Healthy Recipes To Make For Lunch

The endless question of what to eat for lunch gets a bit harder when you want to keep things healthy. Leftover frozen pizza? Probably not the best idea (except our low-calorie version below). Frozen burritos with ingredient lists bigger than your extended family? You should probably avoid those like you avoid your awkward cousin. 

Processed and ready-to-eat foods can just be thrown in the microwave to reheat, but do you really want to be eating boring salads all the time? Or cooking something hot from scratch? Is that really how you want to spend your midday break? Suddenly, opening another can of low-sodium soup sounds like an easy compromise.

But wait!

That's where this list comes in, with options from healthy pasta and chili to Vietnamese shrimp rolls and three options with avocado as king, we've got you covered. Plus, some weird ways to wrap things up that aren't rice paper and a whole lot of marinated fish that'll have you thinking about margaritas and how it's happy hour somewhere. Day drinking aside, these recipes are sure to level up your lunch.  

As recipe author Sher Castellano says, this minestrone is an anytime kind of soup. Make a big batch for dinner and you'll have leftovers for lunch. Or make a big batch at lunch and enjoy it for the rest of the week. It's chock full of vegetables, beans, and optional pasta, and the best part is you don't need Master Chef-worthy knife skills! The word rustic basically means you can hack away at those carrots and they'll still cook just fine. That's what teeth are for anyway, right? Chop those celery however you'd like. No need for a brunoise for this stomach-warming meal. 

This is not your (Eastern European) grandma's goulash. Instead of the meat-heavy stew that tends to bog you down like the morning after too many Shirleys without the Temple, this vegetarian mushroom goulash features a hearty mix of carrots, potatoes, cabbage, garlic, thyme, and mushrooms braised in red wine and tomato paste. It takes more than two hours to make, so it's not a last-minute lunch solution, but it's well worth it. And those two hours are pretty hands-off, so you can get on with your morning and it'll be there for you when you need it — like your best Hungarian friend. 

If your childhood memories of tomato soup involve reheating it from a can, this recipe from Maren Epstein might blow your mind. It's as simple as cooking onions, garlic and some spices, then adding tomatoes and vegetable stock (and a little butter at the end to make it decadent). There are zero preservatives and it's ready in 35 minutes. Now that's healthy comfort in a bowl. Serve with a grilled cheese for a classic pairing. 

Eating a couple of these completely snack-able Japanese rice triangles called onigiri can turn into a filling meal pretty quickly. They're also lots of fun to make, since you can stuff them with just about anything (recipe writer Cindy Chou recommends flaked salmon and umeboshi paste, aka Japanese pickled plums). Adding a strip of nori as a wrapper turns them into an easy-to-handle surprise sandwich — the surprise is because you're likely to forget which ones are stuffed with which filling ...

Yes, broccoli salad, but not just any broccoli salad! That might sound a little too healthy for you, but this one is a filling mix of dried cranberries, apples, carrots, red onion, and salted peanuts in a sweet mayo dressing. This lunch may be packed with nutrients, but it doesn't sacrifice on flavor. It's not low fat, but you've got lots of fiber and vitamins in there, plus tons of crunch and creamy textures. It's definitely an all-around winner. Extra points if you make your own homemade mayo.

More substantial and varied than a Caprese salad, this French niçoise salad features tuna, olives, hard-boiled egg, potato, green beans and lettuce. That means there's also more prep involved, but the variety of textures and flavor is hard to beat. The French just do it better.

Use tuna packed in water instead of oil for a lower-fat version, or use tuna packed in oil and reduce the amount of olive oil in the dressing. You can also use different types of lettuce besides baby gem, but they're wonderfully tender. 

Egg salad isn't known for being especially good for you, as it usually is laden with high-preservative, high-cholesterol mayo. But this version from recipe developer Mackenzie Burgess is lightened up by swapping the mayo with non-fat Greek yogurt and mashed avocado, with walnuts in there for extra crunch. While the slight green tinge might be off-putting to some, the flavor is spot-on. Just think of it as egg salad meets guacamole, aka ingenious.

This protein-heavy lunch recipe for keto chicken wraps calls for one pretty unique ingredient: a cheese wrap. They're made entirely of cheese. No, you don't make them yourself, thank goodness. Once you have them, the rest is easy: sear some chicken and add it to the wraps with some ready-made salsa and guac, and some freshly sliced tomato. Lunch — done. Soon you'll be wrapping everything in keto-friendly cheese, without the greasy feeling of trying to wrap thinly sliced cheddar around your salsa, which is probably a disaster waiting to happen, but maybe not? Dare you. 

The trick to this low-calorie pizza that makes it acceptable to eat it in its entirety without breaking your caloric bank for the day because the crust is lavash bread. The second trick is adding just enough ham and cheese for flavor, but not so much as to call it an indulgence. And that's fine because it means you'll have leftover meat and cheese in the fridge for the next time you want to make this. Which will be soon. 

This strawberry salad is at its best when strawberries are in season — not necessarily where you live, but hopefully a place that doesn't require them to be picked so far in advance for shipping that they arrive bland and with tops hinting at white or green. The honey-balsamic vinaigrette on top of them is going to help enhance their flavor a lot anyway, but with so few other ingredients (greens, sunflower seeds, and feta), every element needs to be at its best. Because when they are, this salad shines.

Ceviche's avocado-lovin' cousin, this aguachile calls for lime-marinated shrimp in a pureed sauce of cilantro, hot peppers, and olive oil. The creamy avocado is the perfect balance to the sour liquid, and there's no sugar or other sweeteners like fruit or sweet potato, making it a punchy, green-heavy dish. The shrimp are naturally slightly sweet, though, which brings down the sourness just enough to make this completely addictive. Serve with crunchy crackers for texture and some extra hot peppers if you like your spice. 

Pasta is healthy, you ask? It can be. This primavera pasta is packed with vegetables and herbs –- asparagus, yellow squash, zucchini, fresh basil leaves –- with plenty of heart-healthy olive oil. As it stands, the meal clocks in at 52 grams of carbs, 19 grams of fat, and 444 calories per serving, but for a lighter version, go gentle on the shredded Parmesan and oil. The spiraled shape means there's a great texture to contrast the juicy vegetables.