WITH THE KIDS heading back to school in the next few weeks, parents and students alike are facing a new season of early wake-up calls, busy days, and packed lunches.
School lunches don’t have to be complicated or particularly gourmet, but a healthy lunch that your child willingly munches away on will undoubtedly help them thrive in the classroom.
Between getting school bags packed, homework completed and permission slips signed, lunchboxes can often be a last-minute job, so it’s handy to have a pre-September brainstorm of some kid-friendly lunches that can be prepared with the minimum of effort.
If you’re in search of inspiration, here’s a list to bookmark for the weeks ahead – especially come November when inspiration has run dry and you’re tempted to hand them a packet of crisps and jam on a roll.
Read on for some simple, nutritious school lunch options to see you (and the kids) through the school year…
Very few children will say no to pasta, it doesn’t need heating up and it can survive out of the fridge too. “This is our failsafe staple: pesto and pasta,” says Avril White, parent and blogger at Dublin City Mum. “Foolproof and quick to cook. I usually throw in some cherry tomatoes for good measure, pop it into pots and off we go.” Make it even more kid-friendly by using alphabet shape pasta.
It’s certainly tricky to make sure your kids are getting enough vegetables down the hatch, but Deirdre Doyle of the Cool Food Cooking School has a winning suggestion. “To increase the veggie intake at lunchtime, try adding grated carrot, finely chopped celery, pepper or cucumber to a tuna and mayo mix.” Shredded or very finely chopped veggies can add nutrition without compromising texture or flavour.
Muffin tins are my best friend when it comes to getting healthy lunches for my kids prepared in advance. They produce food that’s the perfect size for little hands to munch. Mixing up a giant batch of veggie and egg frittatas with either bacon or sausage is a great way to get protein into kids. Sprinkle cheese on the top before baking, then throw them in the freezer to take out each morning for your child’s lunch.
Sandwiches are a staple of school lunches, but kids can easily get bored of the standard ham and cheese on white bread. Jolene Cox, of the food blog One Yummy Mummy, loves cutting the crusts off of wholemeal bread, filling it with jam or ham salad, then rolling the whole lot up and slicing it into bite-sized morsels. “The kids love them because they are bite sized and have no crusts,” she says. “Empty lunch boxes all around.”
Dip makes any fruit or veggie stick more appealing, and that dip doesn’t have to include many ingredients. Stick with a base of Greek yogurt and add cinnamon and a dash of honey for a sweeter dip perfect with fruit, or add chopped cucumber and a little spring onion for a veggie dip.
Few foodie parents exude energetic healthiness like Steve and Dave Flynn of The Happy Pear, who make sure their kids’ lunches include energy balls. The mixture of oats, dates, raisins and sunflower seeds, pulsed in the food processor and rolled in coconut flakes, gives lasting energy in a bite-sized package. The Flynns also sing the praises of packing a few Medjool dates with the stone removed as a healthy sweet treat.
The great thing about quesadillas is that they’re customizable a bunch of ways depending on what you have in the fridge. You just need the basic equation of tortilla wraps, some sort of cheese, and veggies or meat. The trick is to shred the cheese to ensure it melts evenly on the tortilla while you heat it in a skillet. Weigh the top tortilla down with a plate so it seals nicely with whatever veggies or chopped meat you have on hand. Throw in a little tub of sour cream or salsa for dipping and your kids will be thrilled.
Hard boiled eggs are school lunch MVPs in my household. They’re easy to cook ahead of time, packed full of protein and nutrients, and come perfectly wrapped in their own packaging. Although we’ve had to teach her to contain the mess, my daughter even enjoys peeling them before digging in. Consider this your encouragement to boil a dozen eggs and bake a dozen muffins on Sunday afternoon and you have school lunches sorted for the week.
Pizza is a firm favourite with my kids, and this is the best way to give my eldest what she wants in portable lunch form. Three elements make this lunchbox friendly: pizza dough, cheese, and veggies. Use whatever leftover vegetables you have on hand, just cook them in a pan with a little olive oil before. Shredded cheese and cooked veggies get wrapped in a pizza pocket, baked in the oven, and even thrown into the freezer for a delicious and nutritious meal at a later date.
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