40 Healthy School Lunch Recipes to Make for Your Kids

September always seems to me a more sensible time for the new year than January. Hopefully, everybody is fresh and relaxed from the summer. The hot, muggy weather has made way for the crisp air and cool nights of autumn. How well I remember the first day of school each September with my kids in their new clothes, excited but a little anxious as well about the new teacher, new classroom, new friends. My son came home each day for lunch until Grade 4, when suddenly it hit me - I had to make lunch everyday.

It's not that my son was a picky eater, although he wasn't keen on vegetables, but he had certain attitudes to food. He didn't, for instance, much like sandwiches, especially peanut butter, that mainstay of many a lunchbox. So for about the next 8 years I sent him to school every day with a hot lunch, adding my daughter to the roster somewhere along there. My children were both rowers in high school, so that involved getting up at 4:45 am to heat their lunches. I got to the point where I could do the whole thing without really opening my eyes, so I could crawl back into bed and rise at a more reasonable 7:00 am. It wasn't so bad, as my husband was the one who had to take them down to the waterfront and stand there in the cold while they rowed.

The key to making lunches, as with everything in life, is being organized. You don't need to make special meals every day, use leftovers whenever you can. However, I can tell you from hard experience that it is best to label containers in the fridge as lunch food, to avoid midnight snackers making off with the kid's lunch. Certain types of foods travel better than others. Chili, stews, casseroles, soups all work well in a thermos, pastas get a bit gluey, and Chinese noodles swell up and soak up all the liquid, as can rice if you put too much in. If you have a crock pot, you can get a stew cooking the night before and just dish it up straight into the thermos.

Invest in a thermos and a resusable lunch bag with some thermal capacity to keep sandwiches cool, but don't spend tons of money, because you'll have to replace it when they lose it, and trust me, they will, especially younger children. Go to the dollar store and buy a bunch of cheap reusable forks that are just for the lunch box, so you won't be upset when your kitchen flatware goes missing. Use small reusable containers for their snacks and drinks as well. These days lots of school lunch rooms have microwaves, which makes things much easier.

On the next page, learn what to feed a picky eater.