Lunch time. Personally, I find the daily “what’s for lunch” question much more difficult than “what’s for dinner”. Lunch is, well, a challenge. Although it’s yummy, I want to feed my children something more than the standard sandwich and chips option. However, I don’t want to spend all day in the kitchen. And neither do you, right?
On an average day, the breakfast mess isn’t cleared until after 9am. Then, in order to get supper on the table at a decent hour, prep begins around 3:30. With errands and homeschool lessons in between, that doesn’t leave much time for a satisfying, thoughtful lunch. So what to do?
As with any successful endeavor, a good lunch starts with a good plan…and a heavy dose of reality! As much as I would love to make an original lunch for my children every day, I know that’s not feasible with our schedule. So rather than overwhelm myself and create extra work, I do my best to fix a crowd-pleasing lunch once a week. No more, no less. The other days of the week we alternate between sandwiches, leftovers, breakfast foods, and sometimes soup.
But what to fix? <insert eye roll> I used to run out of ideas often. That’s why I started to keep a running list of lunch ideas (Evernote is great for this!). Today, I’m going to share some with you. The recipes below run the gambit, from easy, interesting sandwiches, to crock pot and freezer meals and everything in between. They are all sure to help break you out of your lunch rut. Bookmark your favorite ideas and plan a great lunch this week!
Sandwich-ish
Grilled Peanut Butter Banana Sandwich
Salads
Grilled Chicken and Fruit Salad
Hot Stuff
Sausage and Vegetable Fritatta
Homemade Spaghetti O’s and Meatballs
Crock Pot Cream Cheese Chicken
Spicy Spaghetti Squash with Black Beans
Lentil and Brown Rice Casserole
What are your favorite go-to lunch ideas that offer more than the average sandwich?
Thank you for some great ideas!! Lunch is the last thing I think about until my kids start asking what we are having. They are so tired of PB&J and grilled cheese. I need to be better about incorporating one or two of these ideas each week!
Thanks for the tips. I’ve so tried leftover taco meat, chili, or hot dogs baked in cornbread muffins.
You’re my hero! Okay, of course not the MAIN one. We know who that is! But, definitely a mini hero! Lunch is SO boring here most days! 🙂 Thank you!
Sometimes we make our own “lunchables” : sliced turkey sausage, sliced cheese, crackers/ mini bagels. Errand day, if it involves Costco, will mean a $5 rotisserie ckn (Gasp!..not homemade!)
Jessica Murray Johnson!!
We eat lots of bean burritos during the week. I also like little pot pies but the ones you buy have so much salt. Here’s to planning ahead.
Great ideas! I find if I do meal planning ahead, it helps take the pressure off so much and you can use leftovers to make parts of lunches. Another fun idea is muffin tin lunches (we have the silicone shaped ones for fun) — fill each compartment with diced mozzarella sticks, sliced veggies, goldfish, diced cold meats, fruits, raisins, nuts, choc chips, etc. — create a rainbow of colors for them to eat!
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