School lunch boxes

Don’t overthink it and also the lunchbox is not the place to be trying to get your kid to eat adventurous new things.

Similar to others, we go for main, snack, yoghurt, fruit/veg and a treat.

Currently my daughter has a cheese wrap, mini cheddars, Frubes, cucumber, raisins. The treat varies (it did start as homemade oat bars but they’ve since been rejected and are now small shop bought cakes or penguins and the like).

Thank god, the only restrictions DDs primary has is no nuts. It’s a deprived area though, so I think they are just happy if kids get sent in with anything at all.

Dds lunch is a ham sandwich/pizza/pasta, cucumber, banana, yogurt or a cheese string and a packet of crisps or a cake bar or something.

I’ve never put much thought into lunch boxes really. I just chuck in whatever is there.

None of my children tend to eat much lunch though, too eager to play so some days, she will eat all of it, some days hardly any. They have all been healthy so I’ve never lost any sleep over uneaten lunches.

When my eldest (now 23), was at primary in a much more middle class area, it was no crisps, cheese was deemed “too fatty”, they looked down on white bread, and if you put any form of chocolate or cake, you would be marched in front of the head and shot at dawn.

My son is autistic so he would only have white bread jam or ham sandwiches. No cheese, just butter. (proper butter not margarine)
Cucumber pieces (5 only)
A packet of ready salted French fries crisps
A small pot of grapes (cut up)
Occasionally he would ask for a sausage roll as well.
He would come home starving hungry but refused to take anything else/more in his lunchbox. Then we started getting notes home, so I swapped him to school lunches.
He isn’t hungry anymore.

No problem! I think it tastes slightly more toasted and to me it does taste nutty but the texture is the same as smooth peanut butter. It's got a similar amount of protein in it.

Fingers crossed your DC likes it.

We've been doing pack ups the whole way through (just going into year 3 now).

We mix it up but here's some of it:

Flask with hot pasta (bolognese or roast veggie/tomato sauce with pot of grated cheese)
Flask of soup with bread to dip or a sandwich and veg sticks
"Picnic lunch" - sandwich or wrap, fruit and veg, yogurt, few crisps (usually do a small pack of crisps/wotsits over 2 days)
Hot leftovers in the flask - anything from cottage pie, lasagne, chicken/veggie rice, chilli and rice.

Even occasionally hot baked beans in the flask then some bread and butter, grated cheese and veg sticks (basically deconstructed beans on toast!).

DD is not a particular fan of sandwiches so tend to only do that sort of thing once a week. The pasta and flask thing felt like a hassle the first few days but if anything I find it easier than making sandwiches and chopping veg.

She always has a small sweet treat because the school dinner kids get a pudding. Mix it up from homemade choc chip cookie, banana and choc chip cake, little piece of brownie etc. to a choc rice cake, choc hobnob, chocolate coated raisins etc. if haven't baked.

My son has a restricted diet and pretty much eats the same thing for lunch every day.

ham sandwich
crisps/breadsticks/crackers
banana
fridge raiders or mini chicken skewers
cheese string
chocolate mini roll

That is a really helpful suggestion, thank you. I think the answer is probably not but I'll try anything! What is the taste like?

Thank you 🤗

I use lunchboxes with separate compartments and tbh I have the opposite problem, fruit goes squidgy. Ice blocks help with squidginess. Can't advise on drying out!

Ice pack in lunch box. We have penguins 🐧
:)

Things my 4 year old will eat (nut free nursery)
sandwiches/bagel/wraps/crackers - egg mayo, ham/ham & cheese, chicken salad, prawn mayo, cream cheese/cheddar (dairy free)
a boiled egg/chicken peices/ sausage/ prawns/ salmon/ cheese cubes
carrot/ peppers/ cucumber/ green beans/ peas/ pickles/ lettuce/ courgette
any fruit except banana and anything orange/ satsuma etc so berries/melon/pineapple/kiwi/ grapes/ pomegranate/ plums/ nectarine etc
seeds/ raisins/ fruit stars (in the tiny section lol)
pretzels, veggie straws
in colder months Soemtimes a flask with pasta/rice/potato and sausage, chicken, salmon or prawns. Hates soup lol and most sauces except gravy and garlic mayo lol so most hot meals in the flask will have either of those lol. (Sauces help keep food warm in thermos flask - if your kid likes tomato pasta/ or bolgnese etc those would be great. )
my kid will also eat chicken noodles and most veg often hot flask is leftover dinner from night before so no extra work really.
my kid hates jelly and yoghurt but those could be good too.
oh and breadsticks and humous.
savoury veg muffins

@babasaclover we have a lunchbox with seperate compartments (yumbox) that keeps everything fresh

@Slightyamusedandsilly would your DC accept sunflower seed butter instead of peanut butter? It looks similar and meets the nut free spec.

F

How do you keep fruit fresh and not drying out please?

Our school doesn’t have a cook at the moment so I’m having to do them daily. Am not enjoying it!

I try to do at least one protein, a carb, veg, fruit and a treat. So one from each of the following: sandwich, crackers with soft cheese or pate, buttered bread with shelled boiled eggs; carrot sticks, pepper, tomatoes, olives; apple, pear, strawberries etc; Mini Cheddars, a YoYo roll, Digestive biscuits. I have done leftover pasta, and today she had a wrap ‘kit’ (similar to the Stackables but more filling) both of which have gone down well.

At the start of each half term I cook,
homemade sausage rolls
homemade veggies pizza squares
pinwheels
quesadilla
and then I cook a pasta salad fresh once a week. I grab one of the above items add a piece of fruit and a ‘snack’ such as breadsticks or flapjack and that it’s done! I can’t be bothered faffing with little pots of this that too much messing!

DC won't touch school lunches with a barge pole (and I don't blame them, they're minging). But it's a nightmare doing lunch boxes. The only protein my DC with ARFID will routinely eat is peanut butter, which is out. I put in a cheese, jam or chocolate spread sandwich which is never eaten (I eat it later), piece of fruit either carrot sticks or cucumber (which they'll eat at home but never at lunchtime), couple of biscuits, a Yoyo bear and a packet of crisps (crisps are always opened but rarely eaten). They were getting so skinny with not eating enough, I started putting a small choc bar in, but some weight has gone on over the holiday so I've dropped that again.

I go with five items....main, fruit, veg, dairy, treat. Plus their water bottle as that's the only drink school allows anyway.

Some examples of what DDs (age 9 and 7) have:

Main - sandwiches/wraps/pitta pizzas/savoury muffins/mini quiches/sausage roll/chicken drumstick/cheese and crackers/falafel/pasta salad.

When I'm feeling organised I'll make and freeze a load in advance so I can pack them quickly in the mornings. Mini quiches are really easy.....just eggs whisked with cottage cheese and whatever fillings you want and baked in cupcake cases or a muffin tin. They freeze and defrost really well.

Fruit and veg - can be anything really but the ones DDs have most often are apples/satsumas/plums/berries/tomatoes/ cucumber/peppers/carrot sticks.

Dairy - yoghurt or cheese.

Treat - crisps/popcorn/flapjack/biscuit. I sometimes make mini pancakes with banana, eggs and flour and add those as again....they freeze well! Freezing things in advance saves me loads of headspace as I can batch cook at the weekends and then just take things out to defrost in the morning..... helps to keep the lunchbox cold too!

School lunches here but in the holidays it’s:
Sandwich
Crisps
Yoghurt
Fruit
Biscuit
They choose each item as in what flavour and pack it themselves. I make the sandwich as per their request.

School lunches for us, but packed lunch for holiday club fir my very sporty 9 year old

• boiled egg or chicken breast, plus cheese cubes
• 3 out of these: cherry tomatoes , cucumber, spinach leaves and carrots
• strawberries, grapes or apple
• bread sticks or half a slice of sourdough bread , or pasta in a thermos
• 5 gummiebears and a yoyo as treats

DS is 11 and has much the same packed lunch every day:
Sandwich/roll/wrap usually with chicken and cheese, but depends what I have.
Some chopped veg like carrots or cucumber or celery.
Yoghurt, usually Greek yoghurt decanted into a little pot, sometimes he takes a pouch
Some fruit.
Carton of juice.
He takes crisps for his break time snack.

DD still gets free meals so has school dinners and seems happy enough. DS aren’t free annymore and he would pick a ham or cheese wrap. I’m not paying over £2 a day for a wrap and an apple, I don’t even think it’s a whole wrap!

DS hates sandwiches so I just cook extra dinner the previous night for all our lunches. Stick an apple in. Job done.

I do a flask and when cooking recipes for 4 will portion up the extras (we are only 2) and freeze, so there is always a variety of mini meals to quickly microwave for the flask in the morning. Things like chilli with rice, daal, pasta with sauce, soup. If he's going through a hungry phase I might add bread on the side like pitta for the chilli, naan with daal, crusty roll for pasta. Occasionally I do sandwiches instead of the flask.

Then on the side a selection from things like fruit, babybel, veg sticks, pepperami, crisps, mini biscuit packs, bag of home made popcorn.

I won't pay for school lunches because they are expensive and he would choose a ham sandwich every day and then be hungry and buy rubbish to snack on.

This is a headache for me as my DD (3 - starts preschool in two weeks) won’t eat sandwiches or much in the way of standard packed lunch food (apart from crisps!)

I’d love it if I could send her in with a cheese sandwich, an apple and a Frube but she just wouldn’t eat it, so a fancy pot with hot food it is!