Recipes for a Quick and Easy Lunch : South Beach Diet

Hopefully, the breakfast post has made you realize that the South Beach Diet recipes can be easy to create. Now that you have enough breakfast recipes to last you for almost a week, we will move on to lunch recipes you can follow while on the South Beach Diet. These recipes will be similar to the breakfast options in that they will be relatively simple to create. Let’s take a look at the lunch recipe options now. 

South Beach Diet Lunch Recipe 1: Cucumber and Tea English Sandwiches

• 1 cucumber, cut into thin slices 
• ½ bunches of watercress
• 8 slices of multigrain bread, sliced thinly 
• 4 ounces of cream cheese, reduced fat and left at room temperature 

Directions for the Cucumber and Tea English Sandwiches 

Mix your cream cheese onto each slice of your multigrain bread. Next, add the watercress and the cucumber to four of the pieces of bread, and finish each sandwich off by taking four of the slices that do not have the watercress and the cucumber on them and placing them on top of the ones that do have the watercress and cucumber. If you’d like to take this recipe one step further and have some time, you can toast these sandwiches on the stove. If you decide to do this, it might be a good idea to toast the bread before adding the cream cheese, the cucumber, and the watercress so that your vegetables are cold and fresh when you consume them. The serving size for this recipe is three sandwiches, but you can also eat two sandwiches as a snack while on the diet. 

Nutritional Information Per 3 English Sandwiches

•   Calories 170 
•   Total Fat 6 grams
•   Protein 8 grams
•   Carbohydrates 25 grams

 South Beach Diet Lunch Recipe 2: Fresh and Zesty Chicken Salad

• 1 grapefruit, broken into sections 
• 1 head of lettuce, broken into eatable pieces, about 8 cups 
• 1 and ½ pounds of chicken breast, boneless and skinless 
• 2 tablespoons of red onion, minced 
• 2 tablespoons of sherry vinegar
• 5 tablespoons of olive oil 
• ¼ teaspoon of salt, and more as needed 
• ½ teaspoon of pepper, and more as needed

Directions for the Fresh and Zesty Chicken Salad 

For the dressing, you will want to start by combining four teaspoons of olive oil with the vinegar, the onion, the ¼ teaspoon of salt and the ½ teaspoon of pepper. Once all of these ingredients have been combined, you’ll want to find a jar that has a lid so that the ingredients can be shaken together nicely and stored in the refrigerator. Next, use more salt and pepper to season the chicken as needed. Once the chicken is seasoned well, add the last tablespoon of olive oil to a skillet and place on medium-high heat. Cook the chicken until it’s cooked all the way through. This will probably take around five to seven minutes per side of chicken, but it could also take a bit longer. Once the chicken is cooked, please remove it from the heat source and cut it into half-inch chunks to quickly eat the chicken. Next, add three tablespoons of your dressing to the chicken and coat it liberally. Find a large bowl and place your lettuce, grapefruit, and sauce into it. Finally, add the chicken on top, and flavour the rest of the salad with more salt and pepper. You can also eat the chicken separately from the rest of the salad. 

Nutritional Information Per 1 and ½ Pounds of Chicken and 2 cups of the Salad Mixture

•   Calories 170
•   Total Fat 6 grams
•    Protein 8 grams
•    Carbohydrates 25 grams

 South Beach Diet Lunch Recipe 3: Cheeseburger with a Twist

• 1 and ¼ pounds of ground turkey, lean 
• ½ cup of flax meal, or two ounces 
• 4 slices of tomato, cut thick 
• 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar 
• 4 thin whole-wheat bread rolls, or instead, 8 slices of multigrain bread
• 4 teaspoons of olive oil 
• ¾ teaspoons of salt 
• 6 tablespoons of soft goat cheese, maybe one with herbs or garlic flavoured into it 
• 2 scallions, sliced thin 
• ½ of a red bell pepper, diced into small pieces 

Directions for Cheeseburger with a Twist 

You’ll want to create your burger patty for this particular lunch recipe. To do this, combine the ground turkey, the scallions, the flax meal, chopped bell pepper, two tablespoons of goat cheese, and ½ teaspoon of salt in a large mixing bowl. Next, you’re going to get your hands dirty. Roll the turkey mixture into four balls, making sure to poke a hole into the centre of each ball of meat as you do so. Stuff each ball with a tablespoon of each of the four remaining tablespoons of the goat cheese. Next, pin each hole you’ve created shut so that the turkey covers the hole up. Finally, flatten the turkey balls, but only to a point that will ensure that the cheese isn’t leaking out of the patty.

It would help if you tried to flatten the patties as much as possible so that they cook as quickly as possible. Next, heat a skillet over medium-high heat and add a ¼ teaspoon of salt to the pan. Next, add your 4 tablespoons of oil. Once the oil has heated up, you want to reduce the pan’s heat so it’s only on medium heat. Add your patties to the pan and cook each one for about three minutes on each side. You want to achieve a crisp, brown look for the patties. After each side of the cake has cooked for around three minutes, add ¼ cup of water to the pan to continue to cook all the way through. You don’t want to have raw burger patties. Cook the patties with the water in the pan for between eight to ten minutes. While the patties are cooking, you can toast your sandwich rolls or slices of bread if you want to. When you’re ready to serve your burgers, brush each side of your bread with balsamic vinegar. This will give your burger a tangy flavour that will complement the rest of the flavours within the patty. Finish this sandwich off by placing the turkey patties between two slices of your sandwich rolls or bread and then adding tomato slices and lettuce if you choose. 

Nutritional Information Per 1 Cheeseburger

•   Calories 371
•   Total Fat 11 grams
•   Protein 46 grams
•   Carbohydrates 28 grams

 South Beach Diet Lunch Recipe 4: Pistachio, Grape, and Turkey Celery Salad

• 1 and ½ pounds of roasted turkey or roasted chicken if you don’t like roasted turkey or do not have it on hand 
• 1/3 cup of mayonnaise 
• 1/3 cup of pistachios, salted and chopped 
• ¾ cup of either purple or green grapes, chopped in half 
• 4 stalks of celery, chopped 
• ¼ teaspoon of salt 
• ¼ teaspoon of pepper 

Directions for Pistachio, Grape, and Turkey Celery Salad 

This recipe is simple from a directional standpoint. Start by combining the celery, the grapes, and the pistachios into a large mixing bowl. Next, add the turkey or the chicken, depending on your use. Finally, add the salt and pepper before combining the mayonnaise into the salad so everything gets adequately coated. You can interpret this fast and easy dish as equivalent to a tuna salad or another type of mayonnaise-based dish. 

Nutritional Information Per 1 Salad

•   Calories 145
•   Total Fat 3 grams
•   Protein 7.5 grams
•   Carbohydrates 9 grams

 South Beach Diet Lunch Recipe 5: Roast Beef Whole Wheat Wrap

• 4 whole wheat flour tortillas 
• 1 and ¼ cups of cream cheese, reduced fat 
• 8 ounces of roast beef, sliced thinly 
• ½ of a red onion, sliced thinly 
• 4 leaves of spinach 

Directions for the Roast Beef Whole Wheat Wrap 

Begin by placing your whole-wheat flour tortillas into your oven at 200 degrees. You can also put the tortillas into the oven with the oven set to the broiler setting, but if you do this, the tortillas will cook very quickly. You’ll have to keep an eye on them if you put the oven on the broiler setting. You can also opt not to heat the tortillas if you’re running low on time or don’t like hot wraps. Once the tortillas have finished cooling, spread cream cheese evenly over each tortilla. Next, layer your spinach, onion, and roast beef on each tortilla. You can vary the specifics of this recipe if you wish to do so. For example, if you want a completely hot wrap, you can choose to cook the onions, the spinach, and the roast beef before putting them into your wrap. The cream cheese should be left cold because it will typically become a bit crusty and odd when it is cooked. 

Nutritional Information Per 1 Roast Beef Wrap

•   Calories 345
•   Total Fat 5.1 grams
•   Protein 9.4 grams
•   Carbohydrates 22.1 grams

 South Beach Diet Lunch Recipe 6: Avocado and Hearts of Palm Salad with Cilantro 

• 2 fourteen-ounce cans of hearts of palm. Hearts of palm are also sold in 26-ounce jars 
• 2 avocados 
• 3 tablespoons of the juice of 1 lime 
• ¼ cup of green onion, sliced thin 
• Salt, as needed 

Directions for the Avocado and Hearts of Palm Salad with Cilantro

The first step for this recipe is to drain the hearts of the palm in a colander. To do this, place the hearts of the palm into the colander and then into the sink. You don’t want the souls of palms to contain a lot of liquid, so you would be best off leaving them in the sink for a bit and returning to them after they have drained properly. While the hearts of the palm are draining, you will have time to cut up your avocado. It would help if you cut your avocado to your preference, although this recipe recommends cutting it into half-inch chunks. Once the avocado is diced up, the next step is to coat the avocado with two tablespoons of lime. Since the lime will make up the majority of the salad dressing, you can toss the avocado in the lime juice in the same bowl that will be your final salad mixing bowl. Next, remove your heart of palm from the sink where it’s been draining and cut them into ½ thick pieces. You can do this by hand by cutting the hearts of the palm into rings or just using a knife to achieve more of a mismatched look. Next, cut the cilantro and slice the green onion if you have not already done so. Finally, add your hearts of palm, green onion and cilantro to the same bowl with the avocado. Add your remaining lime juice, using more if you need to or if that is your preference. Finally, sprinkle the salad with some salt. Sea salt would be your best option for this salad. You can put it into the refrigerator for a few moments after you’ve finished cooking it so that the hearts of palm are cold and crisp to eat, but this salad should be eaten the same day it’s made. 

Nutritional Information Per 1 Serving of Salad

•   Calories 110
•   Total Fat 3 grams
•   Protein 6 grams
•   Carbohydrates 8.3 grams