Vegetarian meals that require no refrigeration and no heat
Posted by DivaStephie on Jul 13, 2009 · Member since Jul 2009 · 1 posts
This is my very first post here! I am a new vegetarian and someone asked me a question that I KNOW I will need help answering. Here is their dilemma:
Okay, I need ideas, please. We're going to be in New Orleans next week building houses and just found out that our group organizer cannot guarantee vegetarian lunches for the 5/7 of our group that doesn't eat meat. We'll be staying in a hotel with no fridge. What can we bring for lunch that's healthy, energy-providing, and requires no fridge or heat?
Can anyone provide some suggestions other than peanut butter sandwiches? Thanks!!!
Make a ton of high energy trail mix, nuts, seeds and dried fruit. Granola bars or just granola, carrot sticks, whole fruit Whole grain wraps with hummus or refried beans and salsa, very good at room temp. Fruit leather is good. Beans and salsa, stuff like that is shelf stable till opened, so you could make a trek to a store and keep stuff unopened till the am and then make lunch for all 5 of you, that would use up a whole can of beans or salsa easily. Stuff like cut veggies and hummus you can keep in a cooler on ice, if you only open the cooler a few times a day and replenish the ice from the ice machine it should keep ok. I did this all the time camping with my family, my mom was very frugal, and it worked on my honey moon, so we had to eat out only for supper.
i dont know how much $$$ you have, but you can buy electrical can warmers (this might be the same thing as a coffee mug warmer) to heat up cans of soup. even cold cans of soup are yummy. i love saltines with condensed tomato soup on top. bagels with peanut butter. none of those are very healthy, but they certainly are filling!
You can get soy milk in individual, shelf stable servings, with grape nuts or a like cereal is VERY filling. Wraps with veggies from store salad bar with hummus or oil and vinegar dressing are ok all day without fridge.
I love VW. For years I have been looking for the term "shelf stable" which translates a concept of food presentation common here in Spain (uperisada.)
Thanks guys!
Can you take along an electric kettle (hot pot) and boil water for packaged soups? Or submerge a can of soup/beans/spaghetti or whatever in hot water to warm it.
I thought and thought about this. So far I have only come up with the following ideas. Its not ideal and you will be using a lot of canned goods but its all shelf stable and you can recycle the cans at least.
Take the following on day one to the job site or prep in the hotel in the morning:
Idea 1: Flour tortillas, Refried Beans, Black Beans, MexiCorn, Black Olives, Salsa and a small baggie of garlic powder, cumin, chili powder and Mexican Oregano. Make burritos on site with the help of a can opener, spoons and plates.
Idea 2: Chick Peas, Green Beans, Kidney Beans, Italian dressing, Chibata rolls, baby carrots and grapes. Make 3 bean salad with the beans and dressing and serve with the rest as sides.
I am still thinking about more meals but thats what I have so far.