Healthy Back to School Lunch Ideas

I live right on the border of VA and NC. My friend’s with little ones in VA are already posting photos from “The First Day of School” and my friends in NC have a few more weeks before they’ll be packing lunches and sending their babies off to school.

My god-daughters Alyssa (9 yrs old) and Kendra (6 yrs old) live in NC so they have just a little while longer before they’ll be spending their week days in a class room but they’re getting ready with new backpacks, new lunch boxes and back to school lunch ideas!!

They are more than eager to help me in the kitchen and when I told them that I need some healthy Back to School Lunch Ideas they were more than willing to start shouting out ideas!

Kendra (the 6 year old) is a healthy food nut! She loves anything that’s good for her! Kendra’s mom, Nikki, will make fruit salad (just chopped up fruits) and Kendra will inhale it! I hope that my future kids love fruits and veggies as much as she does!

Did you know that on our last beach trip that when she called from the back seat that she needed a snack, we tried to give her a pack of crackers and she just wasn’t having that! It wasn’t healthy! This child was not happy until we dug into the back of the car (into the bag where I had the food stashed) and found her an apple.

With my goal being Healthy Back to School Lunch Ideas, what better way to come up with some healthy back to school lunch ideas than to let the kids pick their own healthy meals!

I took them on a little shopping trip and let them pick out their own items and create their perfect lunches!

They picked out fruit, veggies, and BabyBel Cheese (I swear that these girls could eat their weight in BabyBel Cheese!)!! They also got to pick out a brand new lunch boxes to start the school year off with!

We’ll start with Alyssa’s lunch! For her lunch she chose:

• A Roasted Chicken Sandwich with, tomato, lettuce and white american cheese.
• Red Grapes
• Carrot Sticks
• White Cheddar BabyBel cheese

She loved picking out the roasted turkey from the deli counter!

Although I tried to get her to go with some “cool bread” for her sandwich like a huge croissant or honey wheat, she was sold on the regular white bread! haha

While her sister is all about the fruit, Alyssa evened it out with fruit and veggies. She choose red grapes (she would have liked green grapes but the store was all out!), baby carrots and for her dairy she picked out the, White Cheddar BabyBel cheese!

A new blue water bottles matches the purse style lunch box that she choose!

Then it was Kendra’s turn! She choose:

• A ham and cheese sandwich on regular white bread
• Blueberries
• Strawberries
• Bananas
• BabyBel Light Cheese

 Now while some people may not think that there is anything special about a ham and cheese sandwich, Kendra was very happy with her choice, especially once she found this Minnie Mouse Sandwich cutter!

The sandwich cutter may have made a smaller sandwich but she was totally ok with that since her lunch was going to be packed to the rim with fruit!

Kendra wanted a variety and picked out strawberries, blueberries and bananas! For the dairy part of her lunch she choose the BabyBel Light cheese!

Now Alyssa picked out a regular square sandwich holder for her lunch box but Kendra wanted something different! Kendra had her mind made up that she needed a Bento Box!

We searched and searched but sadly couldn’t find one anywhere. So she picked out this rectangle container and created her very own little bento box!

She decorated it with Minnie Mouse stickers and placed her sandwich (in the Princess Bag), her little cup of fruit and her BabyBel Light cheese into her homemade bento box.

Perfect!

In my opinion is it totally easier to get them to eat good when they’re the ones picking out the healthy food!

Those are our favorite healthy lunch ideas – straight from the hungry tummies of a 6 year old and a 9 year old!

What is your all time favorite healthy lunch? We’d love some more ideas!!

Huge Thank you to BabyBel for sending over some of their cheese for the girls! They loved it! I’m so glad that I got to meet ya’ll at BlogHer Food!