Packing School Lunches in No Time At All

Back-to-school time is always bittersweet for me.  While the work-at-home mom in me loves that I’ll have more uninterrupted hours, I enjoy going to the zoo with my kids, having them near me and being able to enjoy lunch with them.  It is, after all, why I started freelancing from home seven years ago, to see them more.

Still, while it seems like there’d be less to do with them gone, school really means homework for parents and extra duties; lots of paperwork and, of course, school lunches.  Times three.  Five times a week.

To streamline my school-lunch-making time and make sure I’m not wasting an hour or more prepping and planning, I need to be rather deliberate about what I pack and what I let them pack.  This year, with my third going off to school and adding a lunch to the process, I started a “lunch box” in the refrigerator and filled it with items my kids could take to school.

What’s in the box:

-crackers: whole wheat and rice for us

-cheese slices and cubes

-applesauce

-dried fruits: raisins, cherries, mangoes and more

-vegetable sticks: carrots, bell peppers, zucchini

-dips: hummus, artichoke dip, tzatziki

This way, with three different kids and three different sets of likes and dislikes, I can pack a main course for all of them and have them choose two sides to accompany it that they would like to eat.  As I pack soups or pasta and rice dishes into their insulated containers, they pack snacks into smaller ones, and we’re all ready to go in no time at all.

I’ve found that getting my kids involved in the process not only saves me time, but makes them more receptive to eating what’s been packed, and they’re generally happier about the lunch process.

Editor’s note: This post was written by Shaina Olmanson, author of the Food for My Family blog.