Back to School Meal Planning

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Who is more excited about your kids going back to school? It might possibly be you, but wait a week and you will be having nightmares about lunches, paperwork, and homework assignments. Let’s battle the problems before they arise. With the proper Back to School meal planning, lunch will be a snap.

Box

Start with a hard box lunch. With kids running around, throwing backpacks just about anywhere, and building backpack towers, avoid smashing lunches by using a hard box. This box comes with four containers, so it is easy to take it apart and clean it, yet it is compact enough to fit inside of a fun soft lunch bag.

Ice Packs

Buy Ice Packs and make sure to put a couple of packs in the lunch box. I bought 10 of these at a dollar store years ago, simply because often I forget to throw it into the freezer at night and a morning is not the best time to realize that you are out of ice.

Bread Options

Hate smooshed sandwiches? Use flour tortillas or pita instead. You can still cut them into fun shapes (if you are up for it), make pinwheels or just serve them with a slice.

Looking for more options? Put some crackers, baguette or Cheerios in the lunch bag.

Drink

Consider your options: disposable juice pouches or bottles vs water bottles. If you want to be environmentally conscious, get a reusable bottle, but don’t put too much money into it – kids lose their bottle all the time. If you decide to go with convenient,  shop at the club stores for the best deals as these juice pouch do go fast.

Finger Food

Here are some of the best finger food examples that are both kid and school friendly, but do check your school food policies – they vary:

• Carbs
  • Granola Cereal
  • Pita chips
  • English Muffins
  • Cheerios
  • Crackers
  • Cold pasta (after it’s boiled, toss it is with butter to prevent sticking)
  • Garbanzo beans
  • Oatmeal cookie
• Good Fats
  • Cheese sticks or cubes
  • Sunflowers seeds
  • Humus
  • Sunflower seed butter
  • Almond butter
  • Nutella
  • Cookie, Butter
• Vegetables
  • Baby Carrots
  • Celery
  • Mini Peppers,
  • Cherry Tomatoes
• Protein
  • Chicken Nuggets
  • Turkey deli meat
  • Hummus
  • Peanut Butter
  • Sunflower seed butter
  • Almond butter

• Fruit
  • Apple sauce
  • Grapes
  • Berries in season
  • Small Bananas
  • Apples
  • Raisins

TIP:

If you decide to cut cheese and ham into cubes, consider adding toothpicks for utensils

Sandwich

Use flour tortillas, pita bread or baguette.

Cut tortillas in quarters. Put your favorite filling on one side and fold it in half. The easiest solutions are peanut butter, sunflower seed butter or Nutella between two pieces, but if you prefer meat – put a slice of cheese and turkey meat instead.

Want to go fancy? Use cookie cutters for super fun shapes.

Alternatively, you can spread cream cheese on tortilla, roll it up and cut them into pinwheels.

I hope you found some new ideas here. Now go and make some lunch box magic!