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!
My son will not eat bread for lunch, but he does love tortillas so I use those. I love these creative ideas for them. He would love it if I did this!
These are great ideas! Planning lunches got to be such a hassle for my sister that she just had the kids buy their lunch. Thanks for sharing this!
Planning back to school lunches makes the school crunch so much less stressful! Getting the kids to help plan what they’ll eat and they may actually eat it!
I try to plan my kids lunches the night before, but I usually don’t make them until the morning. These are some great lunch ideas!
These are great lunch ideas for kids! My kids would be all over the finger foods ideas!
I get in the habit of making the same old boring lunches, so this is great… I totally have to think of these next time I make lunch for the kids. Thanks for sharing
I love the idea of using cookie cutters to make fun shapes. Easy to do and big impact!
I like using pita instead of bread. These are great meal options.
These are great lunch ideas. This year i do not have to make any lunches for the kids. Both of my kids are off to college.
These are delicious lunch ideas. I am going to try a few of these for my kids. I am always looking for new ideas.
I am always looking for new lunch ideas for the kids. I love the sandwich rolls. It is a great way to switch it up.
These are great tips! We often keep a quite a few extra ice packs around since I always forget to put them back in the freezer! Sounds like a great way to save time with menu planning!
I’d like to start making more wraps/pinwheels. You can do so much with them and use almost nay ingredients.
I love the creative lunchbox options! They really let a kids express their young personality!
I need to be better at packing my kids fun lunches. Makes eating more fun.
Everything looks delicious and I love the way you prepared them. I need to try this.
I have to meal plan this time of year or else I go crazy with too many things to do! It is so helpful!
These are great tips! I have my childrens’ lunch planed out for the week and it makes things so much easier!
I wish I could pack my kids lunch like that. I like how you prepared the lunches!
Good tip on the hard lunch boxes, I didn’t even think of that!
Hummus and veggies have become a popular one for us! Well hummus and anything really hah! Pita chips, pretzels, you name it!
These are some great ideas for lunches! It’s good to change it up every once in awhile.