Struggling to come up with ideas for your family’s school lunches? Here are my top tips for creating healthy school lunches for busy moms!
Coming up with healthy school lunch ideas that kids won’t get bored of can be a big task, even more so when you throw in the added challenge of trying to make them healthy, too.
If sandwiches tend to be your fallback and you’re looking for ways to liven things up, there are lots of options you can try out to see which are a hit with your kiddos.
From sandwiches to pasta salads and healthy desserts, here are some ideas for nutritious and healthy school lunch ideas that kids will love.
Making lunches nutritionally balanced
Ideally, you’ll want to include a mix of protein, carbs, fruit, and veggies in school lunches. This will give a good range of nutrients and plenty of scope for keeping things fresh.
This includes:
- Protein sources such as meat, fish, eggs and beans
- Dairy such as a cheese or dairy alternatives (if issues with dairy) such as cashew or macadamia cheese or a coconut yogurt
- Vegetables or a portion of fruit such as apple slices, carrot sticks, a handful of berries or cherry tomato
Sandwiches
If your kids have gotten bored with some of the same sandwich fillings, here are some healthy school lunch ideas to introduce. Hopefully some of these will become new favorites!
- Cheese and apple is an easy way to combine dairy and fruit
- Salmon mixed with Greek yogurt gives a protein boost and some healthy fats
- Cheese, cucumber and tomato offers dairy and plenty of antioxidants
- Tuna (with cucumber) is another good protein source
- Cream cheese and chopped spinach leaves can work well for sneaking some spinach in without it being obvious
- Banana (with honey) is another good protein source
- You can also combine banana with a nut butter
- Peanut butter and grated apple or carrot is an easy way to sneak in a bit of fruit or veg into a kids favorite filling
- Roast chicken and avocado (perfect for using up chicken leftovers after a roast dinner!)
- Avocado, arugala, and soft cheese (or spinach leaves if you’d rather use that than rocket)
You can make them look cute by cutting sandwiches into stars and other shapes that kids love.
Presentation can count for a lot when it comes to making healthy foods appealing.
Sandwich Alternatives
What about kids that aren’t a fan of sandwiches at all?
Swap them out for healthy pasta salads, roll ups or a veggie packed soup or stew. Or switch things up with a cheesy veggie frittata. There are lots of tasty, nutritious alternatives to sandwiches that can be a big hit with kids!
- A BLT pasta salad can use creme fraiche or Greek yogurt as the dressing and you can always swap out the spinach if you’re not sure whether it’ll be well received. It’s pretty simple to put together – just cook the pasta the night before and leave to cool, and stir in the dressing, bacon, cherry tomato halves (and chopped spinach leaves, if you’re using them) once cooled. My kids also loved a good pesto with some pasta or noodles.
- Carrot and hummus roll ups are another simple option. Just spread hummus on a healthy wrap and grate some carrot and put it on top of the hummus. A small handful of rocket or spinach leaves can add a bit more nutrition and can be chopped up so it’s not so visible.
- Chicken, tomato and avocado rolls ups are also simple to make and you can add hummus here too to make them tasty.
- These vegetable frittata muffins are a great source of protein. There’s quite a few veggies included here, such as mushrooms and zucchini. And kids will even get a vitamin C boost from the bell peppers!
Healthy Snacks
Instead of packing processed chips, chocolate bars and cookies for school lunches, here are a few healthier alternatives you could put together:
- Sweet potato “potato chips” (which are essentially roasted sweet potato slices that crisp up for a crunchy texture).
- Healthy chocolate pancakes or flapjacks contain ingredients that will provide an energy boost for kids and with this recipe, there is also scope for adding chopped nuts or dried fruit for even more nutrition.
- Cheese ‘n’ fruit sticks that combine chunks of hard cheese with grapes and pieces of apple or pear. Think of it as a cheese and fruit skewer!
- Chopped celery and carrot with a chickpea and yogurt based dip to dunk them in.
- Yogurt and berry for a sweet treat to finish.
Need a little helping hand?
