Share your healthy tips and hacks for your children’s school lunches! - £200 voucher to be won!

[EllieSmumsnet]

Every parent wants their child to be happy and energised during the school day, and ensuring they have a nutritious and delicious snack for that much needed pick-me-up during the school day is vital. But as busy parents, preparing healthy, interesting lunches every day can feel like a challenge. However, it doesn't have to be difficult!

Whether it's through creative flavours, fun snacks, or child-friendly healthy lunch recipes, we want to hear your tips and tricks for making lunchtime enjoyable and nutritious for your kids.

Do you swear by bento boxes or batch-cooking on a Sunday? Have you found your holy grail quick and easy tasty snacks that are also school friendly? How do you ensure your child’s school lunches are fun and healthy? Share your secrets with us!

• Share your tips and tricks in the thread below to be entered into a prize draw
• One lucky MNer will win a £200 voucher

Here is what Soreen has to say:
"At Soreen we understand the pressure on parents to provide their children with snacks that are enjoyable and tasty, yet healthy and nutritious. There are so many snacks targeted at children and families that don’t provide that vital pick me up that children need from their snacks during the school day, and instead are high in sugar and fat which are not only unhealthy but also cause dips in energy shortly after being consumed.

It’s for this reason that we offer Soreen Lunchbox Loaves, an ideal solution for parents looking to provide a nutritious yet delicious pick me up for their children that are available in 4 fruity flavours. They’re school friendly and Good Choice approved, meaning they won’t get confiscated from the school lunchbox police or be returned at the end of the school day. Our Lunchbox Loaves contain deliciously squidgy energy, providing that much needed reboot to the day, leaving your child energised and happy for the day ahead!"

Thanks and good luck with the prize draw!
MNHQ
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we always use bento boxes, makes it colourful, elminates the need for no touching and saves on so much packaging. I ove doing little themed ones eg for valentines day or birthday or halloween

Colours - shopped red, yellow peppers, carrot sticks, a banana, grapes, and a cheese sandwich and blackcurrant squash. The more appealing it looks, the more will be eaten.

Yes a bento box, with lots of sweet fruit, savoury whole wheat cheese sandwiches, cheese, a fruit loaf, and a drink or water. I think a good selection of food will give them choice and enable them to eat more and choose in what order to eat their lunch.

My hacks are to make a pasta salad, which I feel has to good mix of protein, carbohydrates, as I add tuna, peppers, a small boiled egg cut up small, and cherry tomatoes. I chose superfoods for dessert, greek yoghurt and sweet blueberries. This can be added to a couple of compartments of your bento box.

My tips would be to make your own healthy snacks - containing oats, dried fruit and mashed banana or grated apple/carrot for a healthy snack releasing energy throughout the day - and you know what they are eating - plus it's cheaper too - and if they help you make these sweet treats - they are more likely to eat them- change the recipe weekly to avoid getting bored of the taste.

Make my own cakes, so they have a sweet treat in their lunchbox, but make it with low sugar eg apple muffins.

I think a home make soup in a flask, with a brown teacake to dunk is the best lunch for a winter school day. I make a batch on Sunday, and will add some herbs and spice during the week to change the flavour slightly. In summer I make my own version of crackers and cheese with decent crackers and a selection if cheeses to add, plus a bit of chutney and a flask of juice.

We also use bento boxes. I usually put a ham sandwich, cheese that I cut into shapes, raisins, some fruit, yogurt and maybe a biscuit. Somethimes I would add carrots or cucumbers or whatever. I saw omie boxes look quite good but a bit pricey- £50 . They also include a mini thermos inside which would be quite nice in the winter.

We use a Bento box as it makes everything look more appealing and stops the food getting squashed.

In German primary schools, kids take a packed breakfast as they finish before lunch.

Monday: homemade waffles from Sunday, made with hidden sweetcorn, ground nuts, spelt flour and a banana for the sweetness instead of sugar. Served with a little pot of apple sauce with cinnamon and raisins on top. Other compartments are filled with things like fruit/greek yoghurt with jam stirred in/ a chunk of cheese/ cucumber/ sausage/ nuts (not prohibited here)/ mini rice cakes

Tuesday: we use up more of the apple sauce with a pot of overnight oats made with a mashed banana, apple sauce, cinnamon and raisins. Other compartments filled as above.

Wednesday: either a fresh bread pretzel with butter, or a fresh bread roll with either ham or peanut butter. One compartment has popcorn in. Others as above.

Thursday: Hardboiled egg. Other compartments as above.

Friday: homemade fruit smoothie with banana , avocado, ground nuts, frozen berries, and whatever needs using up from the fruit bowl, served in a thermos coffee mug. Bento compartments filled as above.

As another poster said, I try to include as much colour as possible so I know my children are getting a range on vitamins. I also try to make it more appealing by drawing faces on Bananas and oranges and cutting sandwiches into different shapes.

Little pots of this and that, hummus, red pepper strips, cashew nuts and so on always does the trick.

I started using bento boxes last term, and with a range of foods, it has been a great success, with dried apricots, small sandwiches, vegetable crisps, a yoghurt - I think it is important to vary the contents - but not too much - they know what they like and eat what they are used to - and they just want to eat quickly and then play with their friends - so a variety of contents that will fill and give energy without a sugar rush.

Has to be something quick, tasty, easy to eat, and not boring, I make dips with breadstick and peppers, cheese quiche cut into squares, for desserts, rice krispie cakes with dried fruit, or oat flapjacks. In a bento box makes a good presentation and keeps the food from touching.

We try to keep it interesting - 2 days of the same thing & my son is bored!

• Lots of colour - rainbow salads with loads of crunchy veg.
• Finger sandwiches (for some reason always seem so much more exciting that square sandwiches!?)
• Crackers
• Cheese sticks
• Grapes/Berries
• A little treat (it's all about balance!) - which could very well be a Soreen Lunchbox Loaf!!

A balanced diet is key! A bit of fruit, some carrots, yoghurt, and a little sweet treat - crisps or chocolate bar. They need the energy!

We use bento boxes too, great for including a good variety of foods!

To keep the food in the lunchbox cool and have a cool drink, my daughter would put a half bottle of water on its side in the freezer with a gap to add additional water once the initial water was frozen. In the morning she would add extra water so the bottle was full. The bottle would slowly thaw through the day and keep the lunch box cool and the water cool.

Always pots of hummus with veg to dip!

Bento box style lunch definitely wins over here. My DD hates it when it's the same stuff over and over. So variation in fruit throughout the week (not just an apple each day) works.
She freezes her carton of juice in summer so when that's in the middle of her lunch box it defrosts slowly through the day meaning her lunch stays really cool and she has a nice drink at lunch time.

I always put a frozen bottle of water in the lunchbox to keep everything cool.

I've a sandwich hating child so instead I batch cook pasta sauces. Then in the morning chuck on pasta to boil whilst they eat breakfast - plonk on a sauce and whack whole thing in a thermos for lunch.

I often make muesli bars using packet muesli, melted butter and sugar. Cook in a pan then bake mixture in oven for 20 minutes. Cut up in squares for lunch boxes.

Tortilla wraps with diced fried chicken breasts are a filling lunch.

A decent thermos will see you through winter. So many options to put in them…
Soups
Beans on toast
Tomato pasta
Cheesy pasta
Filled pasta
Hot dogs with the buns separate and some veg sticks

Putting dinner from the day before in a food flask always worked well. For cold meals, I’d always try to pack in a rainbow of colours and always a treat. Raspberries in jelly works well, blueberries and grapes work well too because they will withstand a bit of knocking about. For bananas, a protective banana box is a must and well worth the investment.

it’s going to get children involved in the production of their lunches. For example by making scones with them at the weekend which can tben be part of the lunch.

sometimes, you’ll only have time to whack a bit of cheese inside a couple of slices of bread and throw in an apple and bag of crisps. That’s fine.

We keep it really simple: sandwich (or warm pasta in a flask) or houmous and vegetables, with a piece of fruit and a bar or treat of some sort. Lots of variety during week both in sandwich fillings, fruit and bars. I don’t want kids that won’t eat packed lunches unless they’re akin to fancy buffets. Therein lies a very hard road ahead.