Let’s be honest. Any person responsible for getting kids out the door in the morning with a nutritious school lunch that will actually get eaten knows their customers' preferences. Yes, that child you are making lunch for is a customer. It’s why they are occasionally so difficult to please. So consider this a refresher where I blurt out several ideas, one or two of which may expand your current repertoire.
The first issue: How are the lunches packed? I’m assuming you are a devoted user of bento lunch boxes, which are designed for American schools and the child who prefers to graze. An advantage here: You don’t have to individually wrap foods that are more like canapés or appetizers. Grazing is somehow more palatable since there is built-in variety and no need to fully commit to one large item. Is anyone eating soup for lunch? I hope so. But remember that thermoses keep things cold too.
If you like to cook, here are 47 lunch ideas for kids and 10 sandwich-free lunch ideas. But the biggest suggestion I could make is to start to think about tomorrow’s lunch when preparing tonight’s dinner. I hate the word leftovers. Basically everything is mise en place, modular elements of food that can be combined in various ways. For example, if you’re making rice or pasta, think about setting some aside to use in a cold salad. Nearly any protein you make can be folded into a wrap with veggies or added to that extra rice or pasta with a few tablespoons of sauce or dressing. Perhaps you can repurpose a bit of the vegetable side in a frittata or add it to a cheesy wrap. Use what you already have made. And if you do use a bento-type box, check out the Planet Box Instagram for a ton of lunch ideas.
Mini sweet peppers can be stuffed with all manner of fillings. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.
For grazing:
- Mini sweet pepper “poppers” filled with hummus or guacamole and topped with everything spice
- Cucumber boats filled with any type of lunch meat or cheeses
- Mini frittatas baked in muffin tins or small flat pancake-style frittatas
- Use-ready cooked meatballs
- BBQ chicken salad made with rotisserie chicken
- Mini portion of one of Logan’s cucumber salads
- Tea sandwiches (crust cut off and cut into sweet shapes)
- Egg salad/cucumber and cream cheese/rotisserie chicken salad/ham and butter
- Any kind of cold noodle salad
- Chicken fingers with peanut butter dipping sauce
- Mini bagels with cream cheese and sliced hard boiled egg
- Smooth cottage cheese “ranch” dip with veggies/crackers
- Make your own Lunchables — essentially a tiny charcuterie board
- Chicken wings from your favorite place
- Rice paper spring rolls filled with veggies and ready-to-eat seasoned baked tofu
- Cold ravioli in tomato sauce. Sounds gross. Tastes delish.
- You don’t have to stuff your onigiri or rice balls. Simply mix the ingredients into the rice, ball it up, and wrap in nori.
- Soy sauce eggs
In the thermos:
- Costco’s chicken noodle soup. Buy the big container, then portion it out and freeze it for use later.
- Minestrone
- Make your own Spaghetti-o’s with little ring-shaped pastina
- A layered yogurt/granola/fruit parfait
- Yes, you can stuff a grilled cheese sammie or a quesadilla in a thermos.
- Kibbe with yogurt dip (you can buy ready-made frozen)