3 Vegan Work Lunch Recipes: Easy and Satisfying Work Week Recipes

These recipes art part of my 5-part series on Quick, Satisfying and Easy Vegan Recipes:

1. How to Make Simple, Delicious Nutritious Vegan Meals Fast
2. 3 Vegan Breakfast Recipes ON THE GO: Quick, Filling and Easy Portable Vegan Recipes
3. 3 Vegan Snack Ideas: Easy and Satisfying Vegan Snack Recipes
4. 3 Vegan Dinner Recipes: Quick, Satisfying and Easy Vegan Recipes

Watch me make the recipes in the video below:

Quick, Easy and Delicious Vegan Work Lunch Recipes

If you want to learn even more recipes, and become a pro at making your own home-made, highly nutritious, quick and easy, yet still satisfying and filling vegan meals, check out my online course, “The Effortlessly Flavorful Vegan Kitchen”. 

In this course, I teach you how to make these meals through my easy to learn step-by-step method. Learning this method will make your time in the kitchen, making food for yourself and your family, a breeze! The entire course is online, and you can do it at your pace. Learn more about it here. 

Vegan Work Lunch Recipe 1: Asian Quinoa Buddha Bowl

A great Buddha bowl is the perfect vegan work lunch meal, because it’s really easy to transport and you can even make most of the ingredients, as well as the sauce, on the weekend.

Buddha bowls are extremely flexible, and I make them constantly, almost every single day. They are filling, beautiful and packed with different flavors and textures, so it’s really satisfying.

Make sure to take the Asian sauce in a separate container, so that the veggies in this recipe will stay fresh when you take them to work.

The sauce recipe I am using for this vegan work lunch comes straight out of the online course, The Effortlessly Flavorful Vegan Kitchen. Check out the course for more amazing quick and easy meal ideas that are satisfying and delicious.

Print Pin

Vegan Asian Quinoa Buddha Bowl

Total Time 20 minutes

Ingredients

For the bowl

• ¼ cup quinoa
• 1/2 cup water
• ¼ cup non-GMO frozen edamame
• ¼ medium onion purple or sweet, chopped
• 7 chopped mushrooms about 2 cups mushrooms, chopped
• 2 cups red cabbage chopped and vigorously massaged
• 1 green onion
• Top with: some cilantro optional

For the Asian sauce

• 2 tablespoons raw unroasted almond butter
• 1 tablespoons chia seeds
• 6 cherry tomatoes
• 1 tablespoons maple syrup
• 2 teaspoons Eden organics brown mustard this brand makes the best mustard, but you can use whatever you have too
• Large piece of ginger start with a small piece and add more until you enjoy the taste, but it’s not bitter

Instructions

For the quinoa and edamame

• Boil water, and add quinoa and edamame in a steaming basket when water is boiling. Cook quinoa for 20 minutes, and frozen edamame beans for 5-6 minutes.

For the mushrooms and onions

• Place chopped mushrooms and onions on a very hot non-stick skillet, and cook for 10 minutes, without adding any liquids. You can stir a few times, but it's not necessary.
• Chop cabbage using a sharp knife or in a food processor. Massage vigorously with your hands until it starts to release some liquids (about 5 minutes).
• Chop the green onion and some cilantro (optional)

For the Asian sauce

• Blend all ingredients until completely smooth.

To assemble

• Place quinoa, edamame, mushrooms and onions, red cabbage, and sauce in a bowl, and top with green onion and cilantro.

Vegan Work Lunch 2: Kale Caesar Salad with Oil-Free Croutons 

I could honestly eat this kale Caesar salad every – single – day. It is that good! The dressing takes minutes to blend up. And you may think my choice for croutons sounds strange, but trust me, it works perfectly well with this yummy Caesar salad lunch.

What is great about kale is that the longer it is mixed with dressing, the softer it gets, the more delicious it tastes. If you find kale to be bitter, you may still love this salad because of the taste change of massaged kale.

Print Pin

Kale Caesar Salad with Oil-Free Croutons

Total Time 15 minutes

Ingredients

For the salad

• 1 bunch of curly kale or about 4-7 cups of roughly chopped curly kale
• Black pepper

For the Caesar dressing

• 2 tablespoons hemp seeds
• ¼ cup water
• 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 clove garlic peeled
• 1 tablespoons capers
• 1 cup zucchini
• 1 tablespoon Tamari

Croutons

• 3 non-GMO corn tortilla chips

Instructions

For the oil-free croutons

• Pre-heat the oven to 400F. Cut your tortillas into medium-sized pieces (the same doesn't matter, this is just so that it's easy to tear up later).
• Bake at 400F on a parchment-lined baking sheet for 10 minutes, then broil on high for another 3 minutes, watching that they don't burn.
• They should be crispy and golden brown when they are ready.

For the Caesar dressing

• Blend in a high speed blender until completely smooth.

For the salad

• Tear kale off of the stems, and roughly chop. Use a tiny pinch of sea salt to massage the kale vigorously, until it starts to release some liquid and turns brighter green (about 5 minutes).

Assembly

• Add kale leaves to a bowl, top with the dressing, and tear up some croutons on top. Top with ground black pepper.

Vegan Work Lunch 3: Lemon Caper Asparagus Penne Pasta

Have you ever had the non-vegan version of this delicious, creamy pasta? I remember loving it at California Pizza Kitchen, where it is served with salmon. I wanted to find a way to make this completely vegan, and oil free.

This version is ridiculously simple, and I was surprised how amazing and satisfying it is. It’s the perfect filling work lunch because it seriously takes minutes to make, and still tastes incredibly delicious! 

Print Pin

Lemon Caper Asparagus Penne Pasta

Total Time 10 minutes

Ingredients

• ½ package TruRoots gluten free pasta about 4 ounces
• 8 stalks of asparagus
• Juice of ½ a lemon
• 2 tablespoons capers
• 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast

Instructions

• Cook pasta according to package instructions, steaming the asparagus at the same time. If you use the TruRoots pasta, they require the same time to cook.
• Add pasta and asparagus to a bowl, and top with lemon juice, capers, and nutritional yeast, as well as a pinch of black pepper.
• You can soak the capers in water to remove excess salt before adding them if you wish.

Want to Learn More Quick, Satisfying and Easy Vegan Recipes?

Lastly, check out my free mini course, where I teach you how to make 7 quick and easy vegan recipes that are very similar to these, here.

The following two tabs change content below.

• Bio
• Latest Posts

Marina Yanay-Triner

Marina Yanay-Triner is a wellness coach and recipe developer through Soul in the Raw. Marina creates easy and delicious vegan recipes and writes about the health benefits of a plant-based diet, focusing on evidence-based nutrition information. She loves to help clients go and stick to plant based eating through her powerful coaching program, combining nutrition and cooking education along with transformational mindset work. Marina adopted a whole food, plant based lifestyle over 7 years ago, inspired by her mother's incredible healing story of reversing a crippling bladder disease. She has reversed PMS symptoms and encourage emotional healing from trauma as a result of this transition. Marina is incredibly passionate about the vegan diet for human health, animal welfare, and the well-being of our planet, all of which she envisions as co-dependent.

Latest posts by Marina Yanay-Triner (see all)

• 3 Tips that Make Living Plant Based so Easy, Delicious & Healthy - December 29, 2019
• Healthy Vegan Meals: 3 Easy Ideas for Every Meal of the Day, In Under 15 - October 13, 2019
• Healthy Vegan Lunch Ideas to Last You a Whole Week - August 4, 2019