No Fuss School Lunch Ideas (Make Ahead)
These no fuss school lunch ideas and tips help my family prepare healthy lunches quickly and easily!
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Horizon Organic. The opinions and text are all mine.
As the new school year begins, I’m betting those of you with school-age children may be just the tiniest bit excited about your kids going back to school. Yes, the relaxed days and evenings of summer are nice, but the structure and routine that school provides can also be great for kids. There is one thing that I’m sure most parents of young children aren’t so excited about: packing school lunches.
As a teacher, I see first-hand how important it is for kids to fuel their bodies with a balanced meals and snacks throughout the day. When they do, they learn better and play better.
It’s not easy to come up with fresh, kid-friendly lunch ideas day after day. You’re tired in the evenings, and rushed in the mornings. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a lunch packing fairy who would sneak a healthy lunch for each of your kids (and you, too) into your refrigerator every night?
Since that’s not likely to happen anytime soon, I’ll share with you my best tips for preparing lunches for the week with minimal time and effort. These tips help my family to start the school year off on the right foot, because organization and planning are key to a healthy lifestyle.
Depending on the ages of your kids, their school lunches will look a little different. My preschooler likes to have milk in his lunchbox, and we love Horizon Organic milk boxes because they’re a convenient way to pack organic milk into his lunch. The lunchboxes pictured below are perfect for preschool and elementary school, as are the easy and healthy school lunch ideas I’ve shared here.
My time-saving strategy for making school lunches is really simple:
- Make a plan
- Make a grocery list and shop
- Sunday prep hour
- Pack lunches the night before
Here are those steps in a bit more detail.
Make a plan:
Grab a notepad and pencil (or your computer, calendar, or smartphone). Decide which proteins, veggies, fruits, and carbs you will include in your lunches for the week. Balance is important!
I love including Horizon Organic products in my family’s lunches, because they’re made with organic ingredients and my kids think they’re fun to eat. We especially enjoy Horizon’s organic milk, cottage cheese, and cheese sticks because they are great sources of protein!
Here are some ideas to get you started!
Lunch Proteins:
- hummus or white bean dip
- Horizon Organic cheese sticks
- hard boiled eggs
- almond butter, peanut butter, or sunbutter
- Horizon Organic cottage cheese
- Horizon Organic milk boxes
- Horizon Organic yogurt
Lunch Vegetables:
- carrot sticks
- bell pepper slices
- cucumber rounds
- snap peas
- cherry tomatoes
Lunch Fruits:
- grapes (cut in half for small children)
- apple slices
- bananas
- orange slices
- berries
Lunch Carbohydrates:
- mini bagels
- whole wheat pita bread
- whole grain tortillas
- Horizon Organic snack crackers and snack grahams
Make a grocery list and shop:
Now that you have your lunch ideas listed out (and hopefully your dinner ideas, too!), make your grocery list. Go through each meal and add the items you will need to your list. I like to organize my grocery list by the layout of my grocery store, which saves me time when I’m shopping. Be sure to check your refrigerator and pantry to make use of the foods that you already have in your kitchen!
Sunday prep hour:
Make a list of all of the foods that you can prepare ahead of time, to save you precious time during the week. Our usual list includes hard boiling eggs, washing and chopping vegetables, and slicing fruits like melons and oranges. Some fruits, such as berries, should be washed just before using for optimal freshness. We also make a double batch of our favorite easy white bean dip most weeks.
Pack lunches the night before:
Mornings are busy and rushed, so we always pack our lunches the night before. Since we’ve prepped ahead on the weekend, this takes just minutes!
To get you started, here is a week-long no fuss plan of school lunch ideas:
During your Sunday prep hour:
- Hard boil eggs, peel.
- Make white bean dip.
- Wash and halve (for young children) grapes, wash apples, oranges, and snap peas.
- Peel and slice carrots and cucumber. Slice bell peppers.
The lunches:
(Lunchbox pictured is from Bentology.)
Monday: White bean dip or hummus, Horizon Organic milk box, whole wheat pita bread, bell peppers, carrots, fresh berries.
Tuesday: Hard boiled egg, cucumber slices, Horizon Organic milk box, whole wheat mini bagel with cream cheese, grapes.
Wednesday: Horizon Organic milk box, snap peas, Horizon Organic mozzarella cheese stick, apple slices, almond butter, Horizon Organic snack crackers.
Thursday: Horizon Organic cottage cheese, Horizon Organic milk box, carrot sticks, peanut butter and banana tortilla roll ups.
Friday: Horizon Organic milk box, Horizon Organic snack crackers, cucumber rounds, Horizon Organic mozzarella cheese stick, orange slices, cherry tomatoes.
For even more fun meal ideas for kids, be sure to follow Horizon Organic on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter!
No Fuss School Lunch Ideas (Make Ahead)
Ingredients
Lunch Proteins:
- hummus or white bean dip
- Horizon Organic cheese sticks
- hard boiled eggs
- almond butter, peanut butter, or sunbutter
- Horizon Organic cottage cheese
- Horizon Organic milk boxes
- Horizon Organic yogurt
Lunch Vegetables:
- carrot sticks
- bell pepper slices
- cucumber rounds
- snap peas
- cherry tomatoes
Lunch Fruits:
- grapes, cut in half for small children
- apple slices
- bananas
- orange slices
- berries
Lunch Carbohydrates:
- mini bagels
- whole wheat pita bread
- whole grain tortillas
- Horizon Organic snack crackers and snack grahams
Instructions
- Make a plan: Choose the proteins, vegetables, fruits, and carbohydrates that you will include in your lunches for the week.
- Make a grocery list and shop for the ingredients.
- Sunday prep hour: Spend about an hour on Sundays making foods ahead for your lunchboxes. For example, you might make a double batch of white bean dip, hard boil some eggs, and wash and chop fresh vegetables.
- Each weeknight, spend 5 minutes (or less) packing the foods into your lunchboxes.
Like what you see? Be sure to follow along to never miss a recipe!
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This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Horizon Organic. The opinions and text are all mine.
This is such a wonderful post on how to organize school lunches, Kristine! If I was a parent, I would be following this religiously. I used to work in a school, so I know how important lunch time in. And you’ve given me some healthier lunch and snack options, too! 🙂
Thank you for your kind words, Gayle! I often pack lunches like this for myself, too. 🙂
Love this! Horizon is our go-to dairy and snack option around here. My boys LOVE their stuff. Great ideas!
Aren’t their dairy products the best?! Thank you, Blair!
How do you stop the bananas/apple slices etc from going brown and the thinly sliced cucumber etc from drying out. I’m sure if I made these the night before, that by 12noon the next day they’d not look nearly as appetising.
I’d love to prep more stuff ahead but surely it will be less appetising, ruining the whole pint of trying to make it all so appetising.
Kristine, can you please pack my work lunches?? Haha! I love these healthy options!
Wish I could, Alyssa! 😉 Thank you!!
I wish I had lunches like this when I was a kid! These are so fresh and colorful — I love it!
Thank you, Marcie!
What great ideas!! Although, I can’t believe it’s already time for school lunches! Summer just flew by! My girls love packed lunches and this will only make it easier on those hectic nights!
Thanks, so much, Alaina! I can’t believe how fast this summer went, either!
Where can I get those colorful containers at??? Lunch just seems so dull not otherwise
They’re from Bentology. Aren’t they fun?!
Great ideas! Just one question: do the dairy products like milk or yoghurt go bad? Do you add ice packs?
I always use an ice pack when packing perishables such as dairy in my kids’ lunchboxes. Good question!
A fresh and a great source of inspiration. Very helpful to all the mothers out there who are going through a lunch rut right now, especially for picky kids. This is going to be a life saver! Thanks for sharing.
Where did you get the lunch box?
The lunch box is from bentology.com.
AMAZING!! Thank you for making it printable as well!!! SO excited
I’m so glad this is helpful, Bekki! Thanks for commenting!
Great ideas for efficient, healthful lunches. I need a tip on packing cottage cheese! No matter which container I put it in, it ends up leaking…any thoughts?
Hi Jonell,
Some models of lunch boxes do come with small sealable containers that fit inside them so you could look for one like that at Amazon or elsewhere.
Do you do anything special to the fruit and the veg so it’s still ok by Friday if it was cut on Sunday? That’s my only concern about doing it this way … And I would really like to do it this way!
Some fruits, such as berries, are best washed no earlier than the day before (dry them well). I find that many fruits and veggies will stay fresh if washed/sliced a few days ahead as long as you dry them well (such as oranges, melon, bell peppers, carrots, cucumber, grapes). It’s best if you can do two prep sessions instead of one for the whole week – so maybe Sunday and Wednesday. You might also find this post about meal prep vegetables and fruits helpful.