Lunch Box Ideas: Kids' Lunches Made Easier

I wonder how the Iron Chef would do with school lunches. "Okay, you've got ten minutes to make a healthy, fun, kid-friendly lunch that my child can eat in 15 minutes and you can only use what's in my fridge. Go!" Now that's a food challenge - the one parents face every weekday morning. Whether their kids are in day care or school a nutritious lunch must be provided one way or another.

On the surface it seems pretty simple. Slap together a sandwich, toss in a juice box and some string cheese. Done. It's the every morning thing that makes it so ornery. Whether it's because I'm running late, I've run out of bread or run out of ideas, there are definitely more days than I'd like to admit that I've been so desperate I've come scarily close to sending my child to school with a Happy Meal.

As is our wont, Mommy Poppins has scoured the known universe for resources, services, tips and ideas to help NYC parents make making lunches for school easier.

Pre-Made Meal Helpers
Pre-made meals can be a real savior for time-stressed parents. Just take it out of the fridge and pop it in the backpack. What could be easier? But typical grocery store lunches like Lunchables are too unhealthy to be a really reassuring option. Luckily there are some other alternatives in NYC for easy pre-made lunches.

KidFresh is a store on the Upper East Side that opened this year. It makes fun, healthy meals for kids from all natural and organic ingredients in really nicely designed packaging. Kids can go to the store and create their own meals or you can have a week's worth of meals delivered to your home anywhere in Manhattan.

You can also order all natural pre-made lunch boxes from FreshDirect and get the rest of your groceries at the same time. Each includes fun stickers, has one serving of fruit and/or vegetables, and no hydrogenated oils, preservatives, antibiotics or artificial ingredients.

Recipes:
I'm no Jamie Oliver, but I have a couple tricks up my sleeve. I keep the ingredients for these easy lunch box fillers in my cabinet so even if I haven't been to the market, I can throw together a quick, relatively healthy meal.

Bean roll up: Fat-free refried beans on a whole wheat tortilla wrap.

Bean dip and baby carrots: Fill a small tupperware with hummus or bean dip and let them dip baby carrots in the dip.

Hummus on whole wheat pita

Boxed or canned soup: Boxed veggie soups or even canned soups can be a good balanced meal and certainly more healthy than a Happy Meal.

Further Reading:
Find more lunch box fillers for your kids on this UK gov site which offers a month of lunch box ideas.

If you need more inspiration, Babble's Strollerderby blog has a fun post on lunch box overacheivers which led us to the Lunch in a Box blog which has some beautiful and fancy lunch ideas and inspiration. Great for the beginning of the school year while you're feeling all fresh and ambitious.