Anonymous wrote:Make a massive pot of lentil stew. Cheap, easy, healthy and everyone loves it.

No everyone does not love it. My kids and husband would be hoping there was dessert.

Sandwich stuff, soup, salad

Soup and sandwiches

Make a massive pot of lentil stew. Cheap, easy, healthy and everyone loves it.

Chili is great for this. Just have a big tupperware in the fridge full of it. Cheese for the top, maybe some chips on the side.

Also deli meat/cheese/rolls for sandwiches.

You want easy to grab and serve yourself stuff, even if you pull it all out for everyone to make themselves. The key is for everyone to know where it is.

Have snacky stuff available too, even if your family doesn't eat a lot of it. Putting out a little cheese and crackers at 4/5pm you will find people start to nibble.

Anonymous wrote:We order in dim sum.

Go away, you've posted this on multiple threads

Anonymous wrote:Deli meat and bread, make your own sandwich

Fried chicken from Popeyes, salad and biscuits

Big vat of chicken noodle soup.

This sounds great!

Chicken salad and shrimp salad on slider rolls.

Agree with PPs on having deli items, chips, pickles, rolls or rye or whatnot all available. You coild also have items for tomato soup & grilled cheese in hand. Maybe make clear which, if any, leftovers in the fridge are available as lunch too. I wouldn’t do much more beyond that. Most house guests I host are at ages where they are either children happy with PBJ or similar, or they are adults who don’t eat three full meals a day.

Grilled ham and cheese sandwiches with taboule salad.

We order in dim sum.

Lots of deli meats, cheeses, toppings, plus nice rolls. Add in some pickles, fruit, and potato chips and you are golden! You can repeat this meal for a couple days. Another low stress meal would be a soup or chili. I love this chicken taco chili from SkinnyTaste. You simply dump a bunch of stuff in a crockpot. If you're feeling extra ambitious, bake some cornbread to go with it or serve it over rice. https://www.skinnytaste.com/crock-pot-chicken-taco-chili-4-pts/

Deli meat and bread, make your own sandwich

Fried chicken from Popeyes, salad and biscuits

Big vat of chicken noodle soup.

I'm not planning to cook big lunches on top of big dinners. So I stocked up on charcuterie board stuff, chips and dips, etc. We will just be setting out various snacks like that for lunch.

We will be hosting family from the night of the 22nd until the morning of the 26th. Dinners are squared away as are breakfast and lunch on Christmas.

I just realized that I don't have ideas for meals on Friday and Saturday beyond dinner. Normally I don't plan breakfast and lunch - I'll eat leftovers, kids eat cereal or peanut butter toast with fruit for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, that kind of thing. DH skips breakfast and buys lunch at work. With company I need to be a bit more structured.

If you're actually preparing lunch what are you making?