Nice packed lunches for teens

[randonneuse]

Help! I am a good cook. But when it comes to packed lunches, I just like a cheese sandwich and a packet of crisps. This is the source of much mockery in my house, but I really like a cheese sandwich for my packed lunch. Next week, we have a teenage French exchange student staying, and my main obligation seems to be to provide fullsome packed lunches. The programme seems to involve lots of walking and trips, so I expect she will be hungry.

She's only here for a week, so I reckon I can expand my repertoire for a limited time before going back to normal. The only idea I have had is to make a cakey traybake (I like Edd Kimber's One Tin Bakes). Has anyone got some good ideas, bought or homemade, so that our poor student doesn't get hungry and/or bored of my cheese sandwiches?

Have you asked the teens what they would like and get them involved in making their own lunches?
You could roast up some Mediterranean veg to have with grilled chicken in a baton roll. Or chickpeas and root veg roasted together with halloumi sprinkled with cumin, paprika salt & pepper and then put in a wrap with some spinach and mayo (or tahini yoghurt dressing).
I’d definitely get the teens researching and trying out their own ideas though - the last ‘recipe’ suggestion above was one my DD found online and enjoyed doing at uni as was cheap and filling.

Thanks, I would never have thought of putting roasted items into a roll! What a dunce. That sounds like a winner - I am a big fan of the Rukmini Iyer books, so I can see some of her recipes as leftovers in a roll/wrap will work. I'll do your roasted veg/chicken/halloumi/chick peas idea as a dinner one night, and then leftovers as a roll/wrap filler for a day or two.

Half my family are vegetarian (I'm not), so I tend to cook veggie most of the time. I had actually also forgotten that cooking meat was a thing. 🙄 what a wally!

In normal life, my teens sort out their own lunches - usually meal deals but sometimes noodles in a flask, neither of which will work very well for the French exchange student.

You can do the roasted veg thing with couscous too as a cold salad. My teens like that ( also Tabbouleh). Would she have a soup/ stew in a food flask with a cheese baguette?

I like crumbled up (shop bought) falafels in a wrap with houmous and salad.
Or spicy chicken with guacamole, roast peppers from a jar, salad.
How about a little quiche and salad?
Greek salad is nice, maybe with some pasta in it to bulk it up?
Pasta and pesto salad with baby spinach, cherry tomatoes, pine kernels, shaved parmesan.

Ours practically live on wraps made with southern fried chicken strips, cheese, lettuce, tom, peppers with taco sauce or sweet chilli and mayo. Although DS has aversion to anything salad so just takes chicken, cheese and taco.

There is nothing wrong with a cheese sandwich! Or ham. Maybe a chutney too. A substantial sandwich in bloomer, tray bake, crisps and fruit would be enough for a an all day excursion (as long as it isn’t hill walking or sport).

Crumbled up shop-bought felafel, hummus, salad in wrap - excellent suggestion, that doesn't sound much effort in the morning.

I'd forgotten quiche - I was going to do one of the big Rukmini Iyer quiches one night for tea, and then that'll be another lunch ticked off the following day.

I was hoping to do items in cling film etc rather than a flask, because I think she'll be carrying food items round all day - lots of walking tours etc. But I suppose it isn't any worse than carrying round a normal school rucksack all day. It's going to be much colder here than she'll have been used to, so she might be glad of a hot lunch - I shall reconsider flask options.

Thanks for your ideas everyone. I thought everyone would think I was bonkers for not being able to think of nice lunch options! I might have to expand out of my cheese sandwich comfort zone for my own packed lunches.

@mydogisanidiott I completely agree and there will definitely be one or two days of that sort of lunch! But just feel bad doing the same thing every day.

Okay, now that we have established I can ask basic questions and not be laughed at - for wraps, are we putting them in cling film, or foil, or is there some other clever obvious idea that I have overlooked?

Cheese and pickle
ham and pickle
cheese ham and pickle
cheese ploughmans
ham and tomato
cheese and tomato
cheese savoury
ham and mustard

I LOVE sandwiches and never eat them!

Chicken fillet rolls are a winner here.
I buy part baked baguettes and frozen chicken fillets/breaded ones etc and bung em in the airfryer or oven of a morning then depending on the child one eats just with ketchup, one has ketchup mayo lettuce and cheese etc in theirs with the chicken, wrap in a kitchen tissue then into tin foil and they are happy as donkeys. Also works with sausage rolls and other pasty type things.

I'd do a list of options and let them look, with Google translate to help.

Pesto pasta is good cold.

Check whether she is veggie. Our German exchange student was but neither my ds nor the school told me. I found out first evening as the lamb kebabs hit her plate. 🙄

Non-sandwich suggestions assuming she eats meat.

• Pork pie and mixed salad,
• Smoked mackerel and salad. Good wholemeal bread.
• Flasks of home made soup and bread rolls,
• Spicy chicken wraps
• Pasta salad with salmon & creme fraiche
• Quiche and cherry tomatoes

Tbh lunch on the move on a walking tour etc would be much more convenient if it was a sandwich. Maybe vary the bread part - baguette, sour dough loaf, ciabatta and make it a bit more interesting than cheese - packs of cheese and deli meat for example and lots of individually wrapped snacks for ease

Ps i remember having a french exchange student stay with us as as a teen. She was hugely fussy and bread was about as far as she went 😅

Maybe she'll be removing the cheese from her nice cheese sandwiches. 😂we can but pray! Good point though, perhaps I'll save the gourmet lunching options for later in the week...

I think a cheese ploughman’s baguette would be great!
could you make some sausage rolls or cheese straws?
Pita breads are good for packed lunches as they’re pretty robust. Ham with coleslaw or chicken tikka, lettuce cucumber and mango chutney would be my favourites!

I put wraps in takeaway boxes, they're the right height to keep it all together but without too much squashing and you can chuck some cherry tomatoes or cucumber slices in the spaces.

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I have yet to master cling film so I wrap mine in tin foil. It keeps them together nicely because my hastily thrown together wraps need all the help they can get.

I went on a French exchange in the 1990s twice. Family one gave me a box of 6 cereal bars each day as my lunch 🤨. Family two gave me a ham baguette each day even though I they had been pre warned I was vegetarian (and I mentioned it again…) and I swapped it each day with someone else whose family gave them cheese each day!

That doesn’t help but it reminded me of these trips…

I would just have a selection of not too work intensive options and let them choose - add a few sweet and savoury snack items in in case they prefer/enjoy those. Whilst away from home some relish different foods and some will be a bit put out and reach for. Packeted sweet things as safe options.

P.s. This household LOVES cheese sandwiches and definitely my lot would eat them daily.

Not very ‘foodie’ lol but mine loves a fakeaway ‘chicken selects’ wrap.
Air fry a southern fried chicken piece, then chop into strips, put in in a wrap with spicy mayo, iceburg, grated cheese. It’s a winner with all my teens.

A few other ideas:

samosas, packed into a rigid takeaway box with a blob of chutney in the corner

gyozas (buy frozen from e.g Itsu and cook 10min in the morning) with a splash of soy sauce

frittata sandwich - egg fried with spring onions, red pepper, mushrooms etc

cold sausage rolls, the Linda McCartney vegan ones are pretty good

egg salad sandwich, or tuna salad

Goats cheese and cucumber, and smoked salmon if not veggie

arancini balls from the deli (expensive!)