Kids' Lunch Box Ideas

You may not wish your child to eat lunch at the school for several reasons. You want him/her to avoid unhealthy food and also want to know what he/she eats everyday. And hence, you decide that your kid will carry a lunch box to school everyday. This seems very exciting at the beginning, as you can plan and monitor what your kid eats everyday. Some days later you find your child complaining about the lunch being monotonous. Here are a few lunch box ideas to make your child look forward to his lunch.

Sandwiches
Although this is one of the most common lunch box ideas, you can use different recipes or fillings every day. You can switch from white bread to brown to whole grain bread. Sometimes, you can even make a sandwich with tortilla wraps. Kids will also love it, if you cut the sandwich in attractive shapes like a triangle, star or a round. You can even pack bread sticks with cheese dip or sausage cheese dip. Take your child's choices into consideration and make sandwich filling accordingly. You can try making a cheese and jelly sandwich; turkey salad sandwich; or a ham and cheese sandwich, etc.

Salad
Although a difficult task, you can pack attractive salads with different combinations, for kids to eat. Healthy salads are essential for kid's health. Do not have the misconception that you should not include warm foodstuffs into lunch boxes. You can pack soups and pasta in thermos for the kids to enjoy warm food. Try making a vegetable pasta or pasta salad so as to make your kids eat vegetables. Soups are a very good option for kids' lunch box, as they can be prepared on the earlier day, and can be just heated and packed on the next day.

Fruits
Packing an apple every day in your child's lunch box is a good option, but, it can soon become boring. Instead, try to include a different fruit everyday, or make a fruit salad or a fruit smoothie/juice in their lunch box. Apart from fruits, you can even include grape tomatoes, dried fruits or baby carrots. You can have them cut into pieces rather than packing the whole fruit.

Healthy Snacks
Once a week, try to include the child's favorite food in his lunch box. You can include a slice of cake, some home-made cookies, a slice of pizza, muffins or potato wedges along with the sandwich. Nachos with guacamole dip is also a good option. You should add grated vegetables to any of the snack dishes, so that kids won't notice it and eat happily.

You should try to make the lunch box as attractive and colorful, as possible. Do not repeat the same dish twice in the same week. You can also include kids in shopping and planning for weekly lunch. You can make use of any one of these kids' lunch box ideas and plan for the complete week in advance.

You can try planning and making lunch box a fun-filled activity. If you involve kids in it, they will look forward to having lunch without complaints and you will no longer have any reason to worry.