Life Hack: Four things to know to save time and effort when making back-to-school lunches
How to make back-to-school lunch planning as easy as possible. Picture: iStock
Planning and making the lunches in advance will save you a lot of time and effort midweek. Each Sunday, write down what you plan to pack for your child’s lunch each day. This way you can make sure you have the ingredients in time and the lunches can be made the night before each school day.
If you prefer to batch cook and prepare your lunches, your freezer will be your best friend. Whether you’re preparing full meals to be frozen or just snacks like flapjacks and muffins, you can avoid a lot of stress when the food simply needs to be defrosted overnight.
Speaking of the freezer, keep a sliced pan frozen so you can dip in any time you run out of fresh bread for sandwiches. Slices are quickly defrosted in the toaster so there’s no need for a last-minute panic.
Really feeling the morning rush? Let your child have fun with their food at school. Instead of spending time preparing lunch, give them the ingredients and let them experiment in school. Put some of their favourite self-assembly foods into the lunchbox: crackers or pitta work well with their favourite fillings, such as cheese, slices of cucumber and other vegetables.
Another way to get lunches made in advance is to incorporate them into your dinner preparation. Leftovers are a great way to fill bellies at lunchtime without going to any extra effort.
Food like pasta, slices of veggie pizza, and quiche are great options that can be eaten cold the next day. Just make an extra portion or two when making dinner and pop them into the lunchbox.
Similarly, you can add a few extra ingredients to your chopping routine when cooking and put them to the side for lunch snacks. Chop some extra veggies like peppers and carrots and store them in the fridge to add to the next day’s school lunch.
Does your child come home from school with a still-full lunchbox? Dietitian Aoife Hearn recently advised in her ieParenting column that picky eaters should become involved in the lunch-making process.
“While this is not always the panacea it’s purported to be, allowing children to have some input into the foods that make it into their lunch boxes will help increase interest in its contents,” she wrote.
She also suggests that food should be in containers that are easy to access and recommends finger foods like chopped fruit instead of whole fruit or crackers instead of bread and rolls.
As well as this, look beyond the simple sandwich to satisfy cravings and hunger. “Lots of foods other than sandwiches can suit at this time. To keep lunch boxes interesting, consider including a few options that are well-accepted at home.”
