Mumsnet users share their healthy lunch ideas with Lidl

[JustineBMumsnet]

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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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DS likes a rice salad (sweetcorn, spring onion, cucumber) with tinned mackerel in tomato sauce. He will happily eat carrot, cucumber, red pepper slices with hummus. Mini quiches always a hit. Sticks of cheddar wrapped in ham.
Favourite fruit to take is grapes.

A new favourite Lidl snack is Thai sweet chilli lentil curls. (Still doing lunches for holiday clubs.)

DS3 has a big appetite so I try to provide lots of protein when he needs a packed lunch.

He doesn’t eat meat but will eat fish so tuna, mayonnaise and sweet corn in a chunk of crusty baguette goes down well as does an egg and mayonnaise filling.

He likes something crunchy to snack on but I try to avoid the usual packets of over salty fried potato crisps and make home made veggie crisps myself.
I just slice up some beetroot, carrot and parsnips with the mandolin, spread on a baking tray, drizzle with groundnut oil and some smoked paprika then bake till crunchy.

He also enjoys crunchy tinned chickpeas. Again, I drizzle with little oil (After draining, rinsing and thoroughly drying) sprinkle some curry powder or hot paprika then bake till crunchy. I bake a couple of tins at a time then store in an air tight container which lasts us a few days.

For a sweet treat I freeze tubes of yoghurt. If they go in the lunch box frozen they’re usually still cold at lunch time and being in a tube means no spoon is needed.

I also always add a banana and an apple - fruit is great as there’s no prep needed.

Once a week I whip up chocolate fruit balls (Dates, raw cacao powder, baobab powder, coconut oil, ground almonds and a little water) in the food processor. They go pretty quickly but if there’s any left in the fridge I’ll pop a couple in the lunchbox too.

Always in a rush to do DD packed lunch (and DH to do his) so it's anything to keep it simple and has to be stuff DH will have in his lunch too. She uses a big standard cool bag with a small ice pack at the bottom and we have a healthy supply of tupperwear/clip tubs to keep stuff separate. As a rough rule of thumb she has :-

Some veg 1-2 (carrot/pepper sticks, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes)

A peice of fruit (apple, banana, a satsuma I've already peeled if it's summer berries with natural yoghurt)

A sandwich, wrap or sandwich thin (wrapped in baking paper so it doesn't go mushy n manky)

Yoghurt

Small carton of pure fruit juice (as she has water the rest of the time)

There was one time I did crackers, deli ham and cheese with grapes but DD said it was a bit of a faff but she'd prefer to have it at home.

My DS is only 3 but loves a lunchbox! When we go out he loves the following in his lunchbox:

Ham sandwich (cut into fingers - he eats more that way!)
Cheese cubes
Apple
Pear
Grapes
Cucumber sticks
Carrot sticks
Cut up pepper
Pom bears
Bottle of water

I’m 99% convinced he’ll want the same lunchbox every day at school too

Finding this thread really useful!

We generally have fruit (strawberries, blueberries, grapes etc...whatever I have in the house), malt loaf, breadsticks, pasta/vegetable muffins, maybe some cheese cubes. Quite lucky as my little boy eats most things, although the seems to be a bottomless pit 😂

Sushi- my lot love it!
Flapjacks made at home with lots of nuts and seeds.

Veg sticks - cucumber / carrot / pepper
Cherry tomatoes
Chunks of cheese
Crackers
Raisins / dried apricots
Dried raw fruit bars
Any sort of fruit

Luckily my DC like their fruit & veg!

Lunch always includes a box of chopped fruit and veg of their choice - strawberries, carrots, grapes etc. They love it.

Almond butter on bananas, yummy and keeps up their energy.

I think the key to healthy packed lunches is variety each day, plus always ensuing there is a balance of carbs, protein, fruit and veg each day, plus always water as the drink.
Key favourites are thermos food tubs with hot tuna & sweetcorn rice, or pesto pasta, wraps filled with tuna/salad or cream cheese/cucumber, or mini pitta bread filled with falafel and salad.
Always include a piece of fruit, a vegetable (carrot, cucumber, mini sweetcorn, sugar snaps and a frube or dried fruit snack.

Bottle of water frozen to keep the food cool.
Having said all this, two of my children eat a really healthy packed lunch each day, and one comes back with most of the food uneaten.... so it requires some cooperation from a child too!

Pasta salad cherry tomatoes chunks of cheese and Apple...sorted!

Sandwiches with chicken or tuna mayo filling. Cucumber sticks. Grapes. Rice cakes with chocolate spread and water. Cheestrings. This is a standard lunch though I do chop and change. I do find it hard to come up with new ideas. Some excellent ideas here which I shall be stealing.

I and my DS love Quorn mini sausages and mini Scotch eggs, DS likes the real sausage versions too but the quorn so much healthier. Also felafel, veggie samosas and little boxes of chopped cucumber/tomatoes/grapes.

My 2 are picky so generally will have a tuna and cucumber sandwich or ham and cucumber sandwich on wholemeal bread with sticks of cucumber, an orange, a handful of grapes and a tube yogurt. As a treat as I believe in everything is fine in moderation they will have a bag of crisps or a small chocolate bar like a fresh or kit kat.

Sorry freddo not fresh 🙄

Vegetable risotto or wrapping with hummous, carrots and cucumber

Place marking

Different things every day -
Cucumber/carrot/tomatoes.
Berries, apple, or grapes.
A banana guard for the banana!
Felafel.
Pesto pasta or pasta salad.
Sandwiches - marmite, peanut butter, Quorn ham/chicken, hummus on sliced bread/a roll/bagel thin.
Raisins/dried apricots.

salad kebabs or sticks/batons of cucumber, peppers, carrots with hummous. Some slices of pitta with hummous is great too. Put together in a little compartmental lunch box (or ice cube tray) to make it like a cute bento lunch! My daughters fave!

I've invested in a couple of microwaveable bowl-shaped Thermoses. When we have nice leftovers from supper, the dc often enjoy having them for lunch at school. Instead of putting the leftovers in plastic tubs, they go straight into the flasks and into the fridge overnight. At breakfast time one of us pops them in the microwave, and the dc have a hot packed lunch. As it's good, home-cooked food, I know exactly what's in it.

I make 4 pack lunches daily for my children. One has chicken salad with cucumber, mixed leaves and grilled chicken. Number 2 has a wrap with houmous, leaves, cucumber and chicken which has been cooked in a spicy harissa marinade. Number 2 has rice cakes and houmous. Number 4 has carrot and cucumber sticks with houmous. All have fruit current melon, tangerines and pineapple are the favourites and a yoghurt. As the weather's been hot I've frozen yoghurt sticks to put in the lunch box and also drinks which double up as cool packs until lunch.

I make a crustless quiche with a variety of fillings ( what ever is left in the fridge) which goes down well. Also hummus and veg sticks go down well.

Healthy favourites around ours: oat cakes with hummus or cheese, cherry tomatoes, strawberries, apples, falafel, and wraps with chicken/tuna and salad.

Neither of my DC liked sandwiches really so I tended to do something along the lines of a Bento Box (way before I knew what a Bento Box was, lol) so little tubs of individual things. So perhaps a chicken drumstick or pieces of ham or left over roast lamb or cocktail sausages would go in one box; veg would go in another, normally carrot sticks, cucumber sticks, pepper slices and celery sticks; fruit in another so strawberries, raspberries,a peach, apricots, kiwi, whatever was in season really; a small tub of cubed cheese in another and I would perhaps put in some oatcakes or a thick slice of nice bread. A juice of some sort finished it off. Occasionally got crisps, or a chocolate bar or a cake/muffin as a treat. We live in Scotland so in the winter I would put hot pasta in a thermal food flask or soup or sometimes a tin of beans and sausages (my daughter's junk food favourite) with some bread to make sure they had something warming.

Veggies and dips. Cucumber, pepper and tiny carrots with sour cream (or natural yog) and homemade guacamole. Pittas too toasted and cut up into slices for dipping.