Meal/lunchbox ideas please

[TribalTicks]

I have a 7yo and a 9yo and I'm struggling to come up with a varied meal plan for lunch and dinners for them.

Please could you suggest some to me as I'm shopping tomorrow.

Leftovers are good for lunchtime. Are they at home or school?
I often cook extra pasta for evening meal so I can make a pasta salad for lunch the next day.
Also different breads rather than just sandwiches, so wraps, bagels, pittas, rolls.
Vary the fillings so try different cheeses to cheddar, chicken rather than ham, tuna or prawn.
If at home you could set out various salads and fillings subway style and let them choose.
Homemade pizza?

Have a look at the food/recipe board on here for different dinner ideas.
This past week we’ve had
Chicken fajitas
Jacket potatoes - various fillings
Chilli and rice
Chicken ham and mushroom in mascarpone with new potatoes and veg
Pizza
Fish and chips
Lamb tagine
And roast pork today.

Lunch here is basic.
Soup and bread
Filled baguettes
Pitas
Crumpets
Bagels with cream cheese
Toasties
Wraps
Sandwiches
Beans, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes, cheese on toast
Occasionally I’ll put jacket potatoes in or if we have left over pasta I’ll make a tuna pasta salad with sweetcorn, peppers and spring onion.
I like various salads but tend to be on my own with those!

Dinners
Mixed bean and veg chilli with rice, jackets or tortilla chips
Various curries current favourites being beef, sweet potato and red pepper or cauliflower and chickpea.
Shakshuka
Fritata
Fish cakes
Balsamic tuna steaks
Cod wrapped in prosciutto tray bake
Root veg casserole
Chicken in red wine
Cottage pie
Pasta arabiata
Pasta with garlic mushrooms
Chicken and chorizo tray bake
Cauliflower cheese
Griddled garlic chicken breasts
Paprika chicken and veg skewers
Stilton stuffed mushrooms
Vegetable and chickpea tagine with cous cous
Gammon with with chilli and pineapple salsa
Chicken, bacon and leek bake
Falafel in pitas
Various roasts
Sausage casserole
Stirfry

My boys are 7 and 9. One of their favourites is honey garlic chicken on stuff.

For the honey garlic chicken,
2 large chicken breasts sliced in half horizontally (to give you 4 chicken steaks if you will)
Plain flour
50g of butter
2 cloves or garlic (or loads if you like garlic)
1.5 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp soy sauce
90g honey

Coat the chicken in the flour. Add most of the butter to the pan. Cook the chicken for a minute or so on each side. Turn heat down Add the garlic and rest of the butter. Cook for a minute or so. Add the apple cider vinegar, soy sauce and honey and cook until its thickened and the chicken is cooked, turning the chicken so it is coated.

Lovely warm with tender stem broccoli and barley using up the sauce in the pan.

Or slice the chicken up and leave it too cool. Have it in a salad, or on bulgur wheat, or on pizza. It's good for a couple days in the fridge so can have it warm one night and then have it cold for lunch a couple days later

Jambalaya is a super easy, one pot meal.

For 2 large adult portions,
Fry a chicken breast and half about 125g of chorizo.
Add a chopped onion and chopped piece or 2 of celery.
Add red pepper and minced garlic.
Add tin of chopped tomatoes, cayenne pepper, 200 mild of chicken stock and 150g of basmati rice.
Bring too bubbling, then heat down as low as possible and put lid on pot.
Cook for 15 minutes, stirring every so often so stop rice from sticking.
Take off heat and leave with lid on for 10 mins.

Add more rice/stock as needed for larger portion. Use as much chicken and chorizo as you like. You can be really random with the amount of each ingredient.

Single tray bake.
Bake sweet potato and butternut squash for 20 minutes in some olive oil. Push to one side of the tray then add chicken breasts (sprinkled with salt, cayenne pepper, smoked paprika, whatever you want) and add broccoli at the other side. Put it all back in the oven for half an hour.

Thank you so much for your suggestions, these are fab!

I suggest buying a Yumbox. I got one recently from an online store called Fable & Field (if you go onto their instagram they usually have offers on).
I loved Yumbox so much I even ended up buying myself one for work!