The Working Mom’s Guide to Easy School Lunches
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Ok, ladies — what do you pack for your kiddo’s lunches, whether for daycare, elementary school, or other? Are you most concerned with ease of packing, assuredness of eating, nutrition, calories, or cost? What are your top easy school lunch ideas? Have you had success outsourcing this task — for example, I’ll bet this is a nobrainer for those of you with au pairs, but for those of you in daycare it’s either you or your partner.
We kind of had a discussion about working moms and kids lunches a few year ago, but it’s been a while — so let’s discuss.
{related: tips for packing school lunches}
For my $.02, we’re trying to maintain my first grader’s weight until he grows a bit taller, so my primary concerns are a mix of calories, nutrition, and volume (I want him to feel like he’s getting a lot of food, even if I know he’ll only eat half of the cherry tomatoes or baby carrots I pack for him), and, selfishly, ease of packing for me or my husband.
We also try to be good to the environment where we can and pack reusable containers — but I’m also realizing that this is resulting in a zillion dishes to wash, so we’ll see how that goes.
For “mains” I find that it’s hard to get around yogurt/milk/sandwich options, unless we have acceptable leftovers (for example, I’ve given meatballs and rice before!) — so most of these ideas are easy snacks and “extras.” But I’m curious to hear what your tips are for packing school lunches — and what you pack!
These are my go-tos for easy school lunches:
Easy School Lunch Ideas
Healthy and Non-Processed Lunch Ideas
- cherry tomatoes
- apples, precut apple slices
- baby carrots
- hard boiled eggs
- shredded or pulled chicken
- grapes
- all berries
Healthy, Convenient Food Ideas for School Lunches
Some good ideas if you’re in the middle of the road (i.e., “healthy” convenience food) — but they tend to be expensive!:
- freeze-dried fruit (we like Crispy Greens)
- apple sauce pouches or apple sauce (I try to get unsweetened where possible)
- pickles (kind of a veggie, right?)
- cold pasta (whole wheat, chickpea, lentil, etc — or a mix thereof)
- cold rice (or a mix of cold rice and cauliflower rice)
- raisins, craisins, and other dried fruits
- individually packaged hummus and guacamole to eat with veggies
- yogurt and yogurt pouches (as a bonus you can often freeze them and use them as an ice pack)
- popcorn, crackers, or chips in a reusable tin (high volume, low calorie — but note that popcorn is still a choking hazard until your kiddo is 5, so maybe it isn’t ideal for, say, daycare lunches)
- crisped greenbeans or broccoli (I often see brands like Harvest Snaps in the salad department, but there are many)
- string cheese, Babybel cheese
- cottage cheese
- milk boxes/milk smoothies like Danimals or Chobani
- (shredded chicken, beef jerky, or more if your kiddo will eat it!)
- (seaweed snacks if your kiddo will eat it!)
Some easy school lunch ideas if you’re all about convenience foods but are striving for healthyish:
- 100-calorie packs and other snack-size bags
- the Uncrustables line (but know your school’s nut policy, and note that these are probably not much healthier than Lunchables)
- an RXBar Kids or other protein bar (I almost prefer to give my kids half of a regular RXbar though)
- cold pizza (I’ve given him leftover homemade Flatout Pizza before and he hasn’t complained)
- Halloween fun-size candy portions (in my experience they tend to be closer to 50 calories but your kiddo is still excited to see them)
Healthy school lunch ideas requiring a bit of work:
They can be part of your weekend prep for Monday, if you want…
- sliced fruit or veggies (I didn’t say it was a LOT of work)
- sandwich/wrap you assemble yourself (I know, groundbreaking!)
- cold French toast, cottage cheese pancakes, or protein pancakes (we’ve used this mix and liked it but I’ve heard lots of good things about this mix)
- Pinterest is full of baby frittata recipes like this one from Weelicious
- to heat up and put in an insulated jar (we always try to first put boiling water in the jar to warm it up, then dump the water before we add the heated food):
- oatmeal
- broth/soup
- mac & cheese
- spaghetti and meatballs
- rice dishes (black beans & rice, healthy “fried” rice, quinoa/rice mixtures)
How about you guys — what are your big concerns when packing lunches for your kids? Do you assemble them all at once on a Sunday, or do you take a few minutes at the end of each night or in the beginning of the day? What are your go-to things that you pack for your kiddos? 
Our Favorite Products for Packing Lunches
Picture via Stencil.
We are packing three or four lunches a day this year (the three older kids and me). We don’t do sandwiches often b/c we usually have bread and jam for breakfast, and I don’t like to give them the same food for every meal.
We do leftovers a lot – frequently making extra on purpose. Left over dal, beans and rice, if there’s extra meat, soup, or stew, someone heats it, and stick it in a thermos. Sometimes I ask the au pair to make a full batch of pasta for her and the preschooler one day, and then the rest of us take it the other days.
We do quesidillas once (sometimes twice) a week, with shredded cheese, beans and/or leftover meat in the tortillas.
Fridays usually do tuna bean salad, which is a favorite of my kids. One can of tuna to one can of cannelli beans (we are often low on groceries on Friday, which is one reason this works so well), vinegar, oil and salt, and if we’re feeling fancy we shred a carrot in. Or rather, my ten-year-old does, because this is usually her job.
For snacks we sometimes do yogurt and honey (in reusable containers, I’m weird about the huge amount of sugar in pre-sweetened yogurt), and frequently nuts and dried fruit mix (just cashews, almonds, or shelled pistachios with a few dates, raisins, or Costco dried fruit mix).
A lot of cut up apples, carrots, red/yellow peppers (dubbed candy peppers in my house).
Our lunches are a bit repetitive, but since we often have a lovely breakfast (DH has a mean omelet game) and good dinners, I have zero problem with boring lunches.
All of this food is frequently served for afternoon snack, too. If my kids complain it’s not snack food, well, they must not be that hungry =).
Also, teach your kids to help as early as possible, even if it’s just setting out the lunch boxes where they are easy for you to reach, or putting their water bottle in! we often have days where the ten and seven year old pack all four of our lunches after they eat breakfast, which means DH and I get to sit and eat breakfast together.
We really like Easylunchboxes and have used them for years now. They have held up surprisingly well. Major bonus, they are bottom rack dishwasher safe.
Something that’s made my life sooooooo much easier: Instead of ice packs, freeze applesauce or other fruit/veggie sauce packs and add those into the lunchbox/bag to keep foods cold. I do this for myself. If I bring a yogurt parfait (Greek yogurt, fruit, cereal/granola, all layered in a Mason jar with plastic lid), I usually add one of the frozen fruit sauce packs to make sure it stays cold. That way I don’t have to worry about dealing with too many ice packs. (I wouldn’t recommend glass Mason jars for kids, but I do use them for my own lunches.) I like to buy the applesauce packs in bulk and aim for less than $.50 per pack. Costco has great ones, organic, no-sugar-added.
Sorry to join in so late (although I think I’ve settled on a username). We use the Bentology lunchbox system from way back when it was laptop lunches. Usually the big compartment is a jam or bologna sandwich. The two smaller compartments are usually fruit or veggie like baby spinach, sliced cucumber, applesauce, or other fruit. Usually the hubs makes lunch, but when I do sometimes I mix it up and do mac-n-cheese or some kind of leftover in 2 medium size compartments instead. Last week I had luck with veggie dogs a couple times and a cheese/cracker thing a different day. The lad also likes olives. Sometimes I throw in a cheese stick or turkey pepperoni for extra protein. He’ll start 6th grade in a couple days, and we’ve been using this kind of lunchbox since pre-K.
Things I haven’t seen on here yet:
– dried fruit; kiddo loves dried cherries, raisins, dried blueberries, apple chips, etc.
– deli meat wrapped around a cheese stick and cut into chunks; kiddo won’t eat cheese sticks consistently, but somehow wrapping them in deli meat makes them delicious.
– frozen meatballs, microwaved and either put in a heated thermos with tomato sauce or served cold with BBQ sauce
– leftover fried chicken, cold (yeah, I have southern roots)
– a small cup of kiddo’s favorite cereal; daycare serves milk so they can splash milk on it or she can eat it dry
And a pro tip; you can get a little cup of diced chicken or other meat at Chipotle and send that in a kid’s lunch.
I’ve said it here before, I think, but one of the better parenting decisions we stumbled into was making my kindergartener make his own lunch each day. Total PITA the first year or two, but now he’s in third grade and can do it unsupervised. major upside is that he never complains about it because he packed it. Little brother is now just starting K and we have him on the same work plan.
These are all so helpful! A few things not previously mentioned:
– Edamame (counts as protein AND vegetable, at least in my mind)
– Black beans sauteed with onions and cumin and then mushed up a little
– Trader Joes turkey burgers
And one weird thing that my daughter LOVES and maybe your kid will too? We take frozen peas + frozen spinach (about a 2:1 ratio), microwave it until it’s all hot, mix in a fair amount of good butter (the salted Kerrygold) and then roughly blend. Eat with a spoon. The peas make it really sweet (and the butter helps, too). This dish is probably her main source of vegetables, and if you make a big batch it also works well for daycare.
I send all kinds of things that “should” be hot or cold – I do not understand the necessity of keeping foods at a specific temperature until lunch time (from 8:300 to noon, are foods really going to make you sick in four hours?) Anyway, makes lunch packing much easier. I guess we don’t really eat meat or mayonnaise, so maybe that lessens my food safety risk?
Also in the mindset that variety is not necessary. DH hates eating the same thing over and over so his least favorite job is packing kids’ lunches because he has this idea that it has to be different every day. Meanwhile when I pack it’s the same darn thing and guess what? Kids eat it. Or they don’t but it’s not because it’s not varied enough, ha!
Anyway, we are totally on team Planetbox. We’re going on year 4 with ours and have only had to replace one of the carrying bags because one kid likes dragging his and it was torn up. But the steel containers are still in perfect shape. I actually love that we have exactly ONE container to wash and keep track of for each kid. OK we also have silicone cupcake liners that I use to separate stuff inside sometimes (i.e., crackers so they don’t touch slimy stuff) and the occasionally-used round containers that come with the Planetbox, but still…very minimal clutter in the kitchen and while it’s a pain to have to wash daily it’s worth it over having more things to keep track of.
So, what goes in the Planetbox for a 3rd grader and a 1st grader – basically it’s the same thing for a week:
MAIN section = protein & carb: 2 kids who won’t eat sandwiches, so this is the toughest section, but rotate:
– Yogurt or Frozen yogurt tube
– Babybel or cheese stick + crackers or pretzels
– Ham/turkey w/avocado rollup or sometimes just the meat folded (NOT rolled, mom!)
– Tofu cubes
– (Someday I’m going to try pasta salad)
LONG section = vegetable
– Baby carrots
– Snap peas
– Cucumbers
– (used to offer grape tomatoes until no more love for them)
VERTICAL RECTANGLE section = fruit 1
– apple slices 90% of the time unless it’s cuties seasons, then it’s cuties…
– half a banana
HORIZONTAL RECTANGLE section = fruit 2
– berries
– something else in season that isn’t messy
– Sometimes when we are low on fruit/veg or I am feeling crazy I stick a granola bar here
My daughter (6yo) loves a good salad for lunch. I also do turkey lettuce wraps and chicken nuggets in the thermos. Pasta (I get the barilla pasta plus in the yellow box because it has protein) is a favorite as well. She’s a skinny little thing so I tend to just shove tons of food in her bag with the hope that she eats more than the carrots!
THIS IS MY JAM. I have this down to a science. You gotta be okay with a lot of repeats, but it’s healthy and fast. I used to pack 5 lunches on Sunday but now with 2 kids I do 2-3 lunches at a time twice a week, for fridge space reasons.
I have three formulas and rarely deviate from them. Even if I do, having the ‘formula’ helps me decide what to do even if I swap out a component for something nonstandard. Each formula is based around being able to pack the foods in it bento-style (touching each other) so you can just use one container.
All of these are vegetarian and nut-free.
Option 1: Dr Praegers spinach cakes (buy big box at costco), sweet potato tots, scrambled eggs
Option 2: Pasta (usually with pesto), misc vegetable (usually Steamfresh), cubed tofu
Option 3: Quesedilla with black beans inside, cucumbers+tomatoes (this one the veg has to be packed in a separate compartment)
Lunch is always one of those. I also need to send 2-3 reasonably hearty snacks (my kids are at daycare for 9.5-10 hours). Those might be:
– banana
– peanut/sun butter sandwich
– fruit + string cheese
– fruit + crackers
– yogurt
Snacks I prep kind of ad hoc, 1-3 days worth at a time.
And we have some cheerios, applesauce pouches, and fig bars stored at daycare for extra-hungry days.
A few allergy friendly options from a peanut/nut free parent (many of these are also dairy/egg free):
hummus and pita/veggies
salsa/guacamole and toasted pita
crackers, cheese, halved cherry tomatoes
cold pasta salad (diced peppers, penne pasta)
cold or warm quiche
pancakes precut into pieces and jam for dipping (less messy than syrup)
plain pasta or pasta with tomato sauce (put in container very hot and will still be warm at lunchtime)
Ham and avocado or guacamole sandwich
wow butter (sunbutter) sandwich (note that some schools do not allow peanut butter alternatives because they are too hard to tell apart from the real thing)
pinwheel wraps
greek yoghurt with fruit and a muffin
rice bowl with rice, chopped roast chicken and chopped cooked veggies (leftovers from dinner) – can be eaten with a spoon
Sandwiches are sometimes more popular when cut into 4 strips instead of triangles.
We do a lot of hot entrees in a Thermos Funtainer jar: mac and cheese, tomato soup, fried rice, lo mein. I fill the jar with hot water to preheat it while I heat up the food, then pour out the water and fill the jar all the way to the top with food. This way it stays hot until lunch.
The Kodiak Cakes pancakes linked above are very tasty, high in fiber and protein, low in sugar, and easy to make, but they would be awful cold and/or in a lunch box. We make a batch on the weekend and freeze them for weekday breakfasts. You can buy the mix in some Targets.
My son eats everything cold, including scrambled eggs and mac and cheese. A couple other ideas to add to Kat’s list:
Frozen peas (defrost if you want but these are actually quite tasty still frozen – my mother used to give them to us as a before dinner snack and I still like them. Weird I know)
Frozen corn
Cut up or shredded cheese
Turkey pepperoni (Boar’s Head brand is particularly tasty)
Banana rings – slice a banana into discs without peeling it – the peel helps keep them from getting smushed and is easy for kid to remove
For containers, we use the easy Lunch Boxes brand plastic ones from Amazon. Cheap, easy for my son to open, dishwasher/microwave safe. I do recommend also getting some of the mini ones that are not microwave safe but are more water tight for subdividing and sauces.