47 Low-Point lunches for the holidays

When the holidays hit and every other snack, meal, and beverage being offered tends to be celebratory and rich, there’s no better time to fuel up on nutritious, filling, midday meals to keep you on track. By choosing healthy lower Point foods during the day, you can avoid feeling overly hungry at the end of the day when the festivities begin when it’s easiest to overindulge in the aforementioned rich foods. The following recipes will keep you feeling full throughout the day, so that you feel comfortable sampling your favourite holiday classics when the festivities begin.

These lower Point soups are packed with plenty of flavourful high-fibre ingredients, including a rainbow of fruits and vegetables, canned beans, split peas, and red lentils. Many of the recipes listed below can easily be doubled (or even tripled!) so that they can be pre-portioned and frozen for last-minute holiday meals. If your freezer is already jam-packed

with seasonal goodies, decant the soup into resealable freezer bags and lay them flat before freezing. Once frozen, they can be stacked into neat, space-saving piles in the freezer.

Whether you prefer to stick to the classics (like our low-Point recipes for egg salad, veggie wraps, tuna salad, and chicken Caesar wraps) or want to venture into boldly-flavoured, inspired options (with fillings that include such pesto chicken salad, avocado and black bean, or pear and smoked turkey), you’ll find a recipe below for every taste and occasion. The secret to streamlined sandwich making? Prepare as much of the filling as possible ahead of time! For example, salad-type fillings lend themselves well to prep ahead of time and will typically stay fresh for 3-4 days in the fridge. To streamline prep even more (a boon during a sometimes-hectic meal-planning season), feel free to use store-bought convenience foods such cooked chicken breasts, deli meat, and canned salmon to simplify the process even further.

Grain salads and bowls are not only delicious, easy-to-prepare, and packed with nourishing, satiating ingredients, but the recipes in this section can also be improvised by using similar, low-Point ingredients. Out of the grain specified in the recipe? Try using any other grain you might have on hand—bulgur, brown rice, quinoa, farro, or pearl barley can be used interchangeably without altering the flavour of the finished dish. Another selling point for grain-based salads and bowls? They can be made ahead of time and kept in the fridge for up to 4 days or until you’re ready to enjoy them. These recipes are also the perfect way to use up leftover roasted vegetables, sharp cheese, fresh herbs, and shredded or cubed chicken breast you might have hiding in your fridge over the holidays.