Elgi Ultra’s healthy, fun and creative lunch box ideas

Soups in a Thermos

A good quality thermos will keep food warm for upto 4 hours. Packing a soup lunch is quick, easy and nutritious. If you prepare your vegetables, the day before, then making a soup is as quick as a 10-minute process. A good thing to have handy is stock. For a meat stock, cook 2 cups of bones in the pressure cooker, cool and store in the refrigerator for upto a week or freezer for a few months. For a veg stock, you could sauté celery, leeks, some root veg like carrots and even spinach stalks, cook and strain. Tail ends and good vegetable bits that you keep to discard are great to make stock.

Tip: Freeze stock in ice trays. This way, you could use, just the required quantity when making soup and sauces.

Roasted pumpkin soup

METHOD

1. Add butter and garlic to a pan and sauté. Add the diced pumpkin and sweat on a medium heat.
2. Simmer the heat and let the pumpkin cook for 5 mins. Now add the stock, salt and seasoning and cook till pumpkin is done.
3. Blend when cool and pour it in a thermos.

Tip: Wash out the thermos with boiling water before using it. This will keep help in heating up the inside surface of the flask.

Pea and mint soup

METHOD

1. Sauté peas and garlic in butter and cook it for 5 minutes on a low flame covered.
2. Add the stock and cook for 20 minutes or till done.
3. Cool and blend with mint leaves.
4. Pour it into the thermos hot.

Tip: You could make a carrot and coriander soup following the above recipe with these two ingredients.

Rice paper rolls – two ways

As a dry pantry item, rice paper rolls are quite handy. Left over chicken, noodles or rice along with some vegetables make a quick and easy lunch. You could even make a fruit version of it.

Leftover Chicken roll

METHOD

1. Julienne the vegetables.
2. Chop the chicken into tiny pieces (optional)
3. Place the rice paper roll in warm to hot water, one at a time and place it on a slightly oiled plate.
4. Add 1 Tbsp of rice or noodles, 1 Tbsp diced chicken and a bit of the chopped veggies.
5. Sprinkle some sesame seeds and roll.
6. You could serve it with a peanut sauce or thin soy sauce

For the fruit roll:

1. You could use soft fruits like bananas, kiwi, chopped pineapple etc.
2. Place a few chopped bits of chocolate in each roll. By lunch time the chocolate would be soft and coat the fruits.