15 Healthy Vegetarian Lunch Ideas to Energize the Office
By Meredith Bethune
Keep your team’s cylinders fired all day long with these healthy vegetarian lunch ideas. Fueling up with fruits and vegetables is the best way to stay energized at work, so consider ordering vegetarian meals for the office, reports Forbes. Fiber intake always goes up when you emphasize staples like vegetables, fruit, whole grains, beans, and lentils in your diet, while the presence of fatty animal products goes down. These ingredients maintain blood sugar at steady levels all afternoon while also increasing consumption of essential vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. Keeping that in mind, here are 15 healthy vegetarian lunch ideas to add to your catering rotation.
Biryani: This aromatic, one-pot rice dish hails from South Asia by way of Persian cuisine and has all the aromatic properties you’d expect thanks to a complex mix of spices like garam masala. Although more traditional versions contain chicken or lamb, some Indian restaurants are now making biryani vegetarian. But you won’t miss the meat thanks to a complex mix of ingredients like spices, roasted nuts, dried fruit, fresh herbs, and caramelized onions.
Buddha’s Delight: Also called Buddha’s Feast, fresh vegetables like mushrooms and thinly sliced bamboo shoots come together in this delicate stir-fry perfumed with ginger. They sizzle in the wok over high heat, retaining their bite, and taste subtly of a savory mixture of soy sauce, oyster sauce, and rice wine. Traditionally eaten by Buddhist monks who happen to be vegetarians, it’s now a favorite option at Chinese restaurants across the country.
Cauliflower Steaks: Even steakhouses are now serving meatless options like the cauliflower steak, a meat substitute that feels both meaty and healthy. This trendy dish is a whole cauliflower sliced through the head into four large pieces and then roasted until the natural sugars become caramelized and sweet. Try it bathed in an unexpected sauce like brown butter, chimichurri, or even Thai peanut.
Chana Masala: Once again, look no further than Indian cuisine for healthy vegetarian lunch ideas that are guaranteed to satisfy. These creamy chickpeas simmered in a tangy tomato sauce redolent of ginger, turmeric, and garlic are always best served over a bed of fluffy white rice. Because each chef relies on his or her own signature spice mix, every restaurant serves a distinct take on this unique dish.
Eggplant Parmesan: There’s practically nothing better than this Italian favorite that packs a surprising amount of flavor, especially for being made almost entirely of vegetables. The textural contrast is also impressive, with crispy slices of fried eggplant swathed in a bright tomato sauce scented with basil and garlic, all topped with melty mozzarella cheese and the salty kiss of Parmesan. Enjoy it with a side of perfectly al dente spaghetti or linguine.
Find our 10 other dishes here.
