Bring Your Lunch

Book excerpt: With over 60 delicious, healthful, unexpected recipes, BRING YOUR LUNCH ensures DIY lunchtime success—and significant weekly savings—while keeping the brown-bag doldrums away. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a make-ahead food planner or a harried last-minute type—with its innovative, doable strategies, cooks of all kinds can learn to overcome the obstacles that keep them hooked on expensive takeout or boring PB&Js. There are quick Last-Minute Lunches, including salads—Kale Salad Agrodolce, Beet and Apple Salad with Walnuts and Cheese—and sandwiches—Proscuitto and Provolone Sandwich with Fig Jam, Deli Counter Banh Mi, El Turkey Club. Leftover Leitmotifs: Lamb Pita with Spicy Yogurt Sauce, Vietnamese Lettuce Wraps, Salmon & Swiss Chard Summer Rolls, Lo Mein with Garlicky Greens. Recipes that use the freezer wisely—Pumpkin Curry with Shrimp, Easy Empanadas, and other recipes are ready to go when you are. Snacks for when you want to ditch the vending machine—Tropical Fruit Energy Bars and Chickpea “Nuts.” Plus notes on essential equipment, tips for shopping and prepping, and a lunch larder of extras—Lemony Miso Dressing, Green Pea Hummus, Homemade Mayo. It’s time to end the cycle of broken lunch promises, too many trips to the taco truck, and all that money that disappears every week. It’s time instead to choose to BYOL—it’s healthy, wealthy, and wise, and now easy as could be.