What’s for Lunch? Low-Carb Lunch Recipes

What’s for Lunch? Low-Carb Lunch Recipes from CarbSmart

The Good Ol’ Days Before Low-Carb

Remember the good ol’ days when you slapped some bologna between a couple of pieces of soft, white bread, squirted on some mustard and called it lunch? Or maybe you grabbed a few pieces of leftover pizza and didn’t even bother to warm them up before you snarfed them down. And, of course, there were the times that lunch was a slab of your daughter’s birthday cake washed down with a can of Coke.

When you left the office to have lunch with coworkers you all headed for Burger Barf and proceeded to order a double cheeseburger with all the trimmings, a super king order of fries that was similar in size and digestibility to a Volkswagen. You washed all that down with one of those “secret recipe” shakes that actually don’t have any milk in them. Yum!

Ah, those were the days! The only problem was that eating that way was making you fat, was driving your blood cholesterol levels through the roof, and was making your insulin levels schizophrenic. It sure tasted good, though, and it was certainly easy. Too bad it was killing you.

So Now What? The Low-Carb Lifestyle

Now you’re a low carber and those bygone lunches of yesteryear are out of the question. You’re losing weight and feeling great, but you’re still a bit stumped over what to have for lunch. I mean, really! How much tuna salad can a person eat without sprouting gills? What in the world do you put the meat between to construct a sandwich? What could possibly replace canned soup?

It’s enough to drive a normally sane person berserk! (I am not normally a sane person, but I am assuming you are.) Discovering the joys of a low carb lunch requires a shift in thinking, as does almost all low carb cooking. It takes time to begin thinking “outside the box.” Just remember…. The box you are thinking outside of is a coffin. Eating the “old way” was killing you.

The real trick to low carb lunches is to always be prepared. Always have things ready to snatch out of the pantry or refrigerator whether you’re going to be eating at home or whether you’re going to be brown bagging it. When we stray from low carb, it’s most often those times when there’s nothing readily available and we’re hungry right now.

So now what?

Low-Carb Lunch At Home

Let’s tackle lunch at home first, since it essentially easier than packing your lunch. And don’t tell me that you’re going to skip lunch. That’s not a good idea, even if you aren’t hungry. Eating something at least every four hours will prevent swings in your insulin levels and enable you to avoid those times you are famished and dive into the refrigerator to gobble down anything you can reach – even if it isn’t low carb food. Eat lunch. That’s an order!

Lunch at home can be as easy as leftovers from the previous night’s dinner. I never cook just what I think my family will consume in one meal; I always plan for leftovers. Right now in the refrigerator I have some baked chicken legs, a few slices of pork roast, and some slivers of nice, rare flank steak. (I would have had some precooked hamburgers, too, but my husband and son raided the refrigerator the other night for a “snack” and ate them all.)

I like my leftover meats cold, but they can always be reheated in briefly in the microwave. I have them with a garden salad or some freshly cooked hot vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, or green beans. Sometimes I make Asian Cole Slaw, broccoli slaw, or a Dill and Red Pepper Fauxtato Salad and have that instead. If there’s leftover No-Roni I always enjoy that at lunchtime, too. Cucumber Bull’s-eyes filled with Rod’s Favorite Spread are also a good vegetable accompaniment.

What if you had roast chicken for dinner last night and don’t want plain roast chicken again for lunch today? Well, you can mince it finely and make chicken salad, you can make a Chicken Pizza Bowl, one of my son’s favorites, or you can make a Chicken BLT**.

What? A BLT? A sandwich? Yes, it is possible to make a low-carb keto sandwich. For my BLTs I use large Romaine lettuce leaves as the wrapping. I also usually have my version of Atkins’ Rolls in the refrigerator, or one of the other homemade low carb bread substitutes. My low carbing son, Chris, likes the La Tortilla Factory tortillas a lot, and we both love the Mountain Bread Wraps.

Low-Carb Crackers make a nice base for a crispy open-faced sandwich, too. My own favorite concoctions are to slather the crackers with some cream cheese and then top them with thinly sliced rare roast beef from the deli, to sprinkle them with shredded sharp cheddar cheese and diced pepperoni and them broil them until the cheese is hot and bubbly, or to spread them with Rod’s Favorite Spread** (or your favorite cheeseball recipe).

If you like scrambled eggs as much as I do, try serving them for lunch with some steamed asparagus. I always feel very “la-dee-da” when I have this. More plebeian, but just as good, are scrambled eggs with a hot dog sautéed and cooked in with them.

Sometimes, particularly during the winter when it’s cold out, only soup will hit the spot. Soup is a wonderful make-ahead low-carb lunch. When I make soup, I always make lots and freeze the leftovers in individual servings. There’s always Stick To Your Ribs Chili in my freezer, and it only takes a few minutes to microwave it. Stick To Your Ribs Chili is also good served over salad greens and served as a taco salad.

I also like main dish salads for lunch, although I do have to watch that I don’t add too many “goodies” and make their carbohydrate counts too high. My favorite is a Cobb Salad, and I always have grilled chicken breasts, bits of home-roasted turkey, and strips of cooked flank steak in individual portions in the freezer to add to a spur-of-the-moment salad. If I prepare 3-Way Chicken Breasts, I have enough chicken for several weeks’ worth of chicken salad, chicken sandwich wraps, and “eating out of hand” chicken.

Brown Bagging Your Low-Carb Lunch

If you must eat lunch away from home either because you work or for some other reason, don’t give up and tear your hair out. Brown bagging rather than eating at home is somewhat more complicated, but certainly not difficult. The key, again, is preparation.

You will need two – not one, two! – insulated lunch boxes and ice packs. Why two? Because at some point you’re going to forget to bring one of them home. (If you’re very forgetful, you might even need more than two. My son has, oh, five or six. I never see them all at one time, so I’m not really sure.)

Those of you who are lucky enough to have a refrigerator and microwave in your workplace can have any of the home-based low carb lunches I’ve mentioned above, and can also bake a quiche, slice it in individual portions, and freeze it to take to work and reheat.

You can make low-carb sandwiches as I’ve described above, or you can make meat roll-ups. Just take a piece of deli meat and roll it around a stick of cheese, or take deli meat, spread it with cream cheese and roll it up. (You can make these for several days’ lunches all at once to save yourself some time.)

For a nice substitute for the dreaded potato chips, I microwave pepperoni or smoked ham until it’s dry and crisp. Any kind of pepperoni will work, but if you microwave ham for crisps, be sure to get smoked ham. Boiled and baked ham won’t work. And don’t even bother to try this with turkey. I did, and even the dog wouldn’t eat it. (Now that’s bad!) I also microwave a whole pound of bacon at one time and store it in the refrigerator in foil. It’s great to munch on plain and wonderful sprinkled on sandwiches and salads.

Deviled eggs travel well. The trick is to smush the two halves back together after you’ve filled them. You can make your deviled eggs plain or fancy, and you can up the protein by mixing the yolks with mayonnaise and finely diced meat or seafood. Ham, tuna, canned salmon, and diced cooked salad shrimp are all good. Add a little salsa, sour cream, hot sauce, or horseradish to give them some zip.

Fresh cut up low-carb vegetables like celery, radishes, jicama, cucumbers, zucchini, or crookneck squash are always good in a packed lunch to add some crunch to your lunch. You can also stuff celery with cream cheese, a cheeseball recipe, or peanut butter. (The vegetables are also a good source of fiber and vitamins.)

Salads are very portable, of course, and low-carb soups can be brought to work in a thermos. I’ve also grilled hot dogs, but them up, and stuck them in a thermos and they’ve stayed nice and hot until lunchtime. No-Roni or any low-carb casserole would, too.

Low-Carb Lunch Recipes

Low-Carb Asian Cole Slaw Recipe

Low-Carb Dill & Red Pepper Fauxtato Salad Recipe – Low-Carb Potato Substitute

No-Roni Low-Carb Macaroni Substitute with Cauliflower Recipe

Chicken Pizza Bowl

Cucumber Bulls-Eyes Recipe

Rod’s Favorite Spread

Low-Carb Gluten-Free Stick To Your Ribs Chili Recipe

3-Way Chicken Breasts

Low-Carb Sweet Treats

If you crave something sweet at the end of your meal, I highly recommend sliced strawberries with a little sugar-free orange or raspberry syrup drizzled over them. These are really decadent! Other sweet options are a couple of low-carb cookies, sugar-free Jell-O (either in the ‘store-bought’ cups or homemade), homemade sugar-free gummi worms, or crustless low-carb cheesecake. When I make low carb cheesecake for packed lunches, I use a no-bake recipe and put the cheesecake into little-lidded jelly jars. That way it doesn’t get squished. (This is also a useful tactic at home, since you can’t ‘accidentally’ cut too big a piece just because you’re hungry or you want it – all of it.)