9 Vegan Lunch Ideas You Can Take With You

9 Vegan Lunch Ideas You Can Take With You

Word Count: 1057

Time to Read: 5 minutes


Want to try a vegan diet?

We created a meal planner app to help you! Get your fresh customized meal plan full of delicious, quick, budget friendly, healthy recipes.

GET YOUR MEAL PLAN!

It’s the conundrum of being a vegan or a vegetarian in a world biased toward meat eaters. Although trends are slowly shifting. Many mobile options are still designed for those who chomp down on flesh.

One of the great things about being vegan is that it forces you to get creative. I know I’m preaching to the choir here. If you want to live a full culinary life outside the meat department, you have to expand your tastes.

Don’t settle for bland processed stuff. Go for the fresh conscientious choice.

Americans are spending more on eating out than buying groceries. And, it’s no wonder. Our lives have become faster, busier, and more on the go. But this doesn’t mean you have to spend your precious money eating out all the time.

It’s absolutely possible to stay vegan and pack your lunch.

I’m here to tell you how you can make fresh, tasty and mobile vegans lunches. Just read on and open your mind.

1. That’s A Wrap!

Wraps are the mainstay of the vegetarian world. They’re easy. They’re not messy. And done right, they can taste amazing.

My favorite go-to wrap for my vegan lunch is the Spicy Buffalo Chickpea Wrap. And if your kid asks, no they’re not made from spicy buffalos.

This only takes about thirty minutes to make. You can make it the night before and it will still be fresh and delicious in the morning.

It only takes a can of chickpeas, some hot sauce, garlic powder, hummus, and a vegan-friendly tortilla or flatbread of some sort.

Cook up the chickpeas in hot sauce, chop up some veggies, wrap it in the bread and boom! Lunchtime vegan delight.

2. It’s Tempeh-rary

Instead of rubbing Buddha’s belly you’re going to be rubbing your own belly with this vegan lunch idea.

Buddha bowls are the perfect toss in your glass container and carry dish. They are a complete meal in a bowl. The best protein for most any buddha bowl is tempeh. It’s thick and it takes in whatever flavor you add. Plus, it’s filling. Which is something you need on a busy day at the office.

Just throw in your favorite fresh veggies and roasted grains, top it with a healthy sauce, and you’re good to go.

3. Not-Egg Salad Sandwich

If you didn’t grow up vegan, your mom probably made you egg salad sandwiches growing up. While the thought of an egg sandwich won’t be appealing to you now, a salad sandwich might.

Chickpeas are much better for you than eggs anyway. So, why not make a salad sandwich out of chickpeas?

You’ll need a cup of chickpeas, an avocado, onion, celery, and bread. It’s easiest to mix and chop it all up in a food processor. But you can chop and mix with a cutting board and a bowl as well.

4. Tabouli-bouli

Sitting out on the beach and pretending you’re on the Aegean sea during your lunch break is pretty hard without actual greek food at your fingertips.

Mediterranean food is so easy to do vegan style. Falafel, dolmas, tabouli. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.

Skip on down to peta.org for their famous tabouli recipe. It’s to die for and I guarantee no animals had to die for it.

5. Sushi Chef

Seaweed is delectable. And it’s absolutely the best thing to pair with edamame beans.

You’re probably not going to have time to make sushi on a busy weekday night. But you can at least put all the ingredients together into a bowl.

Take your favorite fresh ingredients. Slice them thin. Boil some rice or quinoa. Top the rice with your veggies. Add edamame and seaweed and some siracha. Suddenly you have a vegan sushi bowl!

You can even mix up some wasabi with vegan soy sauce and bring it with to sprinkle on top. Just make sure the soy sauce isn’t Kikkoman.

6. Yam-yam-yam

Why not give your sweet tooth a spin with a loaded sweet potato. We’re all tired of the bland old baked potato anyway. Give your taste buds a break.

You can cook up some kale, black beans, and mash it up with guacamole to make a wonderful topping for your yam.

Pair it with some fresh veggies on the side or some crackers and you have a complete meal.

7. Curry It Up Please!

You can never go wrong with curry. It’s a most versatile spice. And it goes well with bland food that take in flavor.

This is why I love to make myself a curried chickpea salad every once in a while. It’s light and tasty. And the reason I mention chickpeas so much is because they’re so incredibly filling.

And you have to make the sauce. It’s almost worth it for that sauce alone.

8. Kale Is Still In

They keep trying to name everything the “new kale.” They just don’t seem to understand that kale will never go away. We’ll make sure of that.

It goes with everything. That’s why we keep going back to it. And pairing it with edamame, carrot, and avocado will give you an excellent vegan lunch for the road. Just dribble some olive oil and

Just dribble some olive oil and vinaigrette then sprinkle some salt. I promise, you’ll be wishing you had made more.

9. Noodly-do

In Japan, noodles are a no-brainer. Of course, you’re bringing noodles in your lunch box! But in America, we seem to think it’s something for either poor people or restaurant eating.

Noodles work well as a light snack or a full on meal. You can eat them in a broth, or just drizzle some sauce on them.

It’s also something you can make in abundance and then eat in different ways throughout the week. Chop-chop!

These Vegan Lunch Ideas Make it Easy

Well, maybe it’s not always easy being vegan. But it’s simpler than most people think.

And it’s really the best way to be in the strange, beautiful and sometimes cruel world. You can avoid so many diseases and keep yourself incredibly healthy with a vegan diet.

If you’ve come up with some awesome vegan lunch recipes, let us know in the comments below. And as always, stay vegan.

About the author

Matt Beedle
Hi! I'm and I've been a vegan for 4 years. I switched to a plant based diet after getting sick with Sarcoidosis while working 16 hour days for several years building a startup. Although health was the original motivation, after learning about the terrible way the meat industry works and extreme damage it causes to the environment I've never looked back. I co-founded Vegan.io to make it as easy as possible for other people to switch to a vegan diet.

Want to try a vegan diet?

We created a meal planner app to help you! Get your fresh customized meal plan full of delicious, quick, budget friendly, healthy recipes.

GET YOUR MEAL PLAN!