If you’re anything like me, you want to move away from packet lunch box snacks so you know exactly what your kid is eating each day. But, we equally want to get out the door on time and not spend hours making food. Luckily, I’ve found a way to balance both. Here are some ideas for ditching packet snacks that I know will help you, too:
- Get some help making the lunchbox snacks. It could be your hubby, it could be getting a bunch of friends to get together to do a cook up together. Or you could each bake a huge batch of one freezer-friendly recipe and share them out between you. Or give a few recipes to your own mumma and ask her to whip them up for you.
- Find EASY recipes. I’m talking 2 –ingredient scrolls, cookies that you can make in bulk and yummy ways to use up your leftovers, so they become lunch in their own right.
- Use your freezer. I don’t cook every day, in fact, I don’t cook every second day. But when I do get a wave of energy to try new things, I make double of something I know the kids like. Go ahead and do the same. If they have a favourite banana bread – make a HUGE one, chop it up and store in the freezer. I now have a dedicated draw for lunch box snacks and just fill it up as it starts to get low.
- Buy a bento lunch box. Have you seen the craze for bento boxes? They’re awesome lunchboxes (see my picture above) that have tiny sections, perfect for little hands and even more perfect for you because no packets fit in there. It’s like forced ‘no-packet lunch box packing.
- Relax a little. I’m all for packing a fun lunch box, but I’m equally realistic because it needs to be quick. Life is too short to spend forever making lunch (and definitely the mornings are too short!). Carrot sticks, rice crackers and a piece of fruit is a great snack; it doesn’t need to be baked goods every day.
Tell me, have you started moving away from packet snacks in your kids’ lunch box? What change helped you do that most?
Stace x
