6 easy lunchbox recipes made with cold pressed oils

As a mom to a beautiful daughter and being employed full time, it is time that is my most precious commodity! I am constantly torn between wanting to spend more time with my “mini-me” and meeting all my deadlines. In between all this, there is also the task of getting food on the table, twice a day, and once in the lunchbox! As a mother, I want to make sure that every meal is as healthy as can be, but as a foodie, I want taste to rank really high up there too. 

So, in order to make the match between health and taste, I switched to Gramiyaa oils and now I know that I am cooking with a much better selection of oils. In addition to this, I am always on the lookout for recipes that are easy to make, are high on health and taste quotients and carry well, because I know if the lunchbox is not good enough, it will return pretty much as it was sent off! 

Easy lunch box recipes that you can try too!

Most of the time, as parents, we are focused on the kids; we spend very little time thinking about ourselves. How many times has this happened – you spend an immense amount of time thinking of and cooking something special for the lunchbox of your little ones, but pack the previous night’s leftovers for your own? An occasional extra effort for our own selves is nothing wrong and we really should do it! 

In that vein, I have picked 3 easy lunch box recipes, which we adults can enjoy, are easy to prepare and will taste really good!

Chapati rolls with hummus and mixed veggies

This recipe actually originated on a hurried morning, where I had of course taken the time to prepare pinwheel sandwiches for my daughter’s lunch box, but was left short on time for my own. As I was rummaging through my fridge, I saw some leftover chapati dough, some random veggies and a half empty box of hummus. I had that light bulb moment, when I decided to make a fancy roll out of these very things! I made normal chapatis with the leftover dough and slathered them with the hummus. I sliced some veggies really thin (I had used coloured bell peppers, onions, tomatoes, some corn kernels and some Napa cabbage) and just tossed them in some cold pressed sesame oil and seasoned with some salt, paprika powder and a pinch of Sumac (it’s this slightly sour middle eastern spice mix, kind of like our chat masala). I laid these veggies out on top of the hummus chapati and rolled it up! 

Olive oil pasta salad 

Now, this recipe came from an extremely health-conscious colleague; the one who brings salads in her lunch box pretty much every day and although I am not much of a salad person, this one caught my attention. The recipe was actually pretty simple and tasted great even cold – all it needed was some cooked pasta ( I tend to use whichever I have lying around, but I would suggest penne or bowtie, not spaghetti or fettucine), some boiled chickpea or chana (this recipe will work even with kala chana), plenty of chopped veggies (cucumbers, onions, tomatoes are a must, but you can add anything you like, like lettuce, beetroot, carrot and sweet corn). The dressing is super simple – in a bowl, take some olive oil, balsamic vinegar, a large pinch of dried oregano, salt and pepper and simply whisky, before pouring over the ingredients and tossing it all together. 

Stir-fried vegetables with tofu

This recipe is an ode to my love for desi Chinese and is a good way to get all those veggies in! The actual effort lies in cutting the veggies, because once you are done with that, the actual cooking takes less than 10 minutes, making this one of those perfect morning easy lunchbox recipes! You need 2 cups of mixed veggies – you can choose whatever you like, bell peppers, broccoli, carrots, mushroom, baby corn, zucchini; all you need to do is make sure they are cut evenly, because you need them to cook at roughly the same time. To cook, in a large wok, you want to heat some sesame oil and sauté some chopped up ginger, garlic and green chillies. Now keep adding in the veggies, based on their cooking times – so broccoli, carrots and baby corn would go in first, zucchini would go in last. In a bowl, you want to mix some soya sauce, a touch of honey, a spoonful of tomato ketchup and I like to add some chilly vinegar to it as well. Pour this over the veggies and in the end you want to add some cubed firm tofu. This is great on its own and you can pair it with rice, noodles or even quinoa! 

Lunchbox recipes for kids that they will happily devour!

Nope, I am not forgetting our little ones! I have some easy lunchbox recipes for kids too and these are tried and tested on my own daughter. 

Spinach paratha

For the longest time, my daughter refused to eat any green leafy veggies, so like any mother, I found ways to sneak it into her food and palak paratha was one such recipe. I would simply wash and boil spinach leaves and puree them with some salt and one green chilli and this would be the liquid I would use to knead the dough. Then, I would simply roll them out like a laccha paratha and use some cold pressed groundnut oil to cook them on both sides.

Tomato rice

When there is leftover rice in the fridge, I know I can whip up some tomato rice for my daughter the next day! To some coconut oil, I add some urad dal, mustard seeds and curry leaves. As they splutter around, I add a small finely chopped onion and plenty of finely chopped tomatoes. The seasoning is simple – some salt, a pinch of turmeric and a dash of red chilli powder and once the tomatoes are looking soft and mashed, I add the cooked rice and that is literally it! 

Millet choco lava balls

Now, this is a crowd pleaser – my daughter gets mobbed when she takes this to school! I grind mixed millets (you can use ragi, barnyard, kodo, finger – whichever millets you have at hand) to a fine powder. To that, I add jaggery powder, cocoa powder, a teaspoon of baking soda and make a pancake like batter using milk. Then in a paniyaram pan, i pour a drop of groundnut oil, a spoonful of the pancake batter and within each ball, I stuff a small piece of chocolate. Once the pancake balls are cooked on all sides, I drizzle some chocolate syrup and your healthy choco lava balls are ready! 

So, there you go! 6 super easy and quick lunch box recipes that you can try out too!