Pop up toaster and a microwave

What can I make for lunch ?

The cafe killed their sweet deal of 1/2 a sandwich with chips and a small salad for 6 bucks.  

The 1/2 sandwich is 4.50 plus tax, call it 5, the equivalent small salad is 6plus, plus tax. 

Yea, I am cheap 10 bucks a day for a work cafe meal is out of the question for me. 

Would like to keep it below 5, be hot on occasion, and not the banquet budget microwave meals that I was eating at my last job. 

Help keep my belly full and some what healthy. 

PS. I dont do fish or shrooms.

Thanks 

For two bucks, you can get a really good Indian food entree at any Indian (dot) grocery store.  I'm talking restaurant quality, Palak Paneer, various kinds of Dal, various types of beans, etc.  Comes in a foil packet.  Put contents in a small bowl, nuke for 2.5 min.  You can put it over rice that you cook in the microwave.  Get one of those coffee measurer cups.  Not sure how big, but maybe about the size of 2 or 3 shot glasses.  Fill with rice, put in glass bowl with lid.  Fill with water 3 times, put in bowl.  Add some salt.  Put on a paper plate, because it will probably boil over.  Put lid on and nuke on high for 1 minute.  Nuke on 40-50% (defrost, typically) for 12 min 45 seconds.  Take rice out.  Now you nuke the Indian food, pour over rice.  Optional:  Put a piece of bread in the toaster to go with it. 

Depending on your microwave, you may have to alter the times some.  Total cost:  Under $2.50.

I usually make a bunch of whatever for dinner and take leftovers. If you've seen the food porn thread, you've seen what I take to work. My co workers hate me. They're cranking out ramen, and I've got shrimp and grits or whatever

Marie Calander frozen dinners  are pretty good and when on sale $2-$3 , 

The rice bowls are good too.

I really hope you did this on purpose. If so, I applaud you.

A rotisserie chicken is about $6 and can be split to make 2 meals. 

As a side dish, Uncle Bens makes single serve rice cups that microwave in about 1 minute. 
 

I'm doing Keto, so my lunches may not work, but there's a few different things I do for lunch at work:

- boil a dozen eggs on Sunday. Use them for breakfast or lunches during the week.

- Leftovers from dinner. I try to cook enough to have leftovers for work, but sometime the meals are popular with the kids, so I end up leaving them the leftovers for after school. 

- bag salad mix from the store and leftovers chicken, steak, or pork. 

-  Not something I do now, but a good follow up to Taco Tuesday - taco meat, chips and cheese- bring to work in separate containers so chips don't get soggy. Heat up and enjoy.

In reply to No Time :

My usual grocery store started selling shredded rotisserie chickens. I get a container and cook it up with taco seasoning, garlic and oil, or whatever is handy and get a few lunches out of it.

I'm an outlier here. I expect no one is going to follow my lead.

For my work day lunches, I eat a Fuji apple and some roasted, unsalted nuts, and a couple of squares of dark chocolate. Every day, and I like it.

Sometimes I'll add a piece of cheese, some carrots, or a granola bar.

Got a good butcher nearby? Brats, dogs, and sausages microwave in about a minute, and you could get a lot of variety. 

If you can lay the toaster on its side, you could make bread pizza, or other similar things

Cheap frozen pizza.

Cut into quaters.

Tip toaster on it's side so slots are horizontal. 

Insert pizza slices into your new "pizza oven."

Toast to desired crispness. 

You're welcome. 

Wally said:

In reply to No Time :

My usual grocery store started selling shredded rotisserie chickens. I get a container and cook it up with taco seasoning, garlic and oil, or whatever is handy and get a few lunches out of it.

I'll have to look to see if my local store does that. There are definitely days where a warm lunch hits the spot instead of yogurt, eggs, or peanut butter with celery. 

Buy chicken breasts in bulk.  Cool in instapot at the beginning of the week. Bring to work with uncle bens nuke in package rice or with a salad. Easy. 

A bag of tortilla chips, a bag of shredded cheese, and leftover taco meat in a ramekin will be the beginning of nacho jealousy.

I bring leftovers every day in Pyrex dishes. Today is was leftover baked potato with cheddar, bacon, & butter.

During the winter, when meat's go on sale, buy all of the cheapest stuff you can find and make a stew.  Bring to work every day and microwave.

For variety, find a good cookbook to change up what you make- +20 years ago, we got a Chef Paul Prudhomme cookbook Seasoned America- and have been travelling through that book e every winter.

Between that, Indian, Italian, chicken, etc of all the suggestions, you can eat the same for one week, but different from week to week for over a year.  And remember that many of the most spiced, BBQ'd, Slow Cooked, etc food are all food of the poor- which means you should be able to do them on the cheap AND they will taste amazing.

I'll second the frozen dinners, but I have trouble finding them that they are both healthy and actually taste like anything.  There are few things more disappointing than popping open a lean cuisine pepper steak and rice to find that the way they make it low-calorie is to only put three teaspoons of food in it and it has zero flavor.

For me, a toaster doesn't do much.  I'm not much of a carbs person, but if you like carbs, get yourself some really good  bread and keep some peanut butter and honey, some cinnamon sugar, or some garlic powder around.  I also sometimes get some fun spice mixes.  Right now I have a 4-sided bottle of italian seasonings like rosemary/garlic, sundried tomato/basil, and tuscan blend.  I lean toward 15-grain bread (if they made a 40-grain bread, I'd buy it).  Toast it up, smear some butter or olive oil on it, and dust it with some of those blends.

It is amazing what you can do with a microwave though.  You can boil pasta, make breads and cakes, whatever.  I keep flour tortillas, sauce, and cheese in my fridge.  Bingo.  Super quick microwave pizza.

Lunchmeats can get expensive, but compared to a $5 sandwich they're cheap.  You can usually get ham, turkey, or some other lunchmeat for $4/lb and make your own sandwiches.  Don't go cheap and get the $2.99/lb stuff.  It's mostly water and nitrates with some lips and buttholes ground up.  I'm talking Bologna, any "ham" that is rectangular, or cheap salami.  Buttholes and salt.

I do black beans and quinoa every day.  I cook a 1 lb bag of beans and 1 cup of quinoa every Sunday, combine them in 5 pyrex bowls with salsa and hot sauce, and put them in the fridge.  I take a bowl everyday and heat it up in the microwave for lunch.  Good fiber and protein content and it costs about $1 per day.  You could change up the grain, type of beans, or seasonings for variety.  I don't know if "durability" is a good quality for food but this combination tolerates microwaving and sub-optimal refrigeration well. 

In reply to Mndsm :

+1.  Sames here.  I get numerous threats every week from certain co-workers who are going to "jack" my lunch.  

In reply to Floating Doc :

My daily breakfast is usually something like that.  I get the bag of 88% chocolate squares and unsalted nuts.  

In reply to Keith Tanner :

First thing that popped into my head upon reading the title.  Curious also to know if it was intentional.

Since my girlfriend works full-time and is finishing up her Bachelors (so week nights are usually busy with studying, one or both of us working late, laundry, taking care of the animals, etc).

Sunday afternoon we make two big batches of food. Chicken broccoli soup, pasta, salads with chicken, big batch of curry and rice, etc. Into the tupperware containers they go, then we have lunch/dinner for the rest of the week. And the only dirty dishes are just the tupperware, since we clean up after we cook on Sundays. 

Makes thing easy and keeps the kitchen clean since we aren't dirtying a whole new set of knives, pans, dishes every day that need to be cleaned. 

Does it have to be hot? I used to live on canned tuna and string cheese. Swap to canned chicken sometimes. Kept me alive while I worked full time and went to school at night.

Curtis said:

Lunchmeats can get expensive, but compared to a $5 sandwich they're cheap.  You can usually get ham, turkey, or some other lunchmeat for $4/lb and make your own sandwiches.  Don't go cheap and get the $2.99/lb stuff.  It's mostly water and nitrates with some lips and buttholes ground up.  I'm talking Bologna, any "ham" that is rectangular, or cheap salami.  Buttholes and salt.

 

We need to get you a show on The Food Network, because I know that people would watch an epicure like yourself talk about inferior lunchmeat, buttholes, and salt.

I try not to buy much lunchmeat because unhealthy and nitrates and all, but for around 10 bucks a pound, Boar's Head pastrami is probably the best pastrami I've ever had.

My favorite easy and cheap lunch is a hardboiled egg and toast.  If I feel fancy I like to shred some chicken and mix it in rice. Sometimes add some corn and salsa. Makes several meals and it's cheap. 

My go - to's: 

PBJ and an apple

Hummus and pita 

Hummus and veggies (Bell Pepper, carrots, celery, etc.)

Whole wheat bread, mayo, giardinara, tomato slice, basil sandwich

Lunchmeat sandwich

Leftovers from dinner the night before

Lately, however, it has been:

McDonalds Jalapeno McChicken ($2 + Tax)

Wendys Spicy nuggets (<$2, plus tax)

Oreos with milk (I worked from home today)

Ramen noodles - who knew there was more than the $0.15 cup I got in college? They're good!