Make your weekday mornings a bit less hectic with these tips & easy cold lunch ideas for kids.

When it’s time for the kids to get back to school and summer or winter break, I have mixed emotions. In many ways, I love having them home during the summer and breaks. But I also long for the controlled chaos and hint of structure that comes with the kids being back in school! 🙂 Last year during registration, I heard a woman who works in the cafeteria tell someone else that hot lunch comes to about $50.00 per month per child. YIKES! For my family, that’d be $250 per month just for LUNCH! My boys LOVE to have “hot lunch” at school. My older kids… not so much.

So whether you will be having cold lunch for school, online learning, or home-school, here are some great ideas for making lunch time easy and healthy for everyone.

My Plan of Attack

#1 Get the Kids Involved

Over the past two years, my kids have been in charge of making their own lunches for school. It’s an easy thing for them to do if I’m prepared and have all the tools ready for them.

I think it’s also important for kids to have responsibilities at home (more than just keeping their room clean). With 5 in school this year, ranging from 12th grade to 1st grade, mornings will be CRAZY! So my kids MUST be a huge part of the lunch making process.

#2 Menu Plan

There’s no reason I can’t come up with a weekly lunchtime menu! Make a list of 5-10 cold lunch ideas and then rotate through it every 1 or 2 weeks. (HINT: I’ve got a free printable of lunch ideas below!)

I love using this app to do my menu planning and shopping. This will make shopping for kids’ cold lunches so much easier!

Below you’ll find a long list of lunch ideas and a free printable (see below) for you to keep in a handy place! Feel free to share your own ideas in the comments! Hang the list inside a cupboard drawer, in your pantry, or on your fridge for quick and easy inspiration.

#3 Be Organized

We have a “lunch cupboard” at our house. Inside you’ll find the bags, baggies, containers, peanut butter, honey, and other lunchtime snacks. It’s all in one place kept together, easy to find! Don’t have the extra space? Place items in a tote in your pantry!

I know some people (namely my sister) that will make up sandwiches for the entire week on Sunday evening and then throw them in the freezer. This is great for busy mornings! Just pull the sandwich out of the freezer, grab your fruit, snack and drink and lunch is ready!

Another family I know would make the lunches the night before. Each night someone is assigned to make lunch for everyone the next day. Bags/totes are packed and placed in the fridge. This definitely helps with the morning rush!

We thought this was pretty brilliant…

The Bin Method

You fill bins with the items for lunch, with a number of how many to take, and then the kids grab whatever they choose from each of the bins! Each bin has its own category of food. For example,

Bin 1: fruit to-go and veggie source bars

Bin 2: fruits cups and applesauce

Bin 3: cheeses and yogurts

Bin 4: Meats & veggies

Bin 5: granola bars or muffins

Bin 6: “junk food”, popcorn, or veggie straws

The options are really endless here and it is so fun to mix and match. You and the kids and prepare different things at the beginning of the month and they can enjoy it all month long.

40 Cold Lunch Ideas for Kids

Here are so many more fun, healthy, and delicious school lunch ideas that the kids can enjoy this year (and I am sure you will too).

Sandwiches/Main Dish:

Tortilla pinwheels are super cute and super delicious with ranch spread! You can also turn it into a “Sandwich Sushi” – tortillas with a layer of cream cheese, ham, cheese, and spinach leaves.

These are so easy to make and I bet you have all the ingredients already. Its a fun way for kids to eat pizza with their cold lunch! See the recipe here.

This is a staple in our home and we absolutely love our fast easy homemade strawberry freezer jam recipe! Or you can try this version of a PB&J Roll-up for a new cold lunch idea.

Peanut butter and jelly muffins are so easy and healthy. But they taste so good that really they should be a dessert!

My kids love smoothies and I love that it is so simple to add into my kids’ cold lunch boxes.

Your picky eaters will have so much fun with this cold lunch idea that they will eat it all up!

I love zucchini and since it is still zucchini season, these zucchini muffins are perfect to have for your kid’s school lunch.

If you have kids or teenagers that love greens, try a salad for a healthy school lunch idea. We love to prepare all the parts separately at the beginning of the week, so that the kids can easily grab what they want and throw it all together at school (or at home).

Wraps are such a fun idea for kids school lunches because just like a salad you can prepare all the ingredients beforehand and the kids can grab the ones they love the best and make it into a healthy wrap super quick. Check out these kids-proof wrap ideas here.

We love making mac & cheese in our Instant Pot! You can whip this one up fairly quickly and serve it as a cold lunch idea the next day. (See how to keep it hot in the tools section below). Check out our favorite recipe here.

Our family loves this super easy Chicken Gnocchi soup for lunch. Also check out these other soup recipes for more inspiration for kids school lunch ideas.

Some other awesome school lunch ideas packed with nutrition and yumminess include:

12. Leftovers

13. Cubed Chicken/Ham/Cheese (Kebabs)

14. Lettuce Wraps

15. Bagel Sandwiches

16. Waffle with peanut butter or applesauce

17. Homemade Lunchables

18. Ham/Turkey Sandwich

19. Tuna Sandwich

20. Homemade Uncrustables (use a cut and seal tool like this)

Fruits/Veggies/Sides:

I hesitate buying Cheez-its because they are usually gone in a day! But these homemade cheese-its are so simple to make and my kids LOVE having them in their homemade school lunch.

Our family recently discovered how easy it is to make hummus! You can whip this up in 5 minutes and serve it with some fresh carrots and celery all week long. The kids will love it apart of their school lunch and you will love it as a healthy snack throughout the day! View the full recipe HERE.

Check out this list of healthy fruits that you use for lunch ideas to add healthy energy into your kids’ day. Also check out this post to learn some tips to make your bananas last longer!

Some other great side ideas include:

24. Triscuits with cream cheese & sliced cucumbers

25. Applesauce (we love GoGo SqueeZ)

26. String Cheese

Frozen & Cold Items

We love making our own homemade strawberry lemonade and using these cute portable drink holders, perfect for kids cold lunches.

Check out this step-by-step guide for freezing pineapple. You can then add it to your cold lunch for all your pineapple loving kids!

You can also freeze other fruits or sides to keep your kids’ cold lunch nice and cool. For example:

29. Grapes

30. Blueberries

31. Peaches

32. Go-Gurt

Treats

Cold Lunch Ideas Printable

Print this handy little page with lots of cold school lunch ideas! Hang the list inside a cupboard, drawer, in your pantry, or on your fridge for quick and easy inspiration!

Download the Cold Lunch Ideas Printable

More Lunch Tips

Tip #1: Get the Tools

When I asked our readers about this a while ago, they had a TON of great hacks for making cold lunch “cool” (and “hot”!). And it starts with the tools!

Tip #2: Shop the Deals and Save Money

Printable coupons can make saving money really easy… just click on the ones you want and print away!

Another way to save money on cold lunch supplies is with sales. Typically, you can find Kraft sales at grocery stores during the back to school time. And, in years past Kraft also put out a ton of coupons that you can match with those sales. You can stock up on cheese and lunch meat and then pop them in your freezer. (Cheese will store well, unopened in your fridge, for at least 6 months.)

When you find a great price on food and/or supplies, stock up to last you for the whole school year if you can. Not only is it nice to save tons of $, but it’s also awesome to never have to run out of some of those everyday items.

Got Special Diets?

Here are some recent Gluten-Free Recipes!

So… what else?

Anything I’m missing? What have I forgotten? Do you have favorite brands that you love to use for some of these items? What are your favorite cold lunch ideas? Let me know in the comments!

Make packing lunch easy with these handy lunch boxes!

EasyLunchboxes or the PackIt Freezable Lunch Bag

Find even more healthy ideas from this list of healthy snacks!

You might also like these back to school breakfast recipes!