Have you struggled with packing lunch boxes for your kids? Yourself? Or your spouse? It seems like it should be such an easy task, but it’s one I used to get so hung up on. I would scramble every single morning, trying to figure out what to pack for everyone in our house. Everyone’s lunch box was different. No one wanted the same things. I wasted a whole lot of time. But, then I figured out a way to automate it all – and to get the kids on board, too! I’ll share with you my brief tips for lunchboxes made easy.
It doesn’t have to be hard
If I could conquer dinner planning, I knew I should be able to make my lunchbox-packing easier. It didn’t have to be so complicated. My younger 2 children were still in preschool. For them, I usually re-warmed leftovers from dinner the night before, put it in a thermos and sent it to school with them. My older 3 eat their school’s lunch (which is “decently” nutritious), or may also have leftovers in a thermos if they wanted to. This made planning their main “entree” for lunch pretty easy, as long as I’ve appropriately planned our dinners for the night before! Hence why dinner planning is doubly as important for me! I also had to make sure I had enough left over from dinner for lunch the next day.
Meals that work great in thermoses:
- Chili
- Pastas (spaghetti, macaroni, alfredo, scampi)
- Rice with meat and veggies mixed in (ex: chicken, beef, pork, shrimp)
- Mashed potatoes with meat and veggies mixed in
- Taco or fajita meat (with taco shell, sauce, cheese, lettuce on the side)
- Stir fry noodles, meat, and veggies
Since we usually used our dinner leftovers for the main entree, all that was left to decide on was their sides and snacks. If your child prefers other entrees for lunch, you can use a system similar to what I use for dinner planning. Come up with lunch entree “categories” and try to think of different entrees in each category, based on your child’s’ preferences. If you can’t think of enough entrees for a whole month, it’s usually OK to just plan 1-2 weeks’ worth and just cycle them through. That way, your child doesn’t get bored eating the same thing for lunch everyday.
In our home, I don’t usually need to create a month’s worth of lunchbox plans. I’ve found that the kids are generally OK with repeating snacks week to week, but it’s fun to intentionally give them some sort of variety in their lunch boxes every day.
START FEELING MORE BALANCED TODAY
Feeling overwhelmed by your endless “To Do” Lists? Our Balanced Mom Starter Guide will show you how to start feeling more balanced in just 4 easy steps. And it’s free for a limited time!
Our snack-packing:
Because of my work hours and commute, my kids are typically at school for about 9 hours of the day. They eat breakfast before they go to school, but lunch alone doesn’t cut it for them for the rest of their long days! They each typically pack 4 snacks. I like categories – as you can tell from my Dinner Planning post – so I have them each pack a snack in 1 of 4 categories: Healthy, Dairy, Salty and Sweet. Of course if they want more of the healthy options, they can always choose more! They just can’t pack more than one of the sweet! (We try our best to be as balanced as possible).
Here are some examples of snacks for each category:
- Healthy: Fruits and veggies. This usually includes apples, bananas, grapes, oranges, pears, plums, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, carrots/celery (with ranch). Granola bars and raisins can be thrown in here too.
- Dairy: Yogurt, cheese stick, sliced cheese with crackers, milk.
- Salty: Crackers, Pretzels, Goldfish, Cheez-Its.
- Sweet: Yes, my kids eat sweets! This is reserved for a “fun” snack. Such as Fruit snacks, pudding, Jell-o, Rice Krispies Treats, cookies, etc. I’m OK with the sweets in moderation – as long as the rest of their food is eaten!
One tip that I’ve found helpful for lunchbox packing is storing all of the lunchbox snack choices in the same “categories” they need for lunch. Whether in the refrigerator, cabinets, or pantry – for us, we have the Healthy, Dairy, Salty, and Sweet categories separated into their own drawers, bins, or shelves. This makes it easy and quick to just pull one thing from each area/category. My kids can pack their lunchboxes in less than 5 minutes because of this!
That’s It! Easy Peasy!
Let me know if you have any other suggestions for lunchboxes made easy that work well in your home. I’m all ears! Leave it in the comments below!
And if you haven’t read my post on dinner planning, you can check it out HERE.
Try it out!
If you’re a busy mom, interested in lunchboxes made easy and automating your lunch box packing, you can get access to my handy Lunchbox Planning Worksheets as a part of my Balanced Mom Toolbox below. You can print planning sheets for your Lunchbox packing, with and without the sample categories that I use in my home. That way, you can personalize the worksheets to fit your family’s needs, or just use the same ones we use. Check it out!
Want to save this post, Lunchboxes Made Easy, for later? Pin this article, and share with your family and friends!
START FEELING MORE BALANCED TODAY
Feeling overwhelmed by your endless “To Do” Lists? Our Balanced Mom Starter Guide will show you how to start feeling more balanced in just 4 easy steps. And it’s free for a limited time!
If you love these tips, be sure to check out my 170+ page digital library, filled with step-by-step instructions and the tools you need to create effective routines, manage your time, prepare meals, clean your home, care for your kids – and so much more!
Hi Petra! Another helpful post. The dairy snacks-any tips for keeping it cold? Thanks!
The “Fit & Fresh” line has lunch containers with ice packs, which can be helpful to keep a lot of smaller things cool. I typically throw a slim ice pack at the bottom of the lunchbox to help keep things cool throughout the day. An insulated lunchbox is a must, too! I hope this helps!
Hi Petra, I’ve tried using the thermos for my 3yo lunch. She eats lunch around 12. The food always comes home uneaten even if she ate it at home the night before. I’m wondering if he stays warm enough. Are there any tricks to keeping the food warm in the thermos?
Love the idea of having bins or shelves for each category of food!!
Hi Genette! I’d recommend doing a “trial run” on the weekends when she’s home – heating up her food the same time you would normally heat it on a weekday, and offering it to her at her regular lunchtime. Some foods definitely stay warmer then others, and some brands of thermoses work better than others. We use the “Simply Modern” thermoses right now (caught them on sale), and they’ve worked better than the actual “Thermos” brand that we used for years. I also find that over time, they can lose their insulation, so it’s helpful to test and replace them every now and then. My last tip is to heat the food in the microwave up really hot before putting it in the thermos, rather than on the stove (of course, not to the point of scorching it). For most meals, it ends up being like 1:30-2 minutes. I know reheating on the stove is supposed to be better for you, and always using a microwave is a little taboo. But I’ve tried both ways, and the microwave heating tends to work better for us.
We do have issues sometimes with my youngest coming back home with his lunch untouched, and I don’t think it always has to do with how warm the food is. Some days, I think he’s just too distracted or just doesn’t feel like eating it (even though he LOVED it the night before)! You can never really know what’s going through their little minds.
I hope this helps!