How I Conquered our School Lunch Challenges

Welcome to guest poster Elizabeth Hirst, a Productive Mama reader and stay-at-home mother of a 9-year-old boy. Her hobbies include spending quality time with her family, bike rides in the park and any outdoor adventures.  Elizabeth loves making cards and sending them to her friends and family. She is a Tula XII ambassador, which feeds her passion!

In my house, school lunches are a challenge. For one thing, my son is a picky eater. He can never eat the same thing twice. Let’s talk about sandwiches. My son has his “moods” with sandwiches. One day, he will eat the entire sandwich with no problem. The next day, he will only eat the meat portion of the sandwich leaving all the bread. I even tried a Ham and Cheese Slider Recipe. I thought this would work because sliders are smaller than a regular sandwich. I thought my son might like it because it was on a Hawaiian Bread roll. It worked until it didn’t.  

Skewers

One day, I switched to skewers. Skewer lunches were a game changer for us.  My son loves to eat them!  The best thing about skewers is that you can easily change up the combinations. My son’s favorite skewer lunch is salami, mozzarella cheese, and olive. But I can easily switch out any protein, fruit, or vegetable to use what I have on hand that day.

“Bento Box” Lunches

I continued my search for alternative lunch ideas and I found an article on “bento box lunches.”  When I prepare his lunches in a bento box, he brings home an empty bento box!  Maybe it’s the easy portions, that the food doesn’t touch, or that it’s pleasing to the eye?  Whatever the reason, he eats it up.

Here are a couple of “Bento Box Lunch Ideas”

• Salami, Mozzarella Cheese, and Olive (usually I change out the olive for a cherry tomato)
• Yellow Chicken with Broccoli and Peanut Sauce
•  Recipe: Grilled Smoked Sausage Skewers with Three Zesty Sauces | The Kitchn
• Quesadillas (even better, quesadillas with chicken)
• Deli Meat Roll-Ups (Rolling sliced deli turkey, ham, or roast beef around cheese sticks, cream cheese, and even greens can change the way your kiddos think about lunch meat.)

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Our Bento Box

I highly recommend this “Bentgo” bento box because:

• It’s easy to clean
• The tray comes out so you can put it in the dishwasher
• It has easy-to-open latches
• There are a variety of designs. For my son, I chose the shark design because sharks are his spirit animal. 
• The portion sizes are perfect for children. I feel reassured because he is getting the right amount of nutrition he needs for his age. 

Even though making lunch can be a chore, I want my son to enjoy lunch with his favorite foods. My son should look forward to lunch. I want him to be excited about what is in that Bentgo and my payoff is that he is enjoying a healthy meal made with love.