I’m an obsessive planner. I’ve got a mildly compulsive personality to start with, and on top of that, the military has beat into me a combination of extreme attention to detail and control-junkie tendencies {which is why the above picture is driving me absolutely nuts – it isn’t straight!}. I plan our travel, our finances, and our meals, out significantly in advance.
The one thing I absolutely suck at planning in advance is our lunches.
Breakfasts are easy. We’re going to be home for breakfast unless we’re traveling. Dinners are pretty easy, too, because we pencil in the nights we’re going to be out pretty far in advance {see the part about planning our finances and travel}. But lunch somehow escapes by the wayside. I haven’t cracked the code on it. Maybe it’s because my husband and I never know what’s going to be happening during the day, whether we’ll be swamped at work and need to take a working lunch, whether we’ll want to break away and go grab something with friends, whether there’s a luncheon or a business meeting over lunch that we’ll need to attend…why plan?
Most days I default to salads or wraps, and the wonderful thing is that they’re interchangeable. Take all the ingredients for a good salad, reduce the lettuce, wrap it up in a tortilla, and you’ve got an excellent wrap. I’ve turned our pear gorgonzola salad into a wrap on more than a few occasions with a little added Canadian bacon – or just plain bacon. Yum!
This is another salad that shows up frequently on our lunch menu and can make the salad to wrap transition pretty easily. Just don’t use the wonton crisps {or crumble them up really small}, reduce the lettuce, and wrap it up! Two for one. Who knew, right?
Asian Chicken Salad with Wonton Strips
What you’ll need:
- 4-6 wonton wrappers, cut into strips
- 1/4 cup rice vinegar
- 2 tbsp hoisin sauce
- 2 tbsp sesame oil
- 1 tbsp ginger
- 1 clove garlic
- 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
- nice big bowl of mixed greens
- 2-3 chicken breasts
- 1 carrot
- 2 green onions
How to make it:
- Start with the wonton strips. You’ll need to put them on a oiled baking sheet and bake them at 400F for 3-5 minutes, or until they’re golden brown and crispy.
- Grill your chicken and cut it up into chunks. It needs to be fully cooked for this recipe.
- In the meantime, mix your sauce. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together your vinegar, hoisin sauce, sesame oil, ginger, garlic, and red pepper flakes until they’re well blended.
- Once that’s mixed, add in the greens, chicken, diced carrot, green onions, and wonton strips. Toss it all up together until everything’s well blended, and then it’s ready to serve!
This recipe makes 4 servings of about 300 calories each.
This will do in a pinch – it’s pretty quick to make, can be prepared the night before, and keeps pretty well as long as you don’t mix the sauce in until you’re ready to bag it up for transport. If you leave the sauce in too long, the lettuce will get all squishy, and no one wants that.
I know there have to be more creative bring-in-your-lunch-to-work options out there than wraps, salads, and soups, which I usually default to. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to share – and please link your recipes in the comments section! I’d love to see what you’ve got on the plate, and I know my readers would, too!
