My lunch break at work is at 11am and there are several days when I'm not able to eat dinner until 7:30ish. On those days, a snack at around 3pm is essential. I seem to be stuck in a rut of hardcooked eggs, string cheese, and chicken salad. Anyone have any protein snack suggestions? A lot of times I'm on the go, so it needs to be something that doesn't require cooking and that is quick & easy. There must be a million options but I can't seem to think of them. Help?

hummus with veggies
Peanut butter plain or with an apple and cinnamon,
Nuts
plain yogurt or greek yogurt (with fresh fruit or unthawed frozen fruit)
protein bar
whey protein shake/drink

I'm a fan of turkey pepperoni (2 pieces are around 110 calories). Love the flavour and the protein keeps me pretty full.

There are recipes out there for "dessert" hummus and dips (Chocolate Covered Katie's Healthy Deep Dish Cookie Pie, for instance). I find chick peas in any form keep me satiated until evening. Just be mindful of portion sizes because they can pack a whallop calorie-wise.

An apple with peanut butter keeps me full until my dinner time (7:30 as well) even if I eat it at 1:30 (my lunch break).

I was thinking of protein-only snacks, but I suppose I could tweak my daily numbers so I could have a carb in the snack, which would make these suggestions work. Thanks.

Nothing is 100% protein.

And of the suggestions you got: peanut butter, yogurt, protein powders, nuts and pepperoni sticks (I also eat these sometimes), or jerkeys are protein without carbs.

Meat is. Isn't it?

I'm baffled why you say these don't have carbs. Have I been figuring something wrong? Half a cup of almonds has 14 carbs, 15 protein. Two tablespoons of peanut butter has 6 carbs, 8 protein. Eight ounces of plain yogurt has 17 carbs, 12 protein.

I'm not arguing...I'm just confused.

I quite often have leftover bits of smoked bacon that have been fried up to be nice and crispy so one thing I like to do is top them off with a bit of strong cheese and then once it has gone cold cut it into squares and just bang them in a Tupperware dish kept in the fridge. That way I can throw them over a nice mixed salad with feta cheese, roughly chopped eggs, half a handful of nuts and whatever else takes my fancy. It's quick, simple tasty and nutritious and you can top it off with your favorite homemade mayonnaise or salad dressing.

Hope that helps,

Mark

Novus: you are not wrong. Meat may not be 100% protein as it contains fat and some meat even has trace carbs (but hey...), but it's not full of carbs.

Depending on the style of yogurt, carbs will vary... greek yogurt I just looked up and it's 5g carb, 8 fat, 11 protein.

As for your snack suggestions - what about some of those envelope packs of tuna with salad.

Mark - love that idea, thanks!!

Well, you didn't say that you didn't want ANY carbs. You said "protein snacks". We listed protein snacks.

And no, meat is not 100% protein. It has fat.

Melissa, we are totally misunderstanding each other, and I apologize. I thought it would be understood that "protein snack" would mean "only protein." If I'd wanted carbs & protein, I would have just said "snack." This is why I clarified myself in my second post. And in my mind "100% protein" meant "all protein and no carbs."

Thanks to everyone else for their suggestions. Mark, that salad sounds yummy! AlmostMe, I'll have to look and see if I can find a low carb Greek yogurt. And I like my tuna salad made with cottage cheese (which has carbs) but maybe I can learn to like it with mayo.