Lunch ideas for kindergartener [Archive]

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rerun

3-6-13, 8:01pm

Just looking for ideas for lunches for my 6 yo boy. The kid doesn't like sandwiches?? He will eat a roll with cheese on it and then I just pack a bunch of sides like yogurt, fresh fruit/veges. He is coming home starving though. Is there any meat product besides lunch meat that he can have cold? He loves tacos and patty sausage. He is a picky eater :). Help?

Tussiemussies

3-6-13, 8:09pm

Does he like pita bread? You could melt some cheese inside and then cut into little triangles...how about pita filled with egg salad? Or a hard boiled egg. Tapioca pudding or other homemade puddings and custard. A half of a healthy muffin with butter...whole wheat homemade waffle cut into fours with jelly on it...if he likes peanut butter than that too. I know you said he was a picky eater, what won't he eat? :)

sweetana3

3-6-13, 8:13pm

Do a search on Bento Box lunches. You will get a thousand ideas.

Here is a favorite: http://www.bentolunch.net/

MamaM

3-6-13, 8:23pm

Sweetana..you beat me to it. : )

https://www.facebook.com/Eggo/app_329650837144506#!/pages/Bentoriffic/216212038410994?fref=ts

Rosemary

3-6-13, 9:23pm

Here's a list of lunch ideas I compiled when my daughter was starting full day school.
http://rosemaryevergreen.blogspot.com/2009/07/packable-lunch-ideas.html

We eat a little differently now than when I wrote that post. I don't really bake anymore, and bread is mostly out of the picture. Now I send her with hot food nearly every day. I make her favorite soups just for the purpose of school lunches, or pasta with veggies and sauce, or dinner leftovers. This is the thermos that I use - it is much better than some others I tried. I tested this one with boiling water and it lost very little heat over a 4-hour period (the usual time between packing the food and her lunch hour). http://amzn.com/B0017IFSIS

Rosemary

3-6-13, 9:32pm

Also, you don't have to buy "lunch meat" for lunch. You can cook any meat and serve it cold, as a sandwich or part of a salad or just as itself. Or cook a stew and send it in a good thermos. I always pack ice packs with food that needs to stay cold.

Some of the foods my daughter has taken for lunch in the past few weeks:
various leftover homemade soups (chicken-barley-veg, minestrone, lentil, etc), fruit
black bean chili, fruit
stew of white beans, pork, and green chiles, fruit
pasta with green beans and sauce, with romano cheese to sprinkle on it, packed in a 1-oz container (got these from Amazon, too - they are great for condiments)
plain yogurt with homemade granola and fruit (she mixes it at lunch time), plus carrot sticks and some sunflower seeds
quinoa and peas with romano cheese packed separately for sprinkling, plus fruit

On a day when I'm all out of prepped foods I might pack something like the yogurt meal above, or just various items separately, such as a serving of cheese, fruit salad (we always have enough fruit for this on hand), carrot sticks (she also likes red cabbage raw; some kids really like bell peppers or celery raw), and some trail mix composed of homemade granola, a little coconut and a few chocolate chips, some raisins, and some sliced almonds or sunflower seeds.

decemberlov

3-7-13, 10:48am

My daughter isn't much of a sandwich kind of girl either.
Here's some lunches we pack a lot:

pasta salad (we put cheese, ham & olives in it).
Tuna on crackers
salads - sometimes with cold chicken.
chicken ceasar wrap
soup & salad
deviled eggs or hard boiled eggs

here are some more ideas from the 100 days of real food blog:

http://www.simplelivingforum.net/newreply.php?do=postreply&t=7622

rerun

3-10-13, 10:07pm

Great ideas! I think the thermos thing would be great. I don't know why I didn't think of that. Also, as a 6 yo boy, I think he would think it is a cool "gadget" :). I am going to try some pasta tomorrow and see how it goes. He is quite a picky eater too so that sort of makes it hard. I am cutting and pasting all of these ideas so I have a go to list. Thanks everyone.

rerun

3-10-13, 10:11pm

Actually, even though he is a picky eater he will eat tons of veggies and fruit and I can't say that I mind that he turns down lunch meat.

Zoebird

3-10-13, 10:23pm

we send meat balls or patties with DS, as well as hard boiled eggs. My DS basically eats the same stuff that your DS does.

rerun

3-10-13, 10:46pm

we send meat balls or patties with DS, as well as hard boiled eggs. My DS basically eats the same stuff that your DS does.

Does he eat the meatballs and patties cold? My DS has no way of heating up food, but I am going to get him a thermos as someone suggested.

Zoebird

3-10-13, 10:55pm

Yes, he eats them cold. Or really, just room temperature.

Mrs-M

3-11-13, 8:37am

I second the salad suggestion. I've gotten more creative Re: kids lunches in our house, and salads (of all kinds) are fair game. One thing to keep in mind Re: kids and lunches, don't worry yourself Re: how much your child is eating (lunch) or not eating. If they're hungry, they'll tell you, but IMO, breakfast and supper, are the more important meals of the day, making up for whatever lunchtime shortfall the kid may see throughout the day.

- a couple hard-boiled eggs along with a piece of fresh fruit
- a salad
- a few pickles along with a couple pieces of leftover chicken from the night before
- a bowl of leftover chili
- homemade soup with a bun
- a mix of veggies (fresh) along with a little dip

Tiam

3-12-13, 12:53am

Why does it have to be lunch meat? Why not just chicken or roast beef, or real ham if you want meat?

Zoebird

3-12-13, 2:49am

we send chicken, liver pate, 'steak strips' and just whatever we have, honestly. even bacon. hard boiled eggs for sure. etc.

decemberlov

3-12-13, 10:51am

My girls love cold homemade chicken nuggets and cold steak in a salad is yummy too :) I actually prefer cold leftover meat as oppose to re-heated meat.

rerun

3-12-13, 9:38pm

I guess I have always worried about cold meat, not sure why. I need to try more since his lunches generally lack protein. I actually sent him with cold tortellini today and he loved it. All of the ideas have helped and helped me to think out of the box a little more (no pun intended, lol).

decemberlov

3-13-13, 9:59am