Mumsnet users share their healthy lunch ideas with Lidl

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It’s lunchtime! So how do you make sure your children are opening their lunchboxes to something healthy? We all want to encourage our family to eat well, but with the endless packed lunches the summer holidays call for, plus the reappearance of the lunchbox police come September, now might be the time to step up your lunchbox game. Soggy sandwiches just won’t cut the mustard, so Lidl would love to know your go-to lunchbox ideas that will keep little ones happy and healthy.

Perhaps you like to keep it simple with some vegetable sticks, pitta and hummus. Or maybe you’re children just can’t get enough of your homemade falafel or energy balls. Whatever your healthy lunchbox ideas are please share them below and you’ll be entered into a prize draw to win £100 Lidl voucher.

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

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Yogurts, cheese/ham sandwiches, fruit and carrot sticks, crisps and a homemade fruit oat bar

Quorn mini sausages
Cubes of cheese
Carrot sticks with hummus
shredded carrot, lettuce, cheese and sweetcorn in a wrap
Chopped avocado with balsamic vinegar, a pinch of salt and olive oil

Edam cheese, apples slices and oat cakes. Fruit and yoghurt.

grated carrots in pitta bread with humous dip
sliced apples and peanut butter
Raisins

Veggie pasta! cooled pasta, tossed in olive oil, red pepper chopped and sweetcorn added then a little grated Italian hard cheese! Put in a fun Tupperware tub and a plastic fork and it’s eaten every time!

I make healthy pizzas. I layer 2 mini wholemeal wraps per child, spread tomato puree between them and also on the top. Then add whatever topping they fancy - usually ham/salami, sweetcorn, mushroom, and some grated mozzarella. They literally take 2 mins to cook, taste delicious, and they're getting a couple of the 5 portions of veg. They'll also usually have some cucumber and carrot batons on the side, so it works out to be a filling and healthy lunch.

A lunch box idea they like, is to make like a mini salad bar in a box. They have bento boxes with various compartments. I'll put chopped hard boiled eggs, cubed tomatoes and cucumber, cooked lardons, sweetcorn, tortilla chips, and a pot of dressing. They love mixing bits all together to make their own salad.

Can't go wrong with a banana, babybels or similar are also good

Mine like to take little pasta salad pots or a mini wrap, always two veg/fruit, something like cheese or yoghurt and then a homemade biscuit/muffin.

The first thing I would say is to introduce fruits and vegetables as fun things to eat at a young age. My daughter loves fruit and vegetables, which makes lunch boxes much easier, with chopped dipping vegetables, hummus and lots of berries and watermelon.

The difficult we have is getting my daughter to eat meat, other than wafer thin ham and turkey dinosaurs...

We get her to try new things at home and really celebrate when she does try something new. We then introduce this into her packed lunches little by little :)

I try and have lots of little healthy things so that they can have what they feel like.
So brown bread sandwich, grapes, cucumber sticks with hummous, tangerine and frube would be a normal lunch box for us.

I split a sachet of couscous between 2 tubs (from the Chinese- perfect size) and add cooked chicken and some chopped salad veg (cucumber, red onion, olives, tomatoes etc.). Cold pasta with pesto also goes down well with my older kids/teens.

My top tip is to pack or fork or spoon though, it's hard to eat couscous or pasta without one.

Our new favourite is eggy muffins - any old mix of veg / cheese / ham in those silicone muffin cases, pour over beaten egg, bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes.

For DC1 : Cucumber, cheese oatcakes, a little ham or cheese, a bag of lentil or chickpea crisps, a piece of fruit (apple, plums, mandarin etc varying with the seasons). Fruit bars or flapjack.
For DC2: Cucumber, banana, raisin bread, raisins. Home made banana loaf.
Neither will eat wraps or sandwiches which makes packed lunches a bit of a headache.

When DS started school last year I tried to come up with so many different fillings for the lunchbox, but after a week I was exhausted and fed up of putting so much wasted food in the bin so from then on it was kept simple;
wrap or sandwich with chicken or fish and vegan cheese
piece of fruit
home-made cake or flapjack with different seeds/dates in so they are a bit healthier than just plain.

I can't be bothered to deviate from this too much at 6am, there are 3 different lunches to make due to dietary requirements, so I save the variety for dinner time and weekends when I have a bit more time and motivation .

Snack vegetables are great for lunchboxes and my kids like them because they are 'so cute'! Carrot sticks also go down well. Prepared fruit seems to also be appealing. Homemade banana muffins. I try and reduce the sugar but I think it's all about balance and moderation so I might add in a small treat eg a mini flapjack/brownie/muffin and that they have to eat everything!

Mini samosas
Humus and crudites
Potato salad
Pasta salad
Oatcake crackers and pot of cream cheese
Cold pizza
Spinach and feta filo pie (the Lidl Greek week one was delicious)
There's more to life than sandwiches

Frittata is a fave here - cheese and eggs and lots of veg and can be cut into bite size pieces for a sandwich alternative

Fruit is very popular with DD. Usually strawberries or raspberries with a bag of Apple slices. She also loves yogurt which is ideal for the warmer weather to cool down. We use a ice pack to keep things fresh.

for incredibly ussy eaters.even a little note like "mum love you so give this a try" "apple says eat me please" "come on gie the carrot a nibble" makes them laugh and they do try it.they get a giggle if anything and so it take a bit of the stress pressure off.and believe it or not works with all ages haha.used to be fun putting them in teens Tupperware and has been a running joke since.
cocktail stick(or for "those"people straws)with buffalo mozerela tomato and salami on.with roasted veggies on.or mixed fruit.
little corns.
half pittas.stuffed with mixed bean salad.
toast some wraps with a sprinkling of cinnamon and sugar serve with some fruit,
fruit and yoghurt In little pots.
melon and strawberry pots are a favourite.
salad wraps.
get your sandwhices for a few days ready and then freeze.just take out the night before.
sweet potato wedges.just cook with your evening meal the night before and put in pot for next days lunchbox.
chickpeas with some dolmio ontop.
layer of peaches,yoghurt and cheerios.
mixed veggie rice.
mini fritatas or omelettes cooked in muffin tins for portioning.
carrot and cucumber and pepper sticks.
cheese and ham pinwheels.
muller rice pots.
cherry tomatos.
make a little extra the night before.do an extra few sausages.or extra chicken breast to pack for a salad or sandwhcih the next day.
buy frozen fruit packs.will be defrosted by lunch times.
cucumber and cream cheese bagels.
little toasties.
leftovers in food flask or tub.
fish finger and salad wraps.
carrot and broccoli
savoury muffins or scones.

I find one day they'll eat it and the next they won't so the struggle is ongoing. I think always ensuring there is something in there that they definitely like, a piece of fruit, cubes of cheese, hummus and breadsticks is an easy one too.

Couscous with mixed veg/ham etc mixed in.

DD won’t eat sandwiches
Her favourite lunchbox lunch is a mini pack of sushi, mini peppers and cucumbers, olives,
Or a pack of ritz crackers with salami and blue cheese!

Dried banana chips go down well

Make-your-own flatbread pizza wins every time.

I actually think that sandwiches are really healthy and mine aren't soggy. Ham, cheese, salami, egg mayo, houmous, tuna, sliced chicken, beef etc all to provide protein, then add cucumber, tomato, lettuce, coleslaw or combination of those and you have a portion of their five a day and bread for carb! I do GF ones for DS. If you ensure that you have a layer of the protein portion beside the bread and then all the salad in the middle of that, the sandwich won't go soggy. If they get bored of bread, you can change to pitta or rolls, baguette etc.

DS has ASD and is a very fussy eater, but will currently eat sliced ham and salami, sliced pepper and a piece of gala pork pie. He will not eat normal pork pie or sandwiches or pasta salad. Luckily dd is a great eater so we usually have some more exciting bits. We love sushi and dd likes hummus and breadsticks. I usually do a buffet style picnic lunch as it makes ds more likely to try something different.

Although living in Cornwall sometimes we just have a pasty rather than a packed lunch.