I’m a back-to-school nerd. I love all the all the stationery, all the bags, all the boxes. But I don’t like packing lunches. Max says I am like Erica Yurken’s mother in the book Hating Alison Ashley: I think cutting lunches is the most boring job in the world, so the lunches I pack are usually pretty thrown together, and maybe a bit weird.

I asked the kids how important their school lunch was to them and Max made me a pie chart showing that his lunch makes up 80% of his happiness for the day. Huh. So I’ve decided to step up my lunch making game. Here are some things I saw on YouTube that I’m going to try out:

1. Pre-sorting lunchables in containers
The idea here is that if I sort out all the delicious components for their lunches separately and store them in labelled containers the kids can easily pack their own lunch box each day. We don’t have enough room in our fridge to store everything so containers with non-perishables would have to be stored in the cupboard. The video makes it look really easy and appealing though.

See the video here.

2. Lunch prepping
Prepping food for the week ahead on a Sunday seems like a no-brainer but it’s just not something I’ve ever feel motivated to do. However, if I want to do 1. I’ll have to do this part too. Note: I got totally sidetracked by Lucie from the video, who I hadn’t seen before and ended up watching her video of 5 days of eating pizza only. Zomg.

See the video here.

3. Making more things in muffin trays
This is not really a short-cut but it may be a way of getting more variety and protein in the kids’ lunches (especially for Max, who can’t eat gluten). The video I’m linking below says these are ‘gluten-free breakfast ideas’ but they can easily be ‘gluten-free lunch ideas’. The things I’ll make in muffin trays will be much plainer, as my kids are still not keen on foods that are green, have onions, etc.

See the video here.

It was surprisingly hard to find inspiring school lunch hacks on YouTube even though there were a gazillion videos. Do you have any suggestions? Have you tried any of these ideas? Let me know in the comments or email me at bron@babyspace.net.au

Bron x

CREDITS

Bag: Fjällräven Kånken | Lunchbox: Planetbox Rover in Groovy c/o Biome | Snack: Meiji Hello Panda Choco 

Photo + styling: Bron Bates