The Healthy Layered Lunch

For many of us the daily lunch routine has turned into a boring or guilt-ridden chore.  We pack a lunch for convenience, and to avoid spending extra money on food, but it’s so hard to break away from the traditional sandwich model.  Far easier to throw together a sandwich with processed lunch meats, and grab one of the many prepackaged, fatty, salty or sugary snacks that are available out there.

But you can pack a healthy lunch, with a variety of flavours and textures that will have you or your kids counting down the minutes to lunchtime.  It requires a bit of extra effort to prepare the ingredients, which can then sit in the fridge in separate containers, waiting to be thrown together in the morning in no more time than it takes to make a sandwich.   This lunch is layered with all four food groups, and has a combination of sweet, crunchy, tart, and savory flavors that is truly satisfying.

 The recipe below contains a layer of grapes, curried chicken salad, raita, which is a minty yogurt sauce, chickpeas and sliced almonds.  The combinations you can try are only limited by the number of foods you can imagine.  Here are some ideas to use for your different layers:

• Fruits: sliced grapes, dried cranberries, other dried fruits, sliced apples soaked in lemon juice, fresh berries, sliced avocados, sliced cherry tomatoes.
• Proteins: chicken salad with curry, pesto, or your favorite spices, tuna salad, feta cheese, smoked salmon, shrimp, ham salad or chopped baked ham, chopped hard boiled eggs, or fresh mozzarella chunks.
• Sauce: raita (recipe below), plain yogurt, salsa, chopped tomatoes, your favorite salad dressing, hot pepper sauce.
• Carbohydrate layer: chickpeas, blackeyed peas or other types of beans, cooked pasta, orzo, rice, couscous, tortilla chips, potato salad, croutons, polenta cubes, quinoa, bulghur pilaf, any other grains.
• Topping: toasted nuts such as almonds, pecans or walnuts, toasted fresh grated coconut, chopped cherry peppers, or hotter peppers if you like, sunflower seeds, toasted sesame seeds.

Whatever your favorite flavour or seasoning, you can fit it somewhere into this dish, or add an extra layer to accomodate it.  Keep a supply of ingredients all made up in the fridge, and throwing together your healthy lunch is easy.  This lunch does need to stay cold.  If you don’t have access to a fridge, then be sure to pack it in a cold pack.

Curried Chicken Layered Lunch

Chicken Layer

• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon curry powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup plain yogurt
• 1 rotisserie chicken, boned and meat shredded or chopped

Raita

• 1 cup plain yogurt
• 1 cucumber peeled, seeded and chopped finely
• 2 tablespoons fresh chopped mint, or 1 tablespoon dried mint
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Other Layers

• 1 cup red grapes, sliced in half
• 1 can cooked chickpeas, drained
• 1/2 cup sliced almonds, toasted

1. Make chicken salad:  Cook onion, garlic and ginger in oil in a heavy skillet about 5 minutes.  Add curry powder, cumin and 1  teaspoon salt.  Cook for another 5 minutes.  Add onion mixture and 1 cup yogurt to chicken and mix well.
2. Make raita:  Stir together 1 cup yogurt, mint, chopped cucumber and 1/2 teaspoon salt.
3. Select 4 16-oz size containers, either plastic with lids for travel, or glasses or bowls to eat at home.   Layer ingredients in the containers in the following order: grapes, chicken salad, raita, chickpeas, and then almonds sprinkled on top.