I feel like I’ve hit the jackpot for workday lunch ideas! I recently received a copy of 152 Non-Sad Lunches: You Can Make in 5 Minutes, by Alexander Hart. I couldn’t easily find information on the author except that he’s Australian and that he’s written four similar books. In some ways, this book is less a cookbook and more a compilation of combinations. It includes ingredients like pre-cooked chicken and pre-cooked beets. But by no means do I think that makes this book less inspiring. It’s diverse with meat, vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options.
The book is broken down into categories of:
- Salad ingredients,
- Classics and new classics,
- Noodles and zoodles,
- Grains and seeds,
- Beans and legumes,
- Bento boxes,
- Wraps
The ideas that I’m most interested in:
- Roast beef salad with smoked almonds (lemon and chili dressing),
- Chicken taco salad (jalapeño crema dressing),
- Cucumber and green apple zoodles with salmon (creamy lemon and herb dressing),
- Asparagus and zucchini zoodles (green olive dressing),
- Sesame and avocado soba noodle salad (soy sesame dressing),
- Red quinoa autumn salad (sherry vinegar and shallot dressing),
- Chicken and peach bulgur salad (maple dressing),
- Brown rice, cranberry, and rosemary salad (maple dressing),
- Spicy black bean and quinoa salad (spicy jalapeño dressing),
- All-day breakfast bento,
- Turkey, gruyere, and kale wrap (honey mustard mayo),
- Smoked salmon wrap (herbed cream cheese)
*note – the dressing in parenthesis is the pairing in the recipe
The first recipe I made was the Hokkien noodle and snow pea salad, which is comprised of lo mein-style egg noodles, oranges, snow peas, and avocado. I didn’t have the opportunity to visit my local Asian market so I had to swapped the Hokkien noodles with Pennsylvania Dutch egg noodles. They are not the same at all, but I felt it was a better substitution than dried Italian style pasta (which are not made with eggs). The recommended dressing was made with orange juice, almond butter, rice wine vinegar, miso paste, and sesame seeds. It is orange season as I write this so I had everything on hand. Even though I had to cook my egg noodles, it all came together quickly. More importantly, I enjoyed it thoroughly. It would also be very easy and tasty to add chicken or egg to up the protein if the salad didn’t seem filling enough as is.
The second salad I made was the broccolini and sesame soba noodle salad. The components were broccolini (quickly cooked for 2 minutes), cooked and cooled soba noodles, sliced scallion, and toasted sesame seeds. The dressing was made from minced ginger, sesame oil, honey, rice wine vinegar, light soy sauce, and ground white pepper. While the dressing is meant to be tossed into the noodle salad, it’s very thin. I wish that I had treated it like dipping sauce instead. Just a comment, not a complaint, so you do you.
The highlight for me was the sheer amount of dressing recipes. It’s easy to put a handful of salad ingredients together, but that salad will be fairly boring if it doesn’t have the right flair. If I counted correctly, there are 87 different dressing recipes in this book. Some are repeated, but it looks like nothing was repeated more than 3 times with the one exception of a basic lemon dressing that’s used a total of 7 times in the book. It’s pretty easy to swap a salad ingredient as needed (like I did), and just let the dressing complete the dish. Also useful is that every recipe is for 1 portion. So if you’re someone who doesn’t like eating the same thing two days in a row, you’ll appreciate the variety available here.
Disclaimer – I kindly received a copy of this book from Smith Street Books/Rizzoli New York for this review. I’m not getting paid for this post. The views and opinions expressed are purely my own.
Reference Links:
https://www.rizzoliusa.com/book/9781922754073
Awesomesauce Eats 