School lunch boxes

[Midnightmoonface]

I never packed a lunch to work and I haven’t seen a packed lunch since school, when nutrition was also fairly lacking, but after a brief look online I cant cope with the American floral fruit and star shaped cheese lunch boxes either.

Surely there must be a middle ground!
If you have young DC at school what do you pack in their lunch box? What travels well and what have you learned to avoid?

We had free school meals all through KS1 so that saved a job. School is nut free and asks that we don't send processed snacks, cake etc.

I use a Sistema bento box with three sections: cheese sandwich, chopped veg (cucumber, tomato, pepper, carrot are our favourite, one dc likes olives) and some fruit (chopped apple, pears, melon, strawberries, I try to keep it seasonal).

Some people at school do the whole teddy shaped fruit kebabs, hot pasta in flasks, etc, but my dc eat the above and dont complain so I'm sticking with it.

Been a while but you could add malt loaf, some kind of dip (not houmous), vine leaves if your kid likes them, cold ham or chicken, hot dog sausages, ritz crackers, a small yoghurt, grapes cut in half, cherry tomatoes (ditto) if your school isn't madly strict, flapjack.

We did cheese and tomato sandwiches yogurt piece of fruit cut up veg/fruit (carrot cucumber pepper and a little treat (usually a mini choc bar)

Wrap/sandwich with either tuna, cheese, chicken and some salad
Fruit
Piece of cake/small muffin

That's it . This is 3 boys aged 6, 8 & 11. They will tell me if it's not enough. My 15 Yr old sorts himself out but will occasionally take a lunch. He and the 11 year old have 2 wraps.

Mine has;
Sandwich (usually chicken)
Bottle of water
Crisps
Peperami
Satsuma
Cucumber & cherry tomatoes if I've got them

He doesn't usually eat it all, but eats the rest when he gets home. He's 9. But he mostly has school dinners so it's only once a week

My son has a box with 3 compartments sandwich cheese and ham, 10 cocktail sausages and then a biscuit/ chocolate muffin plus a drink

The idea of putting vine leaves in a child’s lunchbox is delightfully bonkers 😂

Ham wrap or sandwich, cucumber and carrot sticks, a small sausage roll or a few cocktail sausages and a couple of chicken satay sticks, fruit salad with whatever fruit I’ve bought that week and a small sweet treat e.g cake bar, mini own brand twix type thing etc.

I refuse to do them because it’s another job and also they’d insist on a plain ham sandwich every day. School dinners here.

We've got lunchboxes with compartments for DD7 and DS5

Wrap- Tuna, ham or cheese swap occasionally for ryvita.
Half a bag of crisps or popcorn
Yoghurt (plain Greek from a larger tub decanted into a smaller tub)
Chopped fruit and veg (dried fruit for fussy DD)
Occasionally homemade cake (beetroot brownie, blueberry muffin, carrot cake)

I try to keep it simple and generally. If I'm mixing it up change from wraps to rolls, bagels or pittas for example. If I have ham or cheese needing to be used up I also make the wraps up ahead and freeze to save food waste.

Sandwhich or wrap
Piece of fruit
Biscuit
One other thing - chopped meat, bit of cheese, small sausage roll, etc etc

(By the time they are 14 - 2 sandwiches, something in a hot flask, fruit, biscuit, crisps etc etc etc )

Usually for most kids it's:
Sandwich/wrap/roll/crackers
Crisps
Some kind of treat - cake, biscuit
Fruit

A few might have pasta or a flask with something in but the majority are probably no different to packed lunches from the past!

It’s been a while since I made a packed lunch but when I (or the dc) did it was a sandwich or a wrap, some crackers or crisps, some fruit, veg sticks and something like a jelly/cake bar/bear yo-yo/biscuit.

How about a food flask to change things up? A couple of days a week I’ll pop a portion of left over pesto pasta or spag bol in for DS

Don’t overthink it:
a carb - wrap, sandwich, pasta
a fruit or veg -eg apple, carrot or cucumber
a treat - penguin bar, pepperoni, cake
drink - water or juice carton
they dont get too much time to eat so don’t pack too much

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!

Do you do things like pasta or is it hot left over dinner?

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.

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

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!

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

He doesn’t like sandwiches, and crisps are a treat in my opinion , so consumed rarely .

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.