Make school lunch prepping easier with these tips. This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.
Making School Lunch Prepping and Packing Easier
We all know the school lunch struggle could be very real. There is definitely no one size fits all. But I have decided I’m going to try to make this thing as easy as possible. My easy may not seem easy to some, it’s a system I have tested out for the last school year and still continue to use it. Check out My Favorite Lunch Boxes on my Amazon Store Front (affiliate link).
To be frank, I wish I could just make these lunches one day of the week, set whatever need to be set in the fridge, then keep the rest in a dedicated spot. However, my kids aren’t cold lunch eaters. They love their food hot. I don’t blame them, I like my food hot. I’m not much of a sandwich maker or eater. But I will eat a good one when presented to me.
This is my Lunch Prepping System
It’s based upon the fact that our children don’t each much sandwiches and that they prefer hot foods rather than cold.
1. Create a Menu
I have found that making a lunch menu really helps with knowing what I’m about when it comes to making lunches and shopping for groceries. On occasion, we may decide to switch the meal for a day for something else or for another one later in the week but overall, having a plan is key. This also eliminates the wandering in the kitchen wondering what to pack, then eventually packing a bunch of random items in the kids lunch box.
2. Include Most Food Groups
- Pick 1 of each of the 5 Food Groups – Protein, Grains, Dairy, Fruits and Vegetables to include in lunches
- I don’t always get to every single food group in every single lunch I prepare, but I get a good portion in. Just to give an example, lunches may include:
- fruits, vegetables, grains such as Bread, Pasta, rice
- fruits, vegetables, grains such as a bun and a Protein such as Chicken, Hamburger Patties
- fruits, vegetables, grains such as chips, carbohydrates such as Tortillas skins, and a protein such as ground beef
- Dairy – not much dairy is done for lunch. My kids will eat the cheese on pizza and that’s about it for the girls. My son has also done Yogurt pouches for snacks. Get my Bagel Pizza Recipe here.
- Our grains are usually rice & bread. We do Oatmeal some mornings and granola other mornings too. On occasion I will put a Granola bar in the kids’ lunch box – not the hard kind though., They’ll usually have popcorn for snack too.
3. Chop Vegetables and Fruit Ahead (if needed)
- Chop Vegetables and Fruits, if needed, ahead of time and divide them among individual lunch containers
- Cover bowls or containers and put them in the fridge for when you’re ready to make lunches
- Some fruits I keep out because they’re not enjoyable cold – Cuties, Apples, Oranges, plums, peaches, etc. But I keep them in one spot to make them easy to find and to separate from other fruits so that we have them for lunch or snack
- Note: Remove bowls/containers from the fridge and add the other food groups to them. If the bowls are meant for grab-and-go, then add the other food groups to separate bowls
4. Put Dry Foods in One Spot
- Sometimes it’s helpful to prepare dry foods and put them all in one spot to make it easier to find for the week – foods like bread, crackers, pretzels, etc. Foods you don’t want to keep in the fridge
- When you are ready to make lunches, add them to the fruit and vegetables containers in the fridge
5. Cook Grains and Soups Ahead
Certain grains can be cooked ahead – rice, certain pasta (I say certain because some fridge pasta just seem a little soggy to me). Heat up in the morning and put into a thermos.
Soups are also another great choice for making ahead. My kids don’t do much soups. Chili is as close as it gets. My eldest used to love Chicken soup but it’s been a while since we made it. That may be a good make-ahead choice
6. Cook Meats and Poultry Ahead – Heat up in the Morning
Cook meats and poultry ahead of the time and put in the fridge or freezer. If you put them in the freezer, be sure to remember to defrost them in the refrigerator the night before so you won’t have to spend extra time defrosting them in the morning. I do this with Hamburger Patties and Taco meats.
My kids love Grilled Chicken strips from the grocery store that I sometimes cook for them. It’s easy to heat up so I usually wait until the morning off to cook it (I add seasonings, Olive Oil and a little water). It’s delicious but now it just dawned on me that I could probably also cook that ahead of time too. It’s definitely be much faster to heat it up in the morning (Microwave or even a skillet). That way they can still enjoy it warm but I wouldn’t have to go through the small process to cook it in the morning.
7. Put Drinks in the Fridge
8. Put Dinks in the Refrigerator (Juice/Water
On the weekend or so have the children stock the fridge with drinks for lunch. No one’s wondering why they don’t have a cold drink for lunch. Remind them to fill water bottles the evening before school.
9. Create a Snack Bin
The snack bin may not seem like a part of lunch but that too makes packing a snack into the lunchbox easier. Our children pick a snack or two the previous night before each school morning and put them in their backpack. They used to be grabbing it in the morning, spending time deciding, going from pantry to cabinet, or forgetting. We decided to create a bin with some of their favorites, put it in one corner of the cabinet, and have the kids choose snacks at night in efforts to avoid the morning madness.
Example of a Snack Bin (basket)
This is just one example of snacks we’ve put in bins. The school snack bin can then be placed in the pantry or cabinet. I do keep other snacks in their original boxes in the same area for purposes of grabbing something different if they feel like it.
Note: Your school snack bin may not really be a school snack bin – it may become a home snack bin everyone once in a while. Y’all know how kids roll – Oh I couldn’t find another one or furthermore, couldn’t find one I liked so I took one from the bin ….. And that’s OK. We tried. I’ve told them to just grab one from the bin for snacking at home too (if that’s what they wanted). Just refill the bin when needed:)
We also do fruits for snacks like peaches, apples, plums, (kept in one separate spot on the kitchen counter) or blueberries, strawberries, watermelon, cantaloupe, etc. kept prepped in the fridge.
10. Make All Lunches Ahead
Ultimately, you could prepare all weekly lunches on the weekend from fruits and veggies to the other foods that will go into the lunch box(boxes). I know of others who make sandwiches for the week and keep it in the fridge along with fruits or veggies. I also know of another person who makes salads and do the same.
How to Make School Lunch Prepping Easier
I hope these 10 tips on How to Make School Lunch Prepping Easier Helps you and the children. You may not need all these tips… maybe you only need to figure out one area. Whatever you choose, make sure it works for you. If not, don’t make it complicated, find another way to make things easier.
My Amazon Store front has most of my favorite lunchboxes we use and other Back to School Favorites
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She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateh not the bread of idleness (Proverbs 31:37).
