Awesome Back to School Lunches

It’s not always easy packing a lunch for your school-aged kids. There are some notoriously picky eaters out there, and you never want your child left hungry at school and coming home with a half-eaten lunch. 

You don’t want to find yourself stuck in that rut of packing the same old lunch or not knowing what to pack today, tomorrow or next week. It can be quite easy to add some variety of your kid’s lunches with these seven quick, healthy and fun ideas:

Dip away – Kids love to dip things. Use cookie cutters or simply slice vegetables, fruits and other items like bread to make fun shapes. Serve with hummus, yogurt or ranch dressing for dipping. Kids also love to dip chips and salsa.

Grilled cheese with a twist – Slice up a traditional grilled cheese and serve with a small container of tomato soup so kids can dip their sandwich slices, or pour the soup over the top.

Creative taco box – Pack ingredients like guacamole, salsa, sour cream and cheese in different compartments and let your kids get creative making their own tacos, like these beef and black been corn tacos.

Already ready – This lunch with leftovers – meatballs, mozzarella, garlic toast and marinara – can be pre-packed and go straight from the fridge to the lunch box with almost no fuss.

Pizza Bento Lunch box – Tired of packing the traditional lunch box, and looking for something more creative and even healthy? This bento box idea includes veggies, berries, cheese and ham. Kids can even help by cutting the veggies into their favorite shapes.

Pasta salad – It doesn't get much easier than this pasta and vegetable salad (such as broccoli) with parmesan cheese which can be made ahead of time.

Hot and ready chili – A warm meal at lunch is nice, and this one is filling too. Put leftover chili in an insulated container to keep warm, and pack chips and cheese to let kids put it all together.