When you have places that sell fancy salads, rotisserie chicken and rainbow sushi just around the corner from your office, lunchtime temptation is real. So to help you not spend £11 on your lunch every day (I’m looking at you Itsu, with your fun rice crackers and pudding pots right by the checkout), I’ve come up with three cheap and easy recipes (which also happen to be great for using up lurking leftovers). Make ahead, then enjoy them proudly at your desk without feeling like you’re eating just another #saddesklunch.
Greek Bean Salad
Ingredients
1 x 400g tin mixed beans
1/2 cucumber
Large handful cherry tomatoes
Large handful black olives
40g feta
Small handful fresh oregano
Juice of 1/2 small lemon
Generous glug extra virgin olive oil
Freshly ground sea salt and black pepper
Instructions
Drain and rinse the beans. Peel and chop the cucumber into small cubes, and quarter the tomatoes. You can use larger tomatoes in the summer as they’re in season but during the rest of the year, cherry tomatoes are sweeter and have the best flavour. Quarter the olives, crumble the feta and finely chop the oregano. It is traditional to use dried oregano in a Greek salad but this will make your salad a bit dry, so if you can’t get any, use parsley or basil instead. Combine everything in a large bowl, and add the lemon juice, a generous glug of extra virgin olive oil and some salt and pepper.
Give it a taste before packing it up for your lunch; if it tastes a little dull, add more lemon. If it tastes a bit bland, add more salt. If it tastes a little dry, add more oil, and if it just needs a little more oomph, add more pepper!
Kimchi Jam Jar Noodles
Ingredients
1 nest egg noodles
1 tsp miso paste
Splash soy sauce
Small handful kimchi
3-4 small chestnut mushrooms
Small handful sugar snap peas
1 large spring onion
Instructions
Cook the noodles in a saucepan of boiling water until just tender. Drain and cool instantly by running them under the cold tap.
Meanwhile, combine the miso paste (it does not matter if you use brown, red or white) and a splash of soy sauce in the bottom of a big, roomy glass jar (about the size of a Pot Noodle) with a tight lid. Chop the kimchi into bitesize pieces, peel and thickly slice the mushrooms, halve the snap peas and shred the spring onion. Add them to the jar on top of the paste, then add the noodles. Fasten the lid and store in the fridge until needed. You can also add any leftover shredded meats and other Asian veggies you can eat raw or lightly cooked, too.
To serve, fill just over 3/4 full with just-boiled water and stir really well with a fork. Either drink the soup straight from the jar or pack a spoon!
Chorizo, Spinach & Potato Frittata
Ingredients
2-3 medium potatoes
Small handful dry chorizo chunks
2-3 very large handfuls baby spinach
100g feta (optional)
4 large eggs
40ml milk
Freshly ground salt and pepper
Instructions
Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees. Cut the potatoes into 1/2 cm slices – don’t bother peeling them – and cover them with cold, salted water. Boil until the potato slices are just tender, and drain. If you don’t have any potatoes, frittatas are also great made with cold leftover pasta and spaghetti.
Meanwhile, dry fry the chorizo in a large frying pan over a medium to high heat until it starts to crisp and more importantly, it has released a good amount of oil. Add the spinach in several batches, stirring and cooking down until it has all shrunk and fits in the pan. Remove from the heat.
Butter a roughly 20 x 20 cm roasting dish (whatever you’ve got that is similar) and spread the potatoes out in a single layer. Sprinkle over the spinach and chorizo mixture, and if you have any feta leftover from making the Greek Bean Salad, this is great crumbled and sprinkled over too. Any leftover goat's cheese you may have would also be delicious.
Beat together the eggs, milk and a generous amount of salt and pepper, and pour into the roasting dish. If the mixture does not quite cover all the fillings, you can add more eggs, adding 10ml of milk for every large egg. If you’ve got any leftover cream in the fridge, use this in place of some of the milk.
Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, and allow to cool before slicing into four and wrapping the individual pieces in tin foil to take to work for a breakfast on the go or a speedy lunch.
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