I buy a rotisserie chicken every Sunday for this purpose!

You can buy pre-cooked hard-boiled eggs, bacon crumbles, or ham.

What about imitation crab?

Pepperoni

You can add some sunflower seeds or nuts from a protein boost with a crunch.

I’ve had kidney beans in salads that I thought were good.

You can buy canned chicken, frozen grilled chicken strips, or rotisserie chicken (Montrose Giant in Rockville has preshredded chicken breast, other stores probably do, as well).

You can buy frozen veggie burgers and just microwave them. It takes less than 2 min.

If you shop Trader Joe's their canned smoked salmon is so good (and afforadable), I always have it in the pantry for salads. #2 on this list

https://sporked.com/article/trader-joes-canned-fish-ranked/

Anonymous wrote:I’m lazy so buy the packs of hard boiled eggs. Also add some canned beans - I like the 3-bean type. Cottage cheese sometimes - that has a surprisingly high amount of protein.

Those pre boiled eggs give me the most foul smelling gas of all time.

Red kidney beans
Chicken

I recently started adding canned chicken and it's actually delicious. Sometimes I do cottage cheese and chicken.

Anonymous wrote:Hard-boiled eggs

I buy a bunch from the salad bar at the grocery store and then I don't have to cook anything.

Anonymous wrote:I'd prefer if I didn't have to cook it. I sometimes add canned tuna or chickpeas, but looking for other ideas. If I have leftover cooked salmon or chicken from dinner I'll add that, but that doesn't happen often.

When I'm home for lunch I will add a veggie burger or grill up some haloumi quick, but I'm working in the office again so that's not convenient.

Thanks for any ideas

Cut up a steak on some lettuce. Done.

I've used feta before, and chickpeas.

I’m lazy so buy the packs of hard boiled eggs. Also add some canned beans - I like the 3-bean type. Cottage cheese sometimes - that has a surprisingly high amount of protein.

Anonymous wrote:beans, lentils, nuts, seeds, edamame

+1.

Or avocado, hummus, or chunks of cheese.

Anonymous wrote:Why not just make more at dinner or on the weekends so you have leftovers for lunch?

Some great ideas I hadn’t thought of (edamame, TJ lentils, Costco roast turkey breast - how have I never bought this??)

There are four of us and two parents that work outside the home so we prioritize doubling dinners so we can have dinner leftovers and only cook every other night. This other leaves a little for lunches and 4 of us competing for it (teen boys!).

Anonymous wrote:You can buy readymade lentils at Trader Joe's, since you don't want to cook. They also have precooked chicken. I never buy it because the use-by date is always like four days away and I can't go through that much chicken that fast (I'm a "family" of one), but maybe that would work for you.

TJ's also has precooked turkey breast near the lunch meats. The one in big slabs is less processed than the cold cuts andb apparently tastes pretty good. We only have one meat eater in the household so I buy that. If more of us ate meat I'd just cook up a chicken and use the leftovers on top of lunch salads. I suppose I can do that anyway and freeze the rest.

If you have an instant pot, it makes cooking beans and lentils and hard boiled eggs a snap.

Also don't forget nuts and seeds. Hemp seeds are surprisingly high in protein and after carried by Costco.

You can buy readymade lentils at Trader Joe's, since you don't want to cook. They also have precooked chicken. I never buy it because the use-by date is always like four days away and I can't go through that much chicken that fast (I'm a "family" of one), but maybe that would work for you.

Proteins that I add (or some combination of them) are deli ham, deli turkey, salami, bacon crumbles, grilled chicken, grilled steak, tuna, salmon, hard boiled egg, string cheese cubes, black beans, and/or pine nuts.