Struggling to come up with healthy and easy lunch non-sandwich options for your child’s school lunch? Look no further! These delicious and nutritious recipes will make packing a lunchbox a breeze. Over the last two years, Mini has moved on to have packed lunches for school and as he isn’t a sandwich person so I have a whole load of healthy lunch ideas with out a sandwich in sight.
A recent survey commissioned by Flora has revealed that only 17% of kids lunchboxes contain any vegetables or salad, which as a mum I find 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 understand that it is your decision as to what goes in your child’s packed lunch and that we are all busy and do not want to spend too much time on a packed lunch. Why not check out Flora’s Lunch Box Guide, it is filled with ideas and inspiration.
I have focussed on savoury school lunch ideas here and I have to say that one of the things I often do is chop up vegetables, like bell peppers, carrots, cucumber, sugar snap peas, and celery into batons and a pita bread and supply a dip such as hummus as it seems kids adore anything you can dip! When it comes to sweet snacks, I focus on fruits such as banana, apple slices with some nut butter (if allowed), any berries (blueberries, strawberry and raspberry) with Greek yogurt.
These are cold lunch ideas, but we also have a list of warm lunch ideas! and a week of bento box lunches.
Lunch Box Ideas
Jewelled Tuna Pasta Salad
Jewelled Tuna Pasta
Ingredients
- 350 g 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
Instructions
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.
Recipe Notes
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 and also a brilliant topping for jacket potatoes.
Tuna Wraps
Ingredients
- 15 g Flora
- 100 g of tinned tuna steak in spring water
- 1/4 red onions sliced thinly
- 1/2 green pepper finely chopped
- 15 g peanuts crushed
- lettuce
- 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
- 4 small wholemeal tortilla wraps
Instructions
- Spread Flora over your wraps
- Mix together your tuna, mayonnaise, onions, peppers and peanuts
- Cover with a lettuce leaf (this stops the wrap going soggy in your lunchbox) and spoon your tuna mayo mixture onto your lettuce and wrap.
Mini Pizza Bites
These Mini Pizza bites are a super gun lunch box addition and always a massive hit.
Build Your Own Pizza
Whilst we are talking about pizzas, how about building your own pizza lunchable? This is a pizza version, but you could use this for loads of different toppings on the crackers.
Air Fryer Sauage and Cheese Pinwheels
Made with just three ingredients these Sausage & Cheese Pinwheels cooked in the air fryer make a quick and tasty lunch that the kids will love.
Cheesy Egg & Noodle Muffins
These cheesy egg & noodle muffins are packed full of veg – broccoli and carrots, but peas, edamame beans, courgette and peppers also work.
Salmon Frittata
This salmon frittata is delicious served warm or cold and full of goodness and protein.
Ham and Sweet Potato Slices
Never mind the kids, I want this Ham and sweet potato slice for lunch!
Leftover Roast Beef Fritters
These simple roast beef fritters are a brilliant way to use up leftovers and are delicious warm or cold.
Nut Free Pesto Pasta
An easy pesto recipe that’s nut-free. Perfect for packed lunches to send to school or nursery for kids!
Chickpea Fritters
These veggie fritters are packed with nutrients from the peppers and chickpeas, plus warming spices – serve with a speedy homemade tzatziki for dunking
Veggie Quiche
This quiche is perfect warm of cold and makes a great lunchbox or picnic food.
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