Making lunch boxes every day is one of the banes of parenthood for me. In our house, we have 3 kids with different likes and dislikes, and one mother with a strong opinion on what is “appropriate”, so making everyone happy is a challenge.
I have had to change my approach to food and shopping dramatically over the past few years with the arrival of my kids, and subsequent need to make lunches for school. I create a meal plan every week (nothing worse than waking up in the morning and thinking “oh no what on earth am I going to pack for lunch?”). I shop with that meal plan in mind. I have a cupboard full of baking and cooking products previously unknown to me. And, I have also spent many, many hours reading cook books and searching the internet for lunchbox ideas and family-friendly recipes.
So, I wanted to share with you some of my top tips. These work with my kids, and hopefully you will find them useful too. After many hours or searching, cooking and taste testing, here are my kids’ favourite new recipes (all lunch box friendly) that I alternate with the basic sandwich, bagel and pasta salad staples.
1. Frozen smoothie. I generally dislike giving my kids juice or smoothies, but when you need a little something extra to top them up, this can do the trick nicely. To make myself feel better about it, I usually add flax seed, chia seeds, or wheat germ and often make the base of soymilk or yogurt. (I do a very basic banana with frozen berries mix to keep it simple. Frozen mango is a nice addition too.)
If you buy these great silicon moulds, you can freeze the smoothie, and it serves as a cooler as well as a snack. My kids LOVE getting these in their lunch boxes. And they are very easy to make the night before.
2. Quesadilla. Very easy to make, even in the morning. Warm a frying pan, put one tortilla in the pan, cover in grated cheese, chopped tomatoes, chicken chunks, or whatever ingredients you think your child will like (for 2 of my kids I do plain cheese! Sigh.) Add another tortilla on top. Carefully flip and lightly cook / crisp other side. Cut and either wrap in tinfoil (not environmentally friendly) or place in insulated container, and send to school with salsa. Not sure why but my kids love salsa, which helps this snack go down.
3. Homemade Granola Bars (or maple syrup bars). I do like to limit sugar consumption, but on the margin, it may be better to send your kid to school with a homemade slightly sweet bar, than another helping of highly processed carbs full of gluten, like packaged pretzels. So occasionally, I whip up a batch of Maple Syrup bars. They are basically granola bars with no dried fruit, sweetened in part with maple syrup, for a yummy maple flavour. (Two of my kids reject anything with raisins or dried fruit.)
Recipe adapted from Kids’ Healthy Lunchbox, one of my go-to cookbooks. Melt 1 cup of butter and add in 1/3 cup of maple syrup and 2/3 cup of brown sugar. Stir until dissolved. Remove from heat and add 3.75 cups of rolled oats. Put in pan lined with parchment paper and bake at 350 for 25 min. I sometimes lower the amount of brown sugar, but messing with the ingredients can make these bars go really crumbly, and difficult to eat.
4. Pretzels. Speaking of pretzels, if you have the time one weekend, it’s fun to make this pretzel recipe with your kids (it takes a few hours with dough rising, etc). It’s like a science experiment and baking rolled into one. The best part is that the kids really enjoy the activity, and enjoy creating wierd pretzel shapes that they can show their friends. (Things always taste better when you’ve made it yourself, as a kid!) And these are great, healthy additions to the lunchbox the next day. Mine like to eat them with mustard. (If you need a sauce container, I can recommend these!)
5. Cauliflower Soup. Great on a cold day in the Thermos. Super easy to make and hearty. From the Sick Kids’ Hospital Better Food for Kids Recipe book, another one of my go-tos.
Melt a pat of butter in a pan, and add an onion and a few sticks of celery chopped. Cook for a few minutes. Add a chopped head of cauliflower and mix in. Add a tbps of flour and mix until all veggies are covered. Add 1-2 litres of chicken stock (or veg stock if you prefer) and 2 bay leaves and simmer for an hour. (Stock should come up almost to level of veggies in pot, but not cover or it will be too runny.) Remove bay leaves and blend (if you don’t have a hand mixer, get one – it’s the beast way to make soup!) Voila.
Chicken stock adds a lot of the flavour, which is why your kids will probably like it too.
6. Veggie Sushi. I won’t lie, this one does take time. But all 3 of my kids love it, and it fills them up with a dose of rice and veggies. So every few weeks, I put in the effort.
You will need special sushi rice, sushi rice vinegar (rice vinegar with sugar, who knew?), and seaweed sheets. There are instructions on all the boxes, and it is pretty straight forward to make the rice, season it, cut your veggies, and then press and roll it all into a wrap. My kids only like cucumber, carrot or avocado sushi, but more adventurous kids may appreciate chicken teriyaki, or even tuna salad filling. (In Australia they have fast food outlets that sell all sorts of sushi rolls with sandwich fillings!) Great accompanied by edamame – another great lunchbox snack.
Use the sauce containers from above for a little soy sauce, and your child will feel like the popular girl from The Breakfast Club pulling out her sushi at lunch time!
7. Potato Burgers. From Kids’ Healthy Lunchbox as well, and you will not believe how delicious these are.
Cook 1.5 lbs of potatoes whole, cool, then peel and grate. Grate 1.75 cups of cheese and finely chop a red onion. (Yes, a lot of grating and chopping!) Mix ingredients well together and then form patties, which you fry in a little butter on the stove for 5 min a side until browned. Divine hot or cold, for lunch or dinner. My kids enjoy them cold at school with some ketchup. Did I mention these are divine? And not exactly low fat, but definitely filling.
8. Hummus and pita. If your kids like hummus, this is an easy one. Veggies, crackers and pita can all easily be dipped into hummus. All 3 of mine actually like this. Hummus provides some great protein and complex carbs to give them energy and keep them full. (Does it sound like I know what I am talking about? I don’t really!)
9. Sausage Rolls. This may seem obvious to many of you, but it never occurred to me! I found it’s actually pretty easy to make your own sausage rolls so you can sure they are healthy. I buy some frozen pastry dough, and a nice healthy chicken sausage. I fry up sausage. Cut and wrap sausage bits in dough. Coat with a little beaten egg. Bake in oven for 15-20 min, and voila! Homemade, healthy as you want, sausage rolls. Not bad cold, but can also be sent in a thermos warm.
10. Mini-Muffins. For a long time I would not make muffins. To me, they were glorified cake, and not an acceptable food (yes, I can be stubborn!). But, I have relented and found a few healthier recipes that my kids like, and I can live with the sugar levels. And if they are small muffins, and made with agave syrup, the sugar rush is kept to a minimum. There are a million muffin recipes out there, but a couple ones I like: Vegan Cinnamon Maple Mini Muffins, Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins, the Banana Oatmeal Muffins and Corn Muffins from the Sick Kids Cookbook. These all make regular rotation in our house. Can also be fronzen and thrown frozen into lunchboxes during warmer months.
For more lunchbox tips, see our past articles here.
Please share any great lunchbox ideas you have… I am still looking… thanks for reading mine!
