Lunch is an important meal for low carbers. But who has the time to cook?

Instead of cooking lunch, one good solution is to cook more food the night before when you are cooking dinner. If you are having ribs or chicken for dinner, make a little extra so you can have it for lunch the next day. It doesn't take any extra time and with convenience of a microwave your lunch will be ready in no time. In fact, ribs and chicken can also be just as tasty cold.

Another good idea is to do most of the cooking on days when you have more time. You can take one day and prepare some foods that will provide good lunches for you all week.

Chicken

Buy a whole chicken, clean it and boil. You can use it to make chicken salad to stuff into a bell pepper or tomato. You can also slice the chicken to make deli style lunch meat. Wrap it up in a piece of romaine lettuce with some mayonnaise. Yummy.

If you want to get a little more fancy you can wrap some ham around some Swiss cheese, then wrap the chicken slices around the ham and heat it in a microwave. It's a great low carb cordon bleu. You'll feel like you're dining with royalty.

You can also buy packages of chicken legs and wings and fry them up with no breading. The skin gets crunchy and tasty. These make great grab and go snacks and lunches.

Ham

Boil a ham and slice it. This will be good for making ham and cheese roll-ups. You can also dice up some of the ham for omelette's in the morning or ham salad that you can heap on pork rinds.

Beef

By a large roast beef and cook it in the oven. Slice it up deli style. Wrap this meat around cheese for a quick and easy lunch.

For a real treat top these roast beef slices with some previously sauted peppers, onions and mushrooms then top it with Swiss cheese. Heat that in a microwave until the cheese melts. Your tummy will be so happy when you dine on these tasty low carb Philly cheese steaks.

You can get a corned beef and boil it. You can have corned beef and cabbage one night for dinner and slice up the rest deli style for great lunches the rest of the week. Top the slices with Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and some low carb Thousand Island dressing and you have a great low carb Reuben sandwich. (Diet ketchup mixed into some mayonnaise with some low carb dill relish makes a good low carb Thousand Island dressing).

Fish and Seafood

Get cans or convenient pouches of tuna. Add a little mayonnaise to the tuna with some low carb dill relish and stuff that in a half of a bell pepper or a half of a tomato. Split the top of the tomato into quarters so it falls open and easily holds the tuna. Try it with salmon, too.

Add some mayonnaise and a little chopped celery to canned shrimp or crab (check the carb counts - for some reason the leading brands seem to think we want sugar in our seafood). Take the seed out of a half of an avocado and stuff the shrimp or crab salad into the remaining whole. Delicious!

Even Faster Alternatives

Use processed foods minimally. They have chemicals that you don't need. Don't let the deli counter fool you. Most of those are processed, too and many contain sugars that add to the carb count. It's best to boil or roast your own meats and fowl.

But if you are in a real big hurry, an occasional visit to the deli won't hurt. You can purchase deli meats and wrap them around cheese slices for a very satisfying lunch without having to cook.

Even less desirable are the cans of meats and packages of lunch meats and cold cuts. These are handy when you know you are not going to be where you can get to any other low carb food. You can keep a couple cans of Vienna sausages in your car or at your desk for those situations.

Summary

The ideas presented here can be done in a few hours total and provide great lunches and even quick dinners all week long. On the day when you do the main cooking, you will also want to chop any veggies you might need for the week and clean some lettuce so it's ready to go. Take your lunch to work in one of those lunch bags that keep things cold. It's even easier if you are at home. Just reach in the fridge and start munching - low carb style.

That reminds me, it's almost lunch time!