My son starts kindergarten tomorrow. One of the many perks of going to school for him was having a lunchbag. Now…what to fill it with? He’s already decided that tomorrow will be a peanut butter sandwich (thankfully they’re not banned at school). But what comes after that? He detests deli meat, so a ham or tukey sandwich probably won’t work. So far, I’ve come up with the following possible ideas:
Grilled chicken strips in satay sauce
Quesadilla
Any other thoughts? He’s said he’d like a grilled cheese sandwich in there, which I’m willing to try, but I’m not sure if he’ll eat it cold or what it would taste like. Would an English muffin pizza work? I’m supposed to be a fairly good cook, but I’m completely lacking in this particular area of culinary expertise. Help!
Oh, and for what it’s worth, I’m assuming that any of the above will be acompanied by some sort of fruit and/or veggie.
What about some fruits and veggies with a small container of something to dip them in? Apples with peanut butter? Carrots with ranch dressing?
Maybe egg salad? Crackers with cheese pieces to put on them? Pita pocket with tuna? English muffin pizza sounds like a good idea.
Get a thermos and try soup, mac n cheese, buttered noodles, stew, basically anything semi-solidish that he will eat at home. I sometime also go the crackers & cheese and fruit route.
In a pinch, I can heat a slice of pizza, wrap it in foil, and boozikids will eat that too.
My personal favorite was peanut butter and honey. I’d also like cream cheese and jelly sandwiches but you’d have to separate out the components somehow because a couple of hours on the bread turned it to a disgusting mush.
Grilled cheese will stay decent if you wrap it in aluminum foil, at least IME. How about a pimento cheese sandwich or crackers? Don’t forget there are always leftovers too maybe a BBQ sandwich ( leftover chicken shredded w barbecue sauce) Or carrots and Hummus?
Heck, 95% of the sandwiches in my elementary school lunch box were peanut butter and (either grape jelly, strawberry jam, pear preserves, fig preserves, plum jelly, or molasses). Don’t mess with a good thing.
Ask him. Seriously, he’s far more likely to eat it if he’s helped to plan it.
We made a chart for my son when he started kindergarten. We came up with ideas together and listed proteins (cheese, peanut butter, chicken, nuts, tuna salad, hard boiled eggs, etc.) in one column, carbs (bread, tortilla, rice) in the second, fruits (orange, apple, banana, fruit cup, fruit leather (100% fruit ones) in the third and veggies (baby carrots, celery sticks, avocado slices, bell peppers, etc.) in the fourth and “treats” (ranch dressing, fun size chocolate bar, small cookie, half sized brownie) in the last. He picked one thing out of each column and, assuming we had it, that was his lunch!
So “chicken, tortilla, apple, avocado and ranch dressing” made a pretty obvious lunch: a chicken wrap with avocado slices and ranch dressing with sliced apples on the side. His choice for whether the ranch dressing went into the wrap or the wrap was dipped into ranch at lunchtime.
“Peanut butter, bread, orange, baby carrots, brownie,” works for me. I found that scoring the orange peel but leaving it intact makes peeling quick for him and doesn’t let the orange dry out. I have one of these orange peeling tools that does the trick nicely.
Seconding the thermos. Chicken noodle soup, Spaghetti-Os, whatever. Heck, fill it with hot taco meat and include some tortillas and fixings. Just don’t forget to put a plastic spoon in the bag!
Or I guess you could go bento. Don’t know much about it, I’m afraid.
Are you sure he doesn’t want PBJ tomorrow too? I ask because one of my kids has had PBJ so far every day of his 12 years of public schooling. I have no doubt the remaining 180 school days will also feature PBJ. Of my other kids one hates to have the same thing more than two days in a row and the rest go in streaks of wanting the same thing over and over then switching.
And tell junior to bring home anything he doesn’t finish. Not so much to reuse as to get a gauge for how much he’s able to eat in the allotted time.
This made my day.
What about these lunchbox favorites?
[ul]
[li]Celery w/ pb and raisins[/li][li]String cheese (This works best if you can wrap cold cuts around them which doesn’t sound like a possibility)[/li][li]Mini bags of his favorite cereal or nuts for a crunchy snack[/li][li]Grilled chicken breast cut into a fun shape with a cookie cutter and a side of BBQ sauce[/li][li]Bacon wrapped lil smokies (Okay, don’t feed this to him often or his cholesterol will rival my parents’, but it sure is yummy every once in awhile!)[/li][/ul]
My son likes consistency too. Almost every day, it’s peanut butter/honey on wheat, a piece of fruit, whatever chips/crackers plus something sweet I can get for cheap, and a juice box. He’s going into 7th grade and I expect it’ll be the same every day this year, although he may go with larger portions.
The only time he changes it up is if we have leftover pizza. Then it’s pizza day!
So…I’m the only one who read this article, right? Most public school kids do not have access to refrigerators, and according to the article ice packs don’t help keep food a low enough temp either. So no meats, no dairy, no perishables. Think about things that don’t need to be kept cold to be safe, those PJs and fluffanutters, crackers, fruit/veggies, fruit snacks, rice crispie treats, and other treats should be safer.
Protein-y sandwiches without deli include egg salad, tuna, and cheese (with mayo and veggies). My father made us Elvis sandwiches (peanut butter and sliced banana). We had noodles + toppings (frequently tuna, although I realized in adulthood that other people didn’t usually eat noodles with tuna on them) and yogurt + crackers as well.
No, I’ve read it too. I’ve just decided I have 834 other more pressing issues to worry about as a parent, especially because these were measurements of lunch temperatures, not statistics on actual food poisoning incidents. I think that the current Food Police recommendations for food storage are hypercautious anyhow. Little listeria just makes the system stronger!
