My daughter loves a good, simple lunch meat sandwich with a side of Pringles
this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2025
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Kiddo is going through the PBJ phase so I make him one every day on whole wheat. Then a rotation of fruit like a banana, apple pieces, blueberries, raspberries, pre-peeled orange/mandarin or strawberries. I sometimes throw in a container of roasted unsalted cashews or pre-shelled pistachios. He also likes carrots with hummus, and cucumber slices with ranch dressing. I will usually put a very small container of either of those in separate with the veggies. If I get around to it sometimes I chop up a block of cheddar to make a bunch of cheddar cubes, and put some of those in with crackers.
That's always a classic. I always loved pastor Peanut butter and banana, or PB and fluffernutter, or PB and honey
I love PBJ!
I'm surprised by the comments saying peanuts and other tree nuts. Due to allergies, we cannot have anything with nuts in it school.
The place my kiddo goes allows peanut butter and I was SO relieved because it's literally all he wants to eat these days, haha.
Here in Australia, we do crunch and sip in schools. So a seperate lunchbox with just a serve of fresh fruit or veg, uncooked. We do berries, apple, celery sticks, carrot sticks on rotation.
For lunch, we do a sandwich, usually ham and cheese, yoghurt pouch often, babybel cheese, or cheese sticks/strings. With that I also add some kind of fruit or veg too. We also do cooked sausages cut up or leftover pasta bake.
I also add things I hope they will eat but often don't, like falafel, lentil cakes, unusual (to them) fruit and veg. We avoid those kind of bars, as they seem healthy but are really just sugar. If you want them to have sugar, given them something nice, like chocolate, lol.
My husband often puts in a treat, but I only do on a Friday.
Once a week we order from the school canteen. Usually pizza or nuggets and chips or pot noodle.
My kid loves the fruit and veggies. The problem is by the time everyone gets seated they hardly have any time to eat. I’ll slice the orange or the apple to help speed things up. TBH it’s hard to get the balance right on foods that are fast to prep and will be eaten in the time alotted. But my kid always gets a fruit and usually a vegetable too.
We used to pack yogurt but it kept coming back. Idk whether it was a phase thing or it took too long to eat. Or the kid had the “wrong” brand and got teased. I don’t really get much info when I ask why yogurt fell out of favor. But I did get the inside info that school served trix flavored yogurt and it’s too sweet and it is gross. So I guess it’s good the kid didn’t get my sweet tooth.
Other than that the kid always wants plain deli meat on bread. Maybe with a slice of cheese. I’m not a big fan of the deli meat tbh. But it’s fast to prep l, the kid likes it, and it can be eaten in the alotted time so till we come up with a better agree, that’s the menu.
I did kielbasa and cheese as a snack today. It's better than sweets but I doubt they will eat it.
My kid also says they don't have enough time to eat their food. I have a feeling my kid spends lunch and snack breaks talking and playing instead of eating though.
Kielbasa and cheese sounds filling if they’ll eat it. It’s so difficult to get a good balance of fast/healthy/will get eaten/affordable.
At my kid’s school they do a “share table” so if other kids don’t eat an item from lunch, they can put it in the share table. There’s always apples, oranges, sometimes crackers. It’s relieving to know there’s something available for a snack if whatever I sent struck out.
I love that idea!
My child's class has a snack box but it's full of treats.
The things you know they'll eat... that might be something I can't really understand. That's an unhealthy sweet tooth from the looks of things, and I wouldn't go for that.
The celery or cukes (cucumbers)? Well, I'd do "ants on a log" by putting a nut butter (I use an almond butter of sorts) in the celery channel, and then adding raisins on it (I hadn't had raisins in a long time, though). For the cukes, I have no idea how that could work.
Granola bars and cookies, unless they're free of gluten, cow's milk, refined sugars, soy or seed oils (seed oils are hard to find missing from something), I'd stay the heck away from (there is a good chocolate raspberry granola from Seven Sundays I like, though I just treat that like a cereal).
Instead, I'd do the above mentioned things (minus the things they'll eat). For my school lunches back in the day, I had some sort of meat item, seaweed, a drink (usually a refined sugar-free juice box)