There are some lunches that require planning, fresh ingredients and the sort of organisation I rarely possess at lunchtime.
And then there are the ones you can make almost entirely from the pantry.
This sardine puttanesca is firmly in the second camp.
Tinned tomatoes, sardines, olives, capers, wholemeal pasta, garlic and a little chilli. Nothing particularly fashionable. Nothing powdered. And certainly nothing that requires an expensive trip to the health-food shop.
Just real food that happens to deliver a rather impressive amount of nutrition in one very inexpensive bowl.
And, perhaps most importantly, it tastes like an actual lunch.
A Different Kind of “Hormone-Healthy” Food
There’s a lot of noise around eating for hormone health, particularly once you hit your 40s.
Suddenly we’re being sold powders, supplements, restrictive eating plans and long lists of foods we’re apparently supposed to avoid.
But supporting our bodies through our 40s and beyond doesn’t necessarily need to look like that.
I’m much more interested in the basics.
Enough protein.
Plenty of fibre.
Healthy fats.
Omega-3s.
A good variety of plants.
And enough actual food to keep us going.
Hormone-friendly food doesn’t need to arrive in a beige packet with a wellness tax attached.
Sometimes it’s a tin of sardines and yesterday’s half-empty jar of olives.
Why Sardines?
Sardines are one of those foods I think deserve considerably more attention.
They’re inexpensive, convenient and packed with protein and long-chain omega-3 fatty acids. They also provide nutrients including vitamin B12, selenium and vitamin D, and sardines eaten with their soft bones can be an excellent source of calcium.
For women in midlife, that’s a pretty handy little tin to have sitting in the pantry.
Then we’ve got tomatoes, garlic, olives, capers and extra virgin olive oil bringing plenty of Mediterranean influence to the bowl, while wholemeal pasta adds carbohydrate and fibre and makes the whole thing properly satisfying.
Yes, I’m eating pasta for lunch.
No, I’m not feeling guilty about it.
Carbohydrates aren’t something we need to earn, although I will concede that chasing children, gardening, cooking, cleaning and retrieving whatever Sunny has stolen this time probably gives me ample opportunity to use the energy.
Sardine Puttanesca with Wholemeal Pasta
Serves 1 generously
Ingredients
- 75–90g wholemeal spaghetti or other wholemeal pasta
- 1 small tin sardines, preferably in olive oil, drained lightly
- ½ tin chopped tomatoes, around 200g
- 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon sliced olives
- 1–2 teaspoons capers
- Pinch of dried chilli flakes, to taste
- 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil, if needed
- Black pepper
- Small handful of parsley or other fresh herbs, if you have them
Method
Bring a saucepan of salted water to the boil and cook the wholemeal pasta according to the packet instructions.
While the pasta cooks, warm a small frying pan over medium heat.
Add a little olive oil — or use some of the oil from the sardine tin — followed by the garlic and chilli. Cook gently for about 30 seconds, taking care not to brown the garlic.
Add the tomatoes, olives and capers. Stir and allow the sauce to simmer for 5–8 minutes until it has thickened slightly.
Add the sardines towards the end, breaking them gently into large pieces rather than completely stirring them through. Warm for another minute or two.
Taste before adding any salt. Between the sardines, olives and capers, you may find it doesn’t need any.
Drain the pasta, reserving a splash of the cooking water.
Toss the pasta through the puttanesca sauce, adding a spoonful of pasta water if you need to loosen everything.
Finish with black pepper, parsley and a little extra virgin olive oil if you fancy it.
Then eat it while it’s hot — preferably before someone asks where their shoes are.
Make the Sauce Once, Eat It Again
This is where this recipe becomes particularly useful.
Cooked pasta isn’t my favourite thing to freeze. The texture is never quite as good once it’s thawed and reheated.
The puttanesca sauce, however, is perfect for freezing.
Make three or four times the sauce recipe, portion it into individual containers and freeze.
On a busy day, you can put a pan of pasta on, reheat one portion of sauce and have a proper lunch ready in roughly the time it takes the pasta to cook.
I’d add the sardines either before freezing for maximum convenience, or keep tins in the pantry and add a fresh tin as you reheat the tomato base. The second option also means you can use the same frozen puttanesca base with white beans, leftover chicken or whatever else needs using.
That’s my kind of meal prep.
Not an entire Sunday spent filling identical containers with chicken and broccoli.
Just making tomorrow’s lunch a little easier.
A Pantry Lunch Worth Keeping
I think this is where eating well becomes much more sustainable.
Not by trying to make every meal perfect, but by having a handful of genuinely good meals you can make when the fridge looks bare and you don’t particularly feel like cooking.
A tin of tomatoes.
A tin of sardines.
A jar of olives.
Some capers.
A packet of wholemeal pasta.
They’re inexpensive ingredients with long shelf lives, but together they make something delicious, satisfying and nutritionally useful.
Real food doesn’t have to be complicated.
And sometimes the best thing you can do for your health at lunchtime is simply make sure you actually eat lunch.