Back to School: Easy & Convenient Lunchbox Ideas

The summer holidays are over, or nearly over! Some schools are going back today while others are starting on Wednesday.

If you are still at home and not sure what to do to entertain little ones in the last few days of the holiday, check out some ideas in our post Cooking with Kids: Creamy King Prawn and Salmon Pie.

If your children are back today, I have no doubt that the first lunchbox was prepared well in advance. You probably thought about it over the weekend, as we did.

However I must confess that it is starts going downhill from tomorrow. Once we are back to routine, less time is spent on packed lunches, so we need easy and convenient ideas, such as the ones below.

Little man is starting at a new junior school today. He is very excited and feeling all grown-up as he is no longer at an infant school. It is a big change for him and I wanted to make sure that he had a delicious lunchbox to take.

When we went shopping at our local Iceland, I asked him what he wanted in his lunchbox, and he said “something different, surprise me!”

I understood he didn’t want any sandwiches, so I decided to buy some frozen puff pastry, salad leaves, frozen sweetcorn, frozen mixed berries, yogurt and cheese.

Mini Cheese and Sweetcorn Pizzas

You will need:

• Frozen puff pastry
• Iceland Freshly Frozen Supersweet Sweetcorn
• Iceland British Mature Cheddar Cheese
• Tomato sauce
• Oregano

Little man loves pizzas! He was very surprised when he saw the mini cheese and sweetcorn pizzas in his lunchbox.

They were made with frozen puff pastry, defrosted at room temperature according to the pack instructions.

The pastry was then spread out and cut in rectangles. Each corner was folded in, then topped with a layer of tomato sauce, frozen sweetcorn and grated mature cheese, with a sprinkle of oregano. It only took 10 minutes to bake in the oven!

Mini Cinnamon Swirls

You will need:

• Frozen puff pastry
• cinnamon
• sugar

Little man really likes cinnamon pretzels, so I thought it would be a good idea to make cinnamon swirls as they taste very similar to pretzels.

Once the pastry was spread out, it was sprinkled with a layer of sugar and cinnamon, then rolled and cut into small circles. It was baked in the oven for around 10 minutes, until golden. If you want, you can also add raisins and pecans!

To complete the lunchbox, I added a generous serving of mixed leaves salad and frozen sweetcorn. I also added natural yogurt with frozen berries.

Usually berries tend to go soggy in the lunchbox, but adding frozen berries solve this problem. They will defrost just in time for lunch!

The same goes for the frozen sweetcorn. There is no need to defrost it overnight as it will defrost at school. One less thing to remember to do the night before!

 

Little man was very pleased with his lunchbox and can’t wait what he will be getting tomorrow. I haven’t thought that far yet, so I need your help!

What do you usually add to your children’s lunchbox?

This post has been written in collaboration with Iceland, however the opinions expressed in this post are honest and my own.