Packing healthy lunches that your kids actually want to eat is challenging. Finding time to make lunches each night is also challenging. Want to make it easier? Spend a few hours on Saturday or Sunday prepping lunch items for easy grab-and-go options.
In my previous blog, Healthy Grab-and-Go Breakfast Options, I shared tips for making mornings less stressful and for creating healthy, easy breakfast options. This blog focuses on lunch. Each night my kids and I pack our lunches for school to help us get out of the house on time. See my post 3 Tips for Making Mornings Stree Free to help create a routine that tames the morning chaos.
3 Elements for a Good Lunch
Protein
The first element to consider when packing lunches is protein. I keep a wide variety of protein options stocked in my fridge and freezer. These items include: lunch meat, hard-boiled eggs, Greek Yogurt, and nut-butters. These items are the foundation of the lunch. My daughter likes Peanut Butter and Jelly, so I make and freeze a week’s worth of sandwiches that she can grab and toss in her lunchbox. Freezing them in individual bags keeps them fresh and saves time while packing. Here are the instructions from my How to Make and Freeze Homemade Nut Butter Sandwiches.
My son prefers wraps. I’ll often have him make 2-3 and then we put them in individual lunch containers labeled with his name.
Fruits and Vegetables
Not going to lie…it is a challenge to get my kids to each enough fruits and vegetables, and it isn’t because they don’t like them–they do, but they don’t like the time it takes to wash, cut, and pack them. So, each week when I get home from the grocery, I immediately peel, chop and bag individual servings of our fruits and vegetables. Everyone eats them because they are easy. Once they are bagged, I place them in a bin in the fridge, and the kids just grab-and-go.
A well-stocked fruit bowl on the counter holds clementines, bananas, apples, and kiwi to also add to the lunch bag.
Snacks
The last element for a healthy lunch is some sort of snack or treat. In my pantry, I have a large basket that contains an assortment of (mostly) healthy snacks. The items vary but usually contain an assortment of granola bars, protein bars, applesauce, pretzels, Goldfish, and fruit snacks.
Packing the Lunch
Over the years we have developed a system that kids know they must include 1 item from each category. They choose a protein option, a fruit or vegetable option, and a snack option and round out the lunch with a juice box or water bottle.
Packing lunches the night before helps make the mornings easier and prepping the lunch items over the weekend makes the evenings easier.