Packing Vegan Lunches

When I started veganism, I was at home on winter break.  I am a high school teacher, and we had two weeks off for the holiday.  I had time to cook, meal prep, and get creative with recipes.

I went back to work this week and was a bit worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up with my new years vegan goals.  I try to meal prep the best I can, but I am not one of those people who likes to make the same meals to last the whole week.  I like to vary it up a bit, but sometimes that requires time I may not have.

I am lucky in that I get 45 minutes for lunch, a rarity for most teachers.  I also teach in a school near several reasonably priced and quick restaurants.  Many of them have great vegan options including healthy soups and salads, but in order to save money and time, I bring my lunch and plenty of snacks on most days.  I also bring my breakfast as I usually get to work between 6:30 and 7 a.m., and I don’t like to eat before that.

This week I had some leftover vegan pizza with lots of veggies, which was pretty awesome because it made making lunches easy.  I packed some non-dairy yogurt and fruit, homemade granola, nuts, and celery+hummus.  If you can believe it, this isn’t enough food to last me throughout the day before dinner, so I often eat a Larabar, too.  To be fair, I also work out and walk my dogs about three miles a day in addition to all the walking I do at work, so I am also burning calories.

 

After I ran out of leftover pizza, I switched to a stir-fry with noodles and marinated tofu, and will finish up tomorrow with an everything bagel with marinara and So Delicious shredded mozzarella.  This is kind of a lazy/unhealthy lunch, but it’s good to treat yourself on Fridays.  I also made my favorite breakfast in the Instantpot, mango sticky rice with coconut milk.  I got the recipe from High Carb Hannah, and it is one of my favorites.  I topped it with a bit of coconut sugar.

I sometimes get a sweet tooth at work, especially in the afternoons.  I’ve been pretty good this week as there isn’t much vegan candy available, so I’ve been drinking the Tazo vanilla bean macaron tea because it reminds me of dessert, and I managed to find some Jolly Ranchers today as well.

Other than that, being vegan has been super easy this week.  I bought myself some delicious Ben and Jerry’s non-dairy Cherry Garcia, and it made my week.  I also made some vegan nachos with sweet potato tortilla chips, corn, beans, tomatoes, and So Delicious cheese.  It was amazing.