More lunch Qs: Need lunch ideas NOT sandwiches

[maestramommy]

In the course of a week I usually send sandwiches twice a week, Ramen once, pizza once, and the kids get to buy school lunch once. After after of summer of fun outside the home, my kids are SICK TO DEATH of sandwiches. I need lunch ideas that I can pack quickly the morning of, or that can sit from the night before. I've seen cool sandwiches by the 100 Days of Real Food blog, but my kids aren't really great muffin fans. I need a new mindset on lunches. DD1 hardly eats any of her lunch, DD2 has been known to eat her entire lunch, then buy a school lunch because she's still hungry (found that out last year!).

[DietCokeLover]

DD doesn't like sandwiches. When she was in school, I would send chicken nuggets, popcorn shrimp, bagel bites, ravioli.... Things like that. I could cook it while I was getting the rest of the day going, pop it in the thermos and she loved it.

[egoldber]

My younger DD doesn't really like sandwiches. I send a lot of....

pita and hummus
ham/turkey/cheese and crackers

Then I throw in some fruit/veggies and a yogurt to call it lunch.

Do they have a thermos? You can send in hot foods that way. It won't be hot, but it will probably be warm. My DD doesn't care.

[SnuggleBuggles]

What about DIY Lunchables with cracker, meat, cheese or PB&J?

[maestramommy]

What about DIY Lunchables with cracker, meat, cheese or PB&J?

For some reason lunchables never strike me as filling enough! Maybe for DD1 it would be, but for DD2 it would feel more like a snack. Also, she doesn't like lunchmeat.

[SnuggleBuggles]

For some reason lunchables never strike me as filling enough! Maybe for DD1 it would be, but for DD2 it would feel more like a snack. Also, she doesn't like lunchmeat.

I hear you. Mine, for whatever reason, eat 1/2 of a sandwich so in our case it probably isn't much of a difference quantity wise. You can buy good crackers, like the Kashi ones, that a lot more nutritionally going for them too.

[KpbS]

I send in chili, cut up hot dogs, and a tortilla wrap style sandwich (you could do hummus if she didn't want turkey/beef/ham/salami). I made a soup (like a stew really) last week--campfire stew style with green beans, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and ground turkey meat--that my kids loved and would be great for a lunch portion in the funtainer food jar.

[Momit]

Hard boiled eggs
Greek yogurt with fruit and granola
How about your famous flatbread egg sandwiches
Bagel and cream cheese
Hummus and crackers/veggies
Leftover pasta

[Nyfeara]

My kids like various meatballs that we were able to freeze and then stick in their lunchboxes. They'd thaw by lunch and my kids didn't mind eating them cool/cold. We had turkey and stuffing meatballs, some others with ground chicken. Could do them as patties too. DS1 will eat a chicken patty on a bun cold. They also liked a pasta salad with whatever veggies they like, where we would add leftover rotisserie chicken, black beans or whatever for protein.

[sandwish]

In order to get DS to eat veggies at lunch. I alternate between fried rice or sushi everyday. They are almost the same thing. The sushi is more like Korean sushi where I wrap things like scrambled egg, strips sautéed carrot and zucchini. It can also include leftover sausage, bacon. Basically just rice, veggies and meat wrapped together in seaweed. Fried rice is all those same things, minus seaweed, chopped small and mixed together.

If I gave him anything separated, veggies would never be consumed. Sandwiches would be disassembled.