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Brown Bag Lunches

By: Carl Hanson

When you take your lunch to work, saving money is in the bag.

Top Three Reasons to Brown Bag It

1. It's cheaper

2. It can be healthier than many restaurant options

3. It's easier to control portion size

Healthy Lunches for Kids

Dining out at lunch gets expensive in a hurry. Before you know it, you've ripped a hamburger-size hole in your wallet. Brown bagging it is a simple, satisfying way to save a few dollars every day--and a great way to eat better, too! Here are some quick tips and easy recipes for bringing your own.

Meatball Sandwiches

For dinner, make a humongous dish of meatballs and red sauce. Enjoy a tasty spaghetti-and-meatballs meal and save the rest for meatball sandwiches during the work week. That's a twofer, Italian-American style!

Casseroles

Pastas and casseroles travel well. Just portion them out into reusable containers and they're ready to roll. Here are some of our most popular casserole collections.

Sandwiches

Sandwiches are the usual suspects of the brown-bag lunch. But that doesn't mean they have to be boring. To reinvigorate the genre, slice up some leftover meatloaf for a sandwich or reserve the breast meat of a roast chicken and turn it into a quick chicken salad. Here's a handful of ideas.

Soups

Perfect for packing soups to work, the thermos somehow always gets it right--it keeps the hot, hot; the cold, cold. And like the old joke says, it never confuses the two. Allrecipes has a serious selection of hearty soup recipes just waiting to test the "thermos theory," with plenty of choices to suit any season.

Comments

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chrissy

Aug. 18, 2009 9:02 am

I think this is a great idea.

SUEHOWIE

Aug. 18, 2009 11:25 pm

These tips have been around as long as the brown bag lunch and Thermos have been. Any *NEW* ideas?

Anisa

Aug. 19, 2009 2:37 am

These are good ideas, though they are the well-known. Its nice to have a reminders sometimes of what we already know.

Tamara

Aug. 19, 2009 10:46 am

Here's an idea!.....if you have another foodie you work with..maybe you could swap leftovers from the night before...who knows maybe you'll find some new recipes!

Peace Frog

Aug. 19, 2009 3:31 pm

A lot of these ideas need warming to be good. Always looking for more cold, no-heat up options. My timesaver - pack the week's worth at one time, sandwich parts seperate.

Blessed

Aug. 19, 2009 7:01 pm

Well I usually have no issue with heating food up. Microwaves are pretty standard at even the most unsuspecting jobs. My foodsaver is my best friend, lol. Cook for a whole week, sometimes even the month, put it in the freezer, take it to work, heat it up and enjoy. I use tupperware plates to both freeze and re-heat my food while in the foodsaver bags. Its a routine I've become pretty comfortable with.

CHORT1313

Aug. 20, 2009 6:25 am

thanks for the idea, blessed. I have a foosaver but never thought of food saviung the plate as well!

chrisnkelley

Aug. 20, 2009 7:24 am

Pretty basic ideas here, but still, there are some good ones! I am packing my kids' school lunches, so microwave foods are not an option. Soups, casseroles, etc can be put in a small thermos that has first been heated, and it will stay hot until lunch. Another idea is hot dogs. Pack hot dogs in hot water or hot chili in a thermos. Put the bun in the bag, and the child can take the hot dog or chili dog out at lunch.

MANDYHELLO

Aug. 20, 2009 12:28 pm

I would be really interested in unusual packable meals.. almost like a bento sort of thing. I'm also always interested in really healthy foods for work. Here's an interesting recipe I just found: http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/08/melon-agua-fresca/ I'll definitely be substituting this recipe for plain water at work every now and then!

dinnercoach

Aug. 20, 2009 2:30 pm

Kids are off to school soon. Thanks for the ideas. Maybe a friend and I can Team Up (www.dinnercoach.com) and fill our freezer with ready-to-go freezer lunches. The hubby would like that too.

Jaelyn

Aug. 21, 2009 8:28 am

Okay here's one for your kids' thermos. Use left over sloppy joes or chili (in a pinch I'll use hormel turkey chili), mix with a can of condensed cheddar cheese soup (do not add milk). Divide by three to four portions, Heat in thermos and sent with tortilla chips. Protein, carbs, now they need an apple and viola. If the chili/sloppy joe haven't been frozen yet you can mix this and freeze in individual servings for a quick morning heat up.

Laura_27

Aug. 22, 2009 3:39 pm

one of my favorite sandwiches is cream and jelly on whole wheat bread.

LReed

Aug. 23, 2009 8:24 am

Any quick and easy ideas for a 7 yr old that doesn't eat bread? He is unable to heat anything up at the school.

Amy C.

Aug. 23, 2009 8:32 am

We had NO money growing up and I packed my lunch every day. One thing that my friends envyed was the hot dog. My mother would put boiling water in a thermos and a hot dog. Pack a bun. This was first grade and I am 46. I still remember.

ONE1070SIX

Aug. 23, 2009 4:29 pm

for the child who doesn't eat bread--cheese and lunchmeat cut into cubes, then spread over thin green apple slices. Sounds a little strange, but my kids love it.

Ginger

Aug. 27, 2009 5:53 am

For LReed - I had a "no bread" child, also. He loves deli sliced turkey, so I would take some slices and roll them up, fastening with a toothpick. He would sometimes want American cheese rolled inside, too. Makes a healthy lunch with a fruit and chips added.

LORIJ24

Sep. 7, 2009 8:11 am

How about using lettuce to wrap up your meats and cheeses instead of bread, a local food place does that, and they call it lettuce wraps. Or how about crackers with the meat and cheese, or peanut butter on crackers. you can always have tuna, or chicken salad on crackers as well

P. Russell

Sep. 8, 2009 8:09 pm

i need something that's quick and easy and doesn't require a microwave. i can do thermoses, but something new would be nice too.

elizabetherick

Sep. 16, 2009 5:49 am

some of the stuff on here is so delicious. The meatball recipe looks amazing but I need to watch my calories so that 6hundred something calories per serving doesn't help me a lot.

carymary13

Sep. 20, 2009 3:53 pm

my fiance packs my lunch every day... One of my favs is leftover salad... whatever meat we had the day before, put into a chopped salad. Best was flank steak with honey mustard vinagrette... sounds odd, but VERY filling and I hate salad and can say I loved every bite!

Tyra

Sep. 23, 2009 10:54 pm

One of my, & my sons, favorites is tortilla rolls with whatever leftover protein from dinner the night before. Super easy, good for you, and filling! Example: Mon night I roasted a chicken. I cleaned most of the meat off (need the carcus for soup!). Spead cream cheese on a wheat tortilla, sprinkle a touch od dry ranch or Italian dressing, add shredded chicken, then whatever veggies on hand. We like it with cucumbers, spinach, tomatoes, raw zuccini, & bell peppers. Yum! Even do this with left over salmon (use dill instead of dressing). Always a hit!!

Stacie

Sep. 25, 2009 7:33 pm

I must have led a sheltered life as I have not heard of some of these ideas. I have a two year old and he is becoming board with the pb and jelly / grilled cheese stand by's. Thanks for the ideas.

Carol

Jan. 3, 2010 5:06 pm

Yawn. How disappointing. Not all brown-baggers are children or mommies. The whole point of this article seems to be: you can package single-serving portions and make sandwiches for lunch. Gee. Really?

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