School Lunch Guide
on Aug 25, 2021
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Kids are getting back to school and it is a beautiful thing to be in a routine! Today we are going to go over all things school lunches. I pack Ruth school lunches and there are definitely certain guidelines I stick to in order to make sure she likes and eats what she brings! I have tried to go rouge and pack her things outside of the “sandwich” guidelines, aka – bread of some kind with fillings inside and it was not well received! Although that can seem limiting, there are so many ways to add a variety of nutrition and fun into those guidelines so everyone is happy. In today’s post I am partnering with ALDI to show you a school lunch guide you can print out and put on your fridge so you are never left wondering what you should pack in your kids school lunch. ALDI has so many affordable and high quality options and I love that it isn’t packed with a million varieties of each item. If you want peanut butter you will only have to choose from a couple options, and don’t worry, their Simply Nature brand has an organic peanut butter with just peanuts and salt!
The value at ALDI is also something that blows my mind a little. Their Simply Nature brand has tons of bread options i love, like their Knock Your Sprouts Off Sprouted 7 Grain Bread, or their Honey Wheat, and the loaves are only $3.29 at my ALDI. Ruth loves the sprouted bread for her sandwiches and I love that it has less than 1 gram of sugar per serving. Okay are we ready to get into this lunch guide? We covered that some kind of bread and filling is always a winner, but how do you cut the sandwich? There are so many options! You can slice it normally sure, but you can also get some crustless sandwich makers and cookie cutters for variety and shapes, or roll it up and serve it on little food picks. This lunch guide gives you all of the options so you can pick a bread, filling and way to slice to create new and exciting lunches for your kids that don’t stress you out. Then we fill in the rest of the lunchbox with veggies, fruit and other additions like the Simply Nature Cauliflower crackers that I will talk about below!
Below is a picture of the school lunch guide, but click HERE to download the PDF so you can print it and put it on your fridge or taped inside your pantry. I have printed it out myself to keep on my fridge because although it can seem like a simple thing to pack a lunch, it’s easy to just start sending the same thing every week because thinking about it anymore seems stressful. I want packing lunches to leave you feeling like you have set your kid up for success at lunch time!
Okay these Cauliflower Crackers from Simply Nature are Ruthie’s JAM. She is so obsessed when she saw I bought them for this post she almost tore the box apart and I had to tell her she had to wait one day until I shot these pictures and she was heartbroken. Classic toddler! She also loves hummus so much so I can add that to sandwiches, sometimes just by itself but also with turkey in a roll up.
Then I love to slice the roll ups and putting them on food picks makes them stay together in the lunchbox and also make it more fun for kids!
As you can see in this post ALDI has so many great options, like their breads, bagels and even these sandwich thins are great as a bread option to mix it up. This post is sponsored by ALDI but all opinions are 100% my own!
Then we go to add ins that go with the sandwich. You have to know your kid, but also lunch time is a great time to introduce new things that they might not eat at dinner but would eat when all of their friends are eating. Ruth’s go-to’s for veggies are carrots and recently cucumbers! She is hot and cold with bell pepper so I like to add it as another chance to expose her to it. For fruit, she loves all kinds of berries and of course grapes. Then I always add a cheese slice or string cheese, or hummus in one of the sections with crackers to dip in another. The lunch guide above has other options but you can also add in whatever your kid is loving. Again, click HERE to download the School Lunches Guide!
Pin the image below to save this School Lunches Guide for later or to share it with friends!
Thank you for this! Love Aldi’s and love this guide!
Hi. Thank you for sharing this post. Where did you get the cute container?
They are called Yumboxes and I bought it off Amazon!
Love this so much! Great ideas for all ages and a good reminder that it doesn’t have to be so hard…stick to teh basics and make it work! Love Aldi, too 🙂
This is great to have. Thanks, Kelsey!