In this video Aviva Goldfarb shows you easy and healthy school lunches to pack In less than 10 minutes including meatless/vegetarian school lunches and nut free lunches to pack. Easy and healthy school lunch ideas that go far beyond the sandwich.
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Hi, this is Aviva Goldfarb with the Six O’Clock Scramble, and I want to talk to you about packing easy and healthy school lunches now that school is back in session.
I don’t know about where you live, but where I live in Maryland, the school lunches are not so healthy or delicious. So I don’t really want my kids buying them, and they don’t really want to eat them. So we’ve had many years of packing school lunches. And frankly, I’ve been in to school at lunchtime, and I haven’t been too impressed with what most kids are bringing from home either. So I have collected lots of “outside the lunchbox” ideas for things that you can pack that you might not have thought of that are really healthy and easy. They’re not going to take you a lot of time. So let’s run through some of the ideas. And if you have some ideas that I have not mentioned, I would be so appreciative if you would leave a comment below the video so that other people that see the video can learn from you too.
So first of all, I always try to pack a waste-free lunch. And I know some schools have a policy about waste-free lunches, so it’s a great habit to get into anyways. So we have reusable water bottles, I have a reusable thermos that I’ve used for years; it’s fine, little containers like this from Lunchskins, also these different lunchboxes. There’s one from Systema that you can just pack things up and close them up. This one is genius; it’s from my friend Kelly Lester of easylunchboxes.com, and they’re just so simple, and they’re dishwasher safe, so you’re going to love that. And then, if you need more ideas, by the way, this is a great book from my friend Laura Fuentes of Momables. It’s called The Best Homemade Lunches on the Planet.
This one’s super simple—it’s just apples and cheddar cheese. If your kid prefer, you can always do apples and peanut butter, almond butter, sun butter; those are great combinations too. A wrap in a whole grain roll-up—I’m going to show you how to make one of my kids’ favorites.
This is plain Greek yogurt. And I mix in a little bit of honey or a little bit of fruit jam because if you buy flavored yogurts, they have tons of added sugar, and that’s something that I think it’s really important for us to try to cut back or avoid in our diets. This is great because you can just dip the strawberries right in there!
Kids love dipping. Of course, cherry tomatoes and grape tomatoes are always a kid-pleaser. Just something super simple, like an ear of corn! I just steam it in the microwave, and then actually you just steam it in the husk, if you buy them husked, and they’re super easy to peel afterwards. That’s just a fun thing for kids to eat—maybe not if they have braces, but otherwise!
Leftovers! Like I have these mini garden quiches, vegetarian quiches, and you can see in another video how to make these. They’re great for kids’ breakfasts, but they’re also great just to pop in lunch. Or you can put leftovers in your thermos. Cherry tomatoes, we talked about, hard boiled eggs—a great one! You can just put a little salt or a little salt and curry powder.
Triscuits are actually awesome for dipping or for doing with cheese and crackers. They’re only three ingredients, they’re high in fiber, I’m a big fan of them. I have some natural turkey from Applegate farms here. These are—I think they’re called Snapea crisps—they’re actually made mostly of peas, and they’re addictive like potato chips. You don’t want to eat too many because of the salt, but they’re really good.
Hummus, of course, is a kid-pleaser with something to dip. You can do of course pita chips or flat pretzels, or you can do cucumbers, carrots, or some combination of all of those. Even something like pistachios are fun if your school doesn’t have a nut-free policy and of course if your child doesn’t have a nut allergy.