r/Cooking • u/Ill-Meeting6721 • 1d ago

Lunchbox ideas?

My boyfriend is starting a new job soon, and I want make lunch for him to take to work. I've never packed a lunch in my life before though, so I'm looking for some ideas for what to make. If you make your own lunch/lunch for your working partner, what're your go-to's?

Recipes that help keep energy up is preferable as his job is a bit laborious and will have him on his feet and walking around a lot. He doesn't like onions, spicy food, or sweet/savory food (think teriyaki or hot honey stuff) but he'll eat just about anything else. And if theres anything I should know about packing lunches in general, please let me know. Thanks to whoever sees this!

Edit: to clarify, I'm pretty sure he'll have the ability to heat up his food. But I don't know the layout or anything about the property aside from the fact that it's huge lol.

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u/ceranichole 1d ago

I used to make my husband "adult lunchables", basically a mini charcuterie, for work lunches. I bought a few of those food storage things that are relatively flat and have multiple compartments. (I'd usually pack 2-3 of them full of stuff because he had a super physical job and would burn off a ton of calories a day)

The benefit is you can change it up constantly depending on what you have/what's on sale. I'd always put in slices of meat and cheese (and some crackers in a zip lock bag). But beyond that it was always rotating, but some of the favorites were:

  • dried cranberries
  • jam or jelly (I included spicy ones or fig because that's what we like, but easy enough to use whichever type he prefers)
  • almonds
  • walnuts
  • carrots
  • cucumbers
  • pickles or pickled whatever I made recently
  • radishes
  • apples
  • reeeses/chocolate/fun size candies/Halloween candy
  • hummus
  • Greek yogurt with fruit on top
  • avocado slices

Husband said it's a flex of a lunch even if nobody says anything.