Tasty Tuna Non Sandwich Lunchbox ideas

Over the last two years Mini has moved on to have packed lunches for school and as he isn’t really a sandwich person we have been working with Flora looking at non-sandwich lunchbox ideas.

A recent survey commissioned by Flora has revealed that only 17% of kids lunchboxes contain any vegetables of salad, which as a mum I find really shocking. Worse than that it also showed that only 1.6% of children’s packed lunches met national standards for school food in England. Now I know that children can be really fussy and picky eaters and totally understand that it is your decision as to what goes in your child’s pack lunch and that we are all busy and do not want to spend too much time on a packed lunch, I do believe as do Flora that with a little planning we can make sure that our kids lunchboxes are packed with goodness. Why not check out Flora’s Lunch Box Guide, it is filled with ideas and inspiration.

Did you know that Flora has distributed 631,000 lunchboxes with recipe planners to retailers throughout the UK to help make packing lunches easier for parents and that Only 1 in 5 lunchboxes (17%) contains any vegetables or salad! Dr. Charlotte Evans, Nutritional Epidemiologist and the study’s lead researcher, comments: “I hope the results of the study are an eye-opener, highlighting that more stringent policies need to be introduced if we want to see real change in the nutritional value of children’s packed lunches. New policies for schools, food manufacturers and retailers are needed, which will require strong support from government and stakeholders if progress is to be made. Flora has made a good start, but we need everyone on board in order to make an impact.”

One of the things that I really fail with is tuna. I hate tinned tuna, the smell, the texture and the taste, but I know that it is full of goodness and Mini adores it. So I decided to get the husbeast involved and him and Mini have prepared this week’s packed lunches on a tuna theme!

Jewelled Tuna Pasta

We adapted this recipe from the Pasta Tossed with Tuna and Fresh Herbs off the Flora website and it was a big hit. Simple to make, delicious (so I am told) and great hot or cold.

Ingredients

350g penne pasta
55 g Flora Original
1 red pepper, seeds removed and finely chopped
115 g button mushrooms, thickly sliced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
198 g can sweetcorn
200 g canned tuna in water, drained and flaked
1 pinch of black pepper
4 Spring onions chopped finely

Method.

Cook the pasta according to packet instructions. Meanwhile, melt the Flora in a large pan, add the red pepper, crushed garlic, spring onions and mushrooms and cook for about 5 minutes. Stir occasionally until soft.

Stir in the sweetcorn and tuna, cover and cook very gently until piping hot.

Drain the pasta and gently toss with the tuna mixture.

Serve immediately, or allow to cool and pack in tomorrow’s lunchbox.

What Mini loved about this recipe was just how simple it was and also how colourful. It can be so easily adapted and if you are in a hurry you can use a tin of mixed sweetcorn and peppers. Mini also commented that it would have looked and tasted great with peas in too.

Tuna Wraps

We are big fans of wraps here. Both my boys love them and they are super simple to make and rather than filling up on bread, you get loads of filling. This is a twist on a classic tuna mayo sandwich.