Easy, Nutritious, Courful and Delicios Lunch Salad For On The Go

Just like most of you I am also a working girl and even though I love cooking, very often I just do not have the time for it. Eating healthy and delicious is super important for me, but not easy at all, especially during the week. I recently started taking some time to plan my meals for the week and doing some shopping and prepping, but even this sometimes does not help.

However it is now a year and a half that I have not bought lunch at work and I am super proud of it. The lunch options that you have here in my office are quite a few, however non of them is what I am looking for. They are either too salty, too oily, too tasteless or too expensive. Everything past this is pastry, pizza or burgers. Now imagine how all these cons can damage your organism. This is why as soon as I moved in an apartment with a kitchen I started cooking and I have never felt better before. (In fact I am thinking of a whole series about how to eat healthy and delicious at work, but this is whole other story.)

Yesterday for example I was planning to make some beans soup, however I was also craving something bright, fresh and nutritious, like salad. The truth is that a salad will never fill me up for long, so I had to come up with an idea how to help it a bit. And then it hit me! I remember watching youtubers like Clean&Delicious and Vssaurbeauty who had shared some very similar and bright salads, featuring different kinds of beans. This inspired me to take a look at what I have in my fridge. freezer and pantry ant to come up with the most colorful salad ever. It is full of fiber, healthy carbs and fats, also it is packed with protein, which means it is not only super pretty, but also lite and nutritious, so it will keep you full for longer and you will not feel heavy after lunch.

Here is what you will need:

Red beans - canned or just cocked with water

Chick peas - canned or just boiled

Green beans - fresh or frozen

Corn - canned or frozen

Red onion

Red pepper - bell pepper or any other sweet pepper

Parsley

Lemon juice

Salt

Olive oil

 I have not given any quantities as you can use whatever amount of product you like. I used about a cup of each beans, a head of onion and 3 red peppers. The beans and corn need to be cooked in advance. I used canned red beans, frozen corn and green beans that I just steamed for a few minutes, while I was chopping the rest of the items. The chick peas I had cooked and froze in my fridge, so I just added them to the steaming veggies to defrost.

All you need to do is to chop the parsley, onion and pepper, rinse and drain the canned beans, steam a bit the fresh and frozen ones and mix everything together. To them you need to add some salt to taste, some olive oil and the juice of one lemon for brightness and mix well again. This salad is super delicious once you make it, but it is best if you prepare it overnight and eat it the day after.

You can also add to the salad some cherry tomatoes, olives, chicken and even tuna to adjust it to taste. It will be as good even if you add cilantro or dill instead of parsley, vinegar instead of lemon juice and even garlic. It is super versatile and it is easy to be prepared to taste.

As I am blogging from work today, when I was actually having this salad for lunch, I forgot to take a picture of it before eating (oops.. I was so hungry and exited for it) . Luckily I have prepared the salad before, with a little adjustments, like the one on the picture (with tomatoes,no chick peas and no green peas) which is still amazingly delicious. But this also shows how easy you can mix it to taste and with basically whatever you have at home.