Feeding kids healthy snacks and lunches filled with clean ingredients does not have to be difficult or time-consuming.
You can make it easy and fun by packing items in a bento box, and liven it up using cookie cutters to make shapes for sandwiches. During colder months, I suggest including soup in a school lunch in a thermos.
- Sushi-style bento box: Include rice balls with seaweed, edamame and avocado, and fruit with dark chocolate
- Sandwiches: Use any soft whole wheat bread or wrap. Add a spread, such as nut butter or sunflower butter, hummus, olive tapenade, whipped cream cheese and fruit preserves, mustard or mayonnaise. For filling, make tuna salad, thinly sliced or grated vegetables, sliced turkey or sliced chicken, and/or cheese. One of my favorites is whipped cream cheese with flaked salmon or wild smoked salmon, sliced cucumbers and sprouts such as broccoli or sunflower sprouts.
- Homemade uncrustables: Use cookie cutters; spread fruit preserves with nut butter or sunflower butter or hummus and add grated carrots and chopped cucumbers. You can add sliced turkey or sliced chicken.
- Turkey pickle roll-ups: Spread one slice of turkey with a Tbsp of hummus or cream cheese then place one pickle spear on the turkey slice. Roll it up and cut each roll-up into 4 pieces. To neatly hold it together, secure the pieces with toothpicks.
- Mediterranean-inspired box: Falafel, pita, cucumbers, tomatoes and hummus.
- Pasta primavera with a side of cucumbers, celery or carrots.
- Charcuterie bento box:Â Use rolled turkey, cheddar cheese, crackers, tomatoes, fruit and cucumbers, and sprinkle with lemon and salt.
- Dips and veggies are always a great protein-packed addition to a Bento box: some combinations to consider include hummus and carrots, and black bean dip and red pepper strips.
Healthy Snacks:
- Ants on a Log: Nut butter or sunflower butter spread on celery and topped with raisins
- Ladybug on a Log:Â Spoon cream cheese on celery sticks and top with dried cranberries
- Stuffed Dates: Use pitted Medjool dates or remove the pits of dates that have their pits/seeds and stuff them with a teaspoon of nut butter or sun butter and sprinkle with unsweetened coconut or pomegranate seeds or your choice of topping
- Nut Free Trail Mix: Combine freeze-dried or dried fruit, pumpkin seeds, dark chocolate, roasted chickpeas or roasted edamame and coconut chips
- Apple Wheels:Â Slice your favorite apple variety and top with either nut or seed butter or Skyr or Greek yogurt and hemp seeds or unsweetened shredded coconut
- Pear Slices:Â Spread nut butter or sunflower butter on pear slice and then sprinkle hemp seeds or unsweetened coconut
Tracee Yablon Brenner is an RDN at Holy Name Medica Center in Teaneck with more than 25 years of experience as a registered dietitian nutritionist and trained culinary professional. Her philosophy is food first, that nourishing food is information to the body and an important piece of the puzzle toward achieving optimum health and healing. She provides in-person outpatient nutrition counseling sessions.
Ms. Yablon Brenner graduated from Johnson & Wales University’s Culinary Arts program, before coming to Holy Name in 2021, she had a private practice, specializing in medical nutrition therapy, coaching, and nutrition communications. Ms. Yablon Brenner also co-authored two books: “Simple Foods for Busy Families” and “Great Expectations: Best Foods for Your Baby & Toddler.” Her expertise and recipes have been included in Reader’s Digest, Fitness, U.S. News & World Report and many other leading publications.