47 Quick Lunch Ideas for Any Day of the Week

Whether it’s pulled together before soccer practice on a Saturday, a healthy lunch al desko as you work from home, or a meal for one after a morning appointment, sometimes lunch just has to happen fast! But on days when you don’t want that to mean a cold, sad sandwich, hit up one of these ideas for something a little more special. The beauty of these dishes is how many of them are riffable, too. Sometimes you just need a new idea to jog you out of your routine, and then suddenly that fridge full of leftovers will be ripe with possibility. Just take these vegan tostadas, for example. They’re made with a bunch of pantry staples and veggies that are probably already hanging out in your kitchen. Walnuts add an almost meaty texture and richness to a bean filling, too. Spend a mere 20 minutes making some on Monday, and enjoy a few times throughout the week.

You don’t have to take a break from eating high-protein just because you’re in a hurry at lunch time. This bowl is packed with flavor due to the tzatziki, that Mediterranean garlicky cucumber yogurt that tastes good on everything. But also present are chickpeas, rotisserie chicken and lots of easy add-ons that make each bite a treat.

We love a summertime tomato sandwich—little is needed beyond some good bread and a slick of mayonnaise for a treat that really makes you relish the warm days. This combination takes that and runs with it, adding that fresh salinity that comes with smoked salmon, and swapping in pumpernickel, which is really always an unexpected player, and very welcome. A creamy dressing with fresh chives will give it real staying power.

First, let’s talk about the concept of a “dense” salad. You know those light and fluffy salads with lots of air in there? This is the opposite of that, not a lot of leafiness but absolutely packed with chunky, crunchy things. It’s dense with good-for-you beans and veggies that will make you feel wonderful. But the best thing about this kind of salad is how it keeps, so you can eat it right after you make it, but it also will be just as delicious tomorrow.

Turn your usual instant slurp into something a little heartier, a little richer, and a little more nourishing, with fresh corn and mushrooms.

You’ll never think of a turkey sandwich as boring again, once you marry it with everything that makes baked Brie so exciting. Tyler Florence tucks in gooey Brie and slicks the bread with apple butter, then cooks the sandwich in butter for a warm, sophisticated finish.

Fried chickpeas may become your new best friend, as they are tasty enough to snack on right out of hand. They boost this quick salad from Ree Drummond, as does spiking the dressing with store-bought pesto.

Put in just a few more minutes than that two-minute scrambled-egg-and-toast routine, and look what you are rewarded with! You might be forgiven for feeling like you’re lunching in Paris. Add some dressed salad greens on the side, et voila.

Chickpeas and cherry tomatoes need little more than Michael Symon’s zesty, lemon and garlic tahini dressing to keep you spooning up every last bit. Some crusty bread to swipe up the dregs in the bowl wouldn’t go amiss.

Pasta with yogurt sauce might sound unusual until you stop to think how yogurt is used in other cultures—no pun intended—more like sour cream, topping some dishes as a cool foil to temperature warmth or spiciness, or becoming the base of a dressing or salad. Here, Yumna Jawad describes this as her Middle Eastern family’s version as pasta Alfredo or mac and cheese. The yogurt gets infused with garlic and whipped with tahini for a creamy sauce that clings to the noodles in an appealing way. The dish comes together so fast, you’ll be happy to have this one in your arsenal.

This is one of those occasions in which staleness actually pays off! Day-old rice truly makes the best fried rice, so put those takeout leftovers to good use. Studded with other pantry and fridge staples, this dish, from Jet Tila, is sure to go into regular weekday rotation.

We love a Reuben, but sometimes we don’t love that kind of intense fullness that follows a Reuben for lunch. Enter the Reuben salad, which translates to a slaw inspired by the classic sandwich, with corned beef and Swiss cheese. Shredded cabbage is swapped in for the sauerkraut, and in the real genius move, some homemade croutons are fashioned from rye bread. Don’t be afraid to make it from a marble rye, if you’ve got one.

What would happen if you turned everyone’s favorite pasta dish from a certain chain Italian restaurant and turned it into a soup? Ree Drummond answers that question with this very comforting bowl that includes broccoli and chicken and yes, even fettucine noodles! You could leave those noodles whole and eat it ramen-style, but Ree recommends breaking those noodles so that you can really relax into creating perfect spoonfuls without too much effort.

Leave it to the French to transform those last pieces of ham in your deli drawer and some stale bread into something completely sublime, with a little broiling and a topping of an ooey, gooey Gruyere sauce.

Few people think, "Let me start cooking some soup," when they need lunch in a hurry. But with this 20-minute wonder from Rachael Ray, maybe they should. Don’t worry, it’s not some slap-dash affair that will leave you hungry. In the soup’s short simmer time, you can make irresistible cheesy toasts to float in the bowls.

So simple and quick, this frittata from Marcela Valladolid combines scallion and cilantro with Mexican crema and Oaxaca cheese. After a quick finish in the broiler, the top gains crispy spots along with lodes of molten cheese that add variation in each bite.

Ree Drummond takes her cues from a loaded slice of pizza and the best Italian subs with this hot, crisp sandwich that you will delight to dip into extra marinara sauce.

If you’ve ever looked for that One Tuna Salad Recipe to Rule Them All, this is it. It’s fresh and bright tasting, whether served in a sandwich, in lettuce cups, in hollowed-out tomatoes, or just on a plate with your favorite crunchy crackers.

Grilled cheeses are the ultimate quick home lunch—they’re hot, they’re crisp, and they’re comforting. But things get complicated when you scale up and want to make several sandwiches at a time—or at least they did, before you had these strategies. Make them in the oven, on a panini press, or in a skillet, and switch up variations based on our suggestions.

Don’t be confused about the fact that there is a hot pot recipe on this list of quick lunches. Yes, we did mean to include it. You will be blown away at how satisfying this is, and how it’s mostly assembled from frozen and cooked right in your microwave. While it’s being zapped, make the dipping sauce, then get ready to tuck into an outright feast for one.

This salad puts a little twist on the “Caesar with protein on top” concept that you can find in just about any restaurant. In place of the shrimp or salmon or chicken that you might not have on hand on the regular, you open a can of chickpeas and give them a little pan-fry with spices for an irresistible texture and flavor. It’s a trick you might find yourself going to to enhance all kinds of salads and other dishes, too.

Yes please! It’s amazing how you can just tweak the classic BLT sandwich—some crusty bread, interesting greens in place of plain lettuce, and the addition of avocado to make it more filling—and something old is new again.

Soba noodles are the luncher’s secret weapon, because they cook up in mere minutes. While you wait for them, get your veggies and dressing ready, and by the time you strain you’ll be on your way to a nutritious spin on noodles in peanut sauce.

Take your scrambled eggs on a roller coaster ride with the addition of Calabrian chiles. Piled on pillowy toasted Parker House rolls and broiled with Asiago, you’ll be glad that the building blocks of this sandwich keep for a few days, so you can revisit again and again.

This warm salad makes a great side for a barbecue or Tex-Mex dinner, but it has just enough balance and heartiness that it can stand on its own, too. Black beans lend protein, avocado adds richness, and corn is your whole grain; a zesty dressing and fresh cilantro in this mixture, studded with veggies, completes one delicious package.

Why should meat eaters have all the fun? Tempeh bacon brings that salty punch to a sandwich that also gains an appealing crunch from sprouts and shredded carrots. Avocado makes sure that you won’t be hungry again too soon.

Goat cheese brings a tang and richness to this simple salad. Chopped roasted almonds lend a toasty note that complement the light flavors and the minerality of the kale.

Molly Yeh takes no chances—since she wants the Mediterranean flavor that olive oil imparts, she toasts the bread in it first, before flipping over and filling with a bewitching combination of Cheddar, Parmesan and tangy, melty labneh, a Middle Eastern yogurt cheese. A sprinkle of zaatar, amped up with an extra spike of lemony sumac, gives the sandwich a little something special.

You had me at "sesame rice bowl." But a savory lightly-sauteed slaw of shredded Brussels sprouts and shiitakes, and a tahini dressing spiked with cumin and paprika, makes this lunch much more special than it needs to be.

This grilled cheese is fancy! And yet, assembling it is not that different from assembling your run-of-the-mill grilled cheese; it’s really a matter of having these ingredients on hand. If you grow tomatoes in your garden, pluck a not-quite-ripe one off the vine to form the basis for this outrageous combination. Add some bacon and an ideally tangy-creamy combination of Brie and goat cheese, plus that crisp exterior that comes with the “grilled” part of the grilled cheese, and you really have one dynamite sandwich.

A BLT is always a treat, but that doesn’t mean you can dine on it every day without getting sick of it. Here, its flavors are translated into a hearty salad. Prep the dressing and greens while the bacon and croutons cook, and you’ll still have a few extra minutes left to set a nice table.

It might say “breakfast” in the name, but with a hot wrap this good, the only difference between breakfast and lunch is what time of day you’re eating it. What makes this wrap so interesting is the wrap itself, fashioned from a tortilla that’s fortified by being given the French toast treatment, getting dipped in egg and griddled for an omelet-tortilla hybrid. It’s stuffed with ham, spinach and cheese, and it will hold its shape as nicely as a griddled burrito, which in a sense, it is.

That iconic Cuban sandwich—salty with several kinds of pork, cloaked with melted Swiss and punchy with pickles, and griddled until its crusty bread practically crackles—is easy to discount as something you just order in a restaurant, but if you have all the ingredients on hand, it couldn’t be simpler to replicate at home. Give it a try.

Ree Drummond’s speedy noodles, meaty with two kinds of sauteed mushrooms, and tossed with an extra-umami soy dressing, taste like they took much more time than they did.

Get a taste of spring any time of year with Claire Robinson’s minty pasta salad. This makes an excellent side to grilled steak, chicken, or pork chops, but the addition of feta means that it also works well on its own for a quick lunch.

And to think that Ree Drummond’s frequent jumping-off point of inspiration is a bit of pesto. Here, it’s but a condiment in the service of flavoring a wrap also filled with meatballs, spinach, olives and mozzarella. The tortilla is pan-fried, like a quesadilla that got its passport stamped in Naples.

What could be easier than getting your main ingredients out of cans? In this bean salad from Geoffrey Zakarian, a zesty dressing with fresh herbs and plenty of garlic means dining on lunch that tastes straight from the garden rather than with a twist of the can opener.

If you haven’t had tortilla pizza, you’re in for a treat. The fridge staples transform in texture and become the best kind of thin crust, still amazingly sturdy enough to take on toppings. Loaded with fresh veggies, this satisfying and healthy pizza will likely become a regular favorite.

Katie Lee Biegel transforms fridge leftovers into a frittata so satisfying, you might find yourself planning for those leftovers as you make dinner! Change it up easily; add leftover bacon or roast pork in place of ham, steamed asparagus instead of peas, swap jarred romesco for pesto—the possibilities go on and on.

French lentils, those cute tiny green ones, are the fastest-cooking lentil of all, which makes them a great candidate for a quick lunch. (If you want to go even quicker, cooked French lentils are available in aseptic cartons in the produce section—just cut open and proceed.) As they cook here, you have time to whip up a homemade vinaigrette and cook that bacon, to assemble a sophisticated salad that will transport you to a Parisian café.

Rachael Ray has come up with what might be the fastest version ever of this classic New Orleans sandwich. Using store-bought giardiniera to pump up and season the olive salad (and using a food processor to chop it in 4 seconds) means that you can feast NOLA-style in under 10 minutes.

It takes just a tiny bit of effort to take a wrap from “ho-hum” to “oh, ham!” Soaking the onion for a few minutes takes away its harsh bite that can overpower the rest of the sandwich. A quick homemade honey mustard yogurt sauce plays off the sweet-and-salty of the ham, Swiss and apple.

Down a bit in the supermarket aisle from that most famous canned fish, tuna, lies a dark horse that should truly become everyone’s favorite. Sardines are much smaller than tuna, which means much less mercury; they are high in omega-3s and selenium, protein and calcium. But let’s not get sidetracked on the vitamin and mineral breakdown; sardines are absolutely delicious to the fish lover, particularly when enhanced in a salad with dill, lemon zest and juice. We love them on a sandwich, as they are here, but you’ll really flip for any leftovers spread on crackers.

Any form of ramen salad, we’ll take it. But Molly Yeh’s version is both more healthful, packed with more veggies than your average ramen salad, and more interesting, due to a homemade Chinese mustard and chile crisp vinaigrette that’s no slouch in the flavor department. It is best, as it says, as soon as it’s made, since the noodles and nuts are at maximum toastiness and crunch. But this salad also does make a dynamite leftover.

What a joy to be treated to a hot lunch with minimal effort. This soup comes together so quickly, it’s sure to become a part of your regular rotation. Though the ravioli, yes, are made with an Italian point of view, it’s remarkable how wonton-y they turn once simmered in garlicky, gingery chicken broth along with fresh spinach and scallions.

Move over Elvis, here comes Jeff Mauro with the next iteration of eye-popping peanut butter sandwich for when all you crave is crunch! Stuffed inside that sandwich, besides the PB, which is, of course, chunky, are some raspberry preserves, banana slices, and, wait for it… potato chips. Don’t flip your lid yet, because the final blow is coating the sandwich in crushed cinnamon square cereal and frying quickly in a pan. There’s really nothing else to say other than… enjoy this hunka chunka sando love.