shallots) in 1 tbsp of oil (or 30g butter), before adding about 400g of chopped veg and 750ml of stock. Season, cook, blend and you’ve usually got a half decent soup. You won’t win Masterchef but you’ll have a perfectly good lunch. We think root veg are usually best but include whatever veg you like eating. Just remember that it can be hard to hide the flavour of too much of strong tasting veg like cabbage and that too many potatoes can make for a very gluey consistency.
Seasoning your soup is key but anything else, including cream, is an optional extra! You can heat things up too with your favourite chilli – or the amazing little jars of chilli paste from Goch and Co, available from our sister company The Cooking Plumber.
Bread optional 😊
Lunch idea 2: Eggs
For an easy alternative to the traditional omelette (which you should never overlook as it’s another great way to use up leftovers), we’ve taken another great idea from the River Cottage Everyday book. The Onion Frittata – made with just onions, eggs, parsley, cheese and salt and pepper. Easy, tasty and really filling.
No bread needed. Honestly.
Lunch idea 3: Wraps
Every time we have tortilla wraps, we ask why we don’t have them more often. They’re simple, easy to store in the freezer and definitely less filling than bread. They also now come in many different varieties in your average supermarket – although we tend to be boring and stick to the original ones! Anyway, they make a really simple lunch idea and can be used with meat, tofu or veg.
- Coat the chicken, or tofu, in spice (we use one of our spice rubs, approx. 3 tsps per 100g of meat)
- Fry, with or without a half a pepper sliced and 1 small onion sliced until cooked through (8-10mins)
- OR cook in the oven (with a little oil, at 200° or 180° fan for 16-18 mins) if you need to get back to your desk whilst it’s cooking
- Spoon the mix into the centre of an opened-up wrap, fold over both halves and tuck up the bottom so you don’t have to go back to work with lunch down your front 😊
- Alternatively, use a mix of thinly chopped root veg and peppers for a delicious veggie version, which you can of course top with the sauce of your choice!
Grated cheese optional. Always good on a hump day.
Bread definitely not needed.
Lunch idea 4: Coronation Tuna
Did you know that Coronation Chicken was first invented for the coronation banquet of Elizabeth II? No? Nor did we! Anyway, this sandwich-free lunch is probably our new go-to favourite. It might not technically count as a true coronation mix (no apricots and flaked almonds) but it sounds better than curried tuna. A traditional coronation mix calls for a mild curry powder so we use our own Gentle Jalfrezi curry blend in this recipe.
Ingredients (serves 1-2)
20g tomato puree
2-3 tsp Case For Cooking Gentle Jalfrezi spice mix
60g good quality mayonnaise
10g raisins
145g (tin) tuna chunks in water drained.
Instructions
In a small bowl (a breakfast cereal bowl or similar is fine), add the tomato puree, jalfrezi spice, mayonnaise and raisins. Mix well then stir in the tuna chunks. We recommend making this at least 10 minutes before eating to allow the flavours to blend.
There you have it. A really quick and easy lunch idea.
It’s great with jacket potatoes and salad, but don’t worry. If you’re still desperate for a sandwich, it goes perfectly with bread too 😊