Packed lunches can be a pain in the proverbial, from finding the time to make them in the first place, let alone trying to fill them with varied, healthy and fun food.
Do your kids even finish what you give them? Our boys are so keen to get out to play with their friends that they want to hoover up their lunch as quickly as possible, so you can forget anything fiddly!
Does keeping it junk-free and healthy mean it’s harder to make it appealing? Does your school have tricky guidelines to navigate?
Let me know how you tackle your kids’ lunch boxes in the comments box below.
But in the meantime, as the new school year begins, I thought i’d ask my friends in Northfields Cook Book Club how they keep their kids’ lunch boxes interesting and junk-free to give you a round-up of inspiration…
Helene suggests investing in some little cutters to make shapes with sandwiches. She recommends The Lunch Punch website which has some really fun cutters to choose from.
Sarah does a spot of batch cooking at the weekend… baking and freezing cake slices or muffins and cooking up chipolatas ready for dipping into mini pots of hummus.
Ellinor uses leftovers from suppers, tomato cucumber mozzarella kebabs, mini quiches or lasagnes cooked in batches at the weekend.
Vinita cooks up chicken with different sauces each day and then puts them in wheat wraps with salad… her little boy says they are easier to eat quickly so he can have more play time.
And Mille found her eldest daughter loved it when she got her a thermos flask to take to school, and now serves her up with soup, pasta, noodles or any leftover dish – easy! I like the look of these junior ones from Thermos for £18.95
What about foodie bloggers? I asked them what they put in their kids’ lunch boxes…
Helen from The Crazy Kitchen makes grape heart skewers, slicing a grape on the diagonal, twist it around so it resembles a heart and put it on a cocktail stick. She also batch cooks these supercute cheese and tomato muffins.
The Crazy Kitchen: Cheese and Tomato Muffins
Elizabeth’s Kitchen loves the YumBox pictured at the top of this post. In the image below you’ll see how simple it is to use it to ensure you’re giving your child a totally balanced lunch. They’re a bit pricy at £24.99, but I reckon they’d help veer away from the daily monotony with the challenge of filling the little compartments with different tasty morsels to match the food groups. Check out their website here
Home made sausage rolls and mini empanadas from Nazima at Franglais Kitchen are just perfect for little hands and properly tasty treats that’ll keep kids energised. The sausage rolls contain chicken breast so are much healthier than your bog standard pork version – I’m definitely going to try them out on my boys this term.
Franglais Kitchen: Chicken Sausage Rolls
Sally from My Custard Pie has these delicious looking lamb keftedes on her blog… I imagine they’re rather amazing stuffed into mini pittas with a little yogurt and mint dressing. Meat-loving Arlo would go crazy for them!
My Custard Pie: Lamb Keftedes
There’s plenty of supremely sensible packed lunch wisdom from the queen of family food on a budget Michelle at Utterly Scrummy… I especially love the sound of these wholemeal savoury swirls which conceal a tasty portion of leftover bolognese in the middle!
Utterly Scrummy: Wholemeal Savoury Swirls
Ren’s got this beautiful looking Miniature Potato Salad with eye-catching pomegranate and salmon, along with some great tips and tricks for packed lunches.
Ren Behan: Miniature Potato Salad
Other junk-free finger food ideas on my blog…
- Lemon, honey and mustard chicken drumsticks – perfect fast protein fix
- Sticky lime, soy and honey chicken – great with a little egg fried rice
- Super quick coronation chicken to fill mini pitta breads or wraps with salad
- Packed lunch mini quiches – batch cook and fill the freezer
- Carrot and pineapple muffins – again great for batch cooking and full of goodies
If you’re into Pinterest you can also check out my special Packed Lunches Board which i’ve just created…
The Organix No Junk Campaign
This is the second in a series of posts i’m writing in association with Organix for their No Junk campaign to encourage everyone to eat more healthily and cut down on processed food full of weird and wonderful ingredients. I hope you’ve found plenty of inspiration here to try out on your kids in their lunch boxes!
Join the No Junk Challenge
We know it can be difficult to eat food with no junk so join us to say no to junk and yes to healthy, real food for our families. Sign up to get involved.
Disclosure: I have been commissioned by Organix to write this blog post to promote their No Junk Challenge campaign. All views are my own. Thanks to Northfields Cook Book Club and my amazing foodie blogging friends for supplying me with such fabulous tips, tricks and accompanying images.
Hi Katie, Polenta Muffins (with cheese, spinach and red pepper, all hidden inside) are a hit with my little preschooler! And adults! I’ll try the same recipe with some sweet corn instead of spinach today, lovely with spring onion too. You can google the recipe (I found it on an Auatralian site ) and improvise. I can send it, if you’d like to try it.
Thank you for sharing your ideas,
Gordana
Cor they sound good Gordana, I’d love to see the recipe. Polenta is such a great ingredient… and I love the sound of cheese, spinach and red pepper… yum!
Polenta spinach muffins
I have made this without spinach or without pepper, trying with sweet corn now :-). The original recipe uses all low fat, etc, and plain flour with 2 tsp of baking powder, but I found them smelling too strongly of baking powder so tried with self raising and they are actually better.
1 C milk
1/4 C olive oil
1 egg
1 Tbs chopped chives (often use dry)
1 C self raising flour
1/2 C polenta
60 g cheddar cheese, grated
1 Tbs grated parmesan cheese (only if I have some)
1 roasted red pepper, skin and membrane removed, sliced (long peppers are best)
50 g baby spinach leaves, washed and chopped
freshly ground black pepper, to taste (I never add these for kids!)
Method
Whisk together the milk, oil, egg and chives
Place remaining ingredients into a large bowl, mixing until well combined
Pour in milk mixture and stir until just combined
Spoon between 12 x 1/2 cup capacity lightly oiled muffin pans and bake at 200°C for 15 minutes or until golden
Thanks so much for posting the recipe!
I love those lunch boxes with the little compartments in them.
Same Dannii – i’d like to eat my lunch out of one of those too!!! Maybe I should get one for the days i’m at the office…
So many inspiring ideas. My Japanese friend used to get up at 5.30 am every morning so she could pack a beautiful lunch for her son. It had to have 7 items and include certain colours including red and green. My daughter would only eat cold pasta and sweetcorn – feels like a cop out in comparison!!
Flippin’ eck that’s dedication… I bet the bento box competitiveness is high!!!!
Brilliant post with wonderful ideas here. My girls have always had school dinners because they are well thought out and cooked on site. I also like them having a cooked meal everyday plus a salad bar. I did try a week of packed lunches and my girls hated it. “Mummy why can’t we have sandwiches like the other children?”
Hehehe it feels like you can’t win as a parent at times… school dinners are great for knowing that they get a variety of foods and a hot meal through the winter. I’ve found doing a few days packed lunch mixed in with school dinners gives a good balance and prevents boredom with either.
I don’t do lunchboxes yet but I am always on the lookout for new ideas for my picky toddler and there are some lovely things here I could adapt.
Thanks Corina… yes lunchbox food is perfect for toddlers too as it all tends to be miniature 🙂