Cold lunch ideas to send to school?

mavs_girl07 · October 2012

I'm sure this gets asked often, so I apologize. But does anyone have good ideas of what I can send in DD's packed lunch? No microwave, so it has to be something she can eat cold. She's very picky, so I'm having a tough time coming up with ideas.

KathrynMD · October 2012

You can always send cooked/hot food in a thermos - just pour hot water in it for a few minutes and it will stay warm for several hours.

For cold foods, we do sliced chicken, ham, cheese, fruit, crackers/pretzels, yogurt, pudding, etc.

mavs_girl07 · October 2012

Hmm, I never thought about using a thermos. Thanks for the idea!

mrsseguin · October 2012

A thermos would work for warm foods. We always send cold lunches for school...sandwiches, fruit, yogurt, granola bars. That's pretty much what DS gets everyday.

mavs_girl07 · October 2012

She's not a big sandwich eater. The only kind she'll eat is jelly and cream cheese, or pbj. But it's a peanutfree school, so that leaves me with only one sandwich option. She'd probably be thrilled with some cheese and crackers though. Weird question, but do y'all think pasta with a little sauce would do well in a thermos? Drop off is at 9:00 and lunch is 11:30, so it would only have to keep for about 3hrs...

jnksmom · October 2012

mavs_girl07:
She's not a big sandwich eater. The only kind she'll eat is jelly and cream cheese, or pbj. But it's a peanutfree school, so that leaves me with only one sandwich option. She'd probably be thrilled with some cheese and crackers though. Weird question, but do y'all think pasta with a little sauce would do well in a thermos? Drop off is at 9:00 and lunch is 11:30, so it would only have to keep for about 3hrs...

I have done pasta with a little sauce in a thermos for DS and it does fine. He likes it and says it taste fine. He is in K so I drop him off at 7:30 and he eats lunch at 10:25.

Ridgebackmom · October 2012

mavs_girl07:
She's not a big sandwich eater. The only kind she'll eat is jelly and cream cheese, or pbj. But it's a peanutfree school, so that leaves me with only one sandwich option. She'd probably be thrilled with some cheese and crackers though. Weird question, but do y'all think pasta with a little sauce would do well in a thermos? Drop off is at 9:00 and lunch is 11:30, so it would only have to keep for about 3hrs...

We use soy butter and dd doesn't mind. She eats that like 3x week, today she had cheese, crackers, yogurt & grapes.

mavs_girl07 · October 2012

Awesome, thanks ladies. Feeling much better about this now!

KathrynMD · October 2012

DD wouldn't eat a real sandwich until very recently - so I'd just give her the parts - slice of bread (or tortilla) and some meat and cheese. She was perfectly happy.

We did pasta and sauce regularly, cheese ravioli and pesto is big too and beans and rice.

Aimathy · October 2012

My daughter loves her themos lunches. We've done pizza cut up into bite size pieces, pasta w/sauce, spaghetti-o's, chicken nuggets, jambalaya etc. We also do lots of "nibbling" lunches with her PlanetBox lunchbox. It's a tray that you put lots of little things into....so she may have cheese cubes, crackers, grapes, carrots with dip etc as one meal. She likes to pick and that gives her a chance to have some variety. Good luck!

shellybird101 · October 2012

I did field trips every other day this past summer and I would make my lunch at 8:00 and I would pour boiling water in my thermos let it sit for 10+ mins then make myself some macNcheese, then I would pour out the water leaving a tablespoon of water in the thermos (this would help the noodle from getting sticky) then added the mac n cheese and pack it in my lunchbag and by 12:00 I would eat with the kids and my mac n cheese was still WARM. It was nice to have a warm food somedays instead of cold lunch ideas all the time. You can also do this with hot dogs(a kids favorite) GL

Soter1 · October 2012

Muffins are key. Also for thermos we do Mac & Cheese, spaghetti O's, chix noodle soup. Drop off for my kids is 7 and lunch around 11:30 and it is still hot.

Angela814 · October 2012

We do the same things - peanut butter & jelly, yogurt, or a lunchable. (I buy the lunchables on sale for $1/each or else I make my own.)

Then generally I just add a fruit for DD1. She likes grapes, strawberries, mandarin oranges, apple sauce, etc.

Apparently that's all she has time to eat in her 20 minute lunch period.

When she was younger I'd also send a vegetable, although the only raw veggies she likes are carrots and cucumbers.

We've tried food in a thermos but she complains it doesn't stay hot.

brightning · October 2012

You might be surprised at the things your DD will eat cold, too. I have sent cold English muffin pizzas, cooked broccoli, pasta salad and cubes of leftover meat (I always ask her first).

I think someone else mentioned alternatives to peanut butter so she can have her favorite PBJs. Some other sandwiches and sandwich alternatives my DD likes are cream cheese & jelly, peanut butter & honey, ham & cheese, cheese & mayo, BLT, roll-ups of meat & cheese, and deli meat rolled up and threaded onto a skewer. I've also sent mini pancakes & bacon. Sometimes I make the sandwiches mini or cut them out with a cookie cutter, homemade sealed sandwiches, and add a little interest by cutting out cheese shapes and layering them on top of the sandwich.

HTH!

keg · October 2012

Thankfully I don't have to pack lunches yet, but my DDs like to eat things we normally think of as "warm" cold. They rather eat cooked vegetables straight from the fridge as opposed to heated up. This goes for green beans and broccoli and they actually like eating frozen peas frozen. They would also eat pasta and pizza cold. And frozen waffles frozen. It's possible my kids are crazy, but it's possible that your DD might not have the same preconceived notion of warm and cold foods that us adults do. :-)

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