Starting in three months I have to pack a lunch for a three year old! I’m at my wits end! I have no clue how to make a quick and healthy meal for my child that won’t take a lot of time every night before we go to bed. I want to be able to prepare a week’s worth of lunches in about an hour on Sunday afternoon. I then want to be able to grab them out of the fridge and toss them in her super fancy kid lunch bag that makes her look like she’s carrying very nutritous food.

At her current Spanish immersion daycare they provide her with warm organic lunches every day. She’s currently eating better than I am with meals like rice and oranic veggies, taco roles, veggie soup. Her lunches look a little like this:

I need the help of all the seasoned momma and dadda lunch packers out there otherwise my little girl’s lunches may well end up looking like this, where the tator tot serves as the veggie:

Please post a reply with your best quick and easy school lunch menus and tips. What lunches have you found to be good? I’m particularly interested in menu ideas for lunches that can be prepared in bulk and then just thrown in the lunch bag.

I’ve never had to do this so I’m soliciting ideas from all of you out there. I tried looking for a good blog on kids’ lunches but all I found was mother’s complaining about how much they hated making lunches.

The one ideas I’ve had so far is:

Lentil soup: heat a bowl up in the am and throw it in the thermos. Toss in a piece of whole wheat bread and butter and some apple slices. I think I can handle that. Now what about the other 364 days?

After I get a number of suggestions I will create a new post with a list of the ideas.

The only restrictions are that they cannot include making cute, tiny faces out of food objects;

 

and they cannot involve writing love notes on pieces of fruit.

No offense http://www.thekitchn.com/lunch-surprise-write-a-secret-154283 It’s cute but as a single working mom, I just don’t have the time for that!

I’ll be looking forward to all of your great ideas….yum, yum!