Pizza Muffins
How to Pack a Healthy Lunch Box in 5 Minutes:
If you are keen to prepare a healthy school lunch box for your kids, weekday mornings can be overwhelming, especially when you are in a crunch for time getting the kids ready to go out the door and do the same for yourself.
A packed lunch should provide a range of important nutrients for children, like calcium, protein, vitamins, minerals and dietary fibers. Including a wide variety of foods in a lunchbox will provide this range of nutrients and prevent children from becoming bored with the same foods. Most importantly, children should look forward to and enjoy their packed lunch and snacks in school.
Here are some useful tips to achieve the balance between nutrition, enjoyable meals and time saving:
- Cover the nutritional needs by including food from the main food groups:
- Milk or yoghurt
- Lean Protein, like white cheese, legumes, chicken and lean meat
- Bread and whole meal cereals
- Fruit and vegetables
- Prepare fruit and vegetables ahead of time for the week or the night before, like portioning grapes, strawberries, apples, carrots, cucumber and other favorite fruit and vegetables
- You can also prepare yoghurt based fruit or vegetable dips for your picky eaters and keep them portioned in the fridge
- Shift from time to time from the classical school sandwiches by providing favorite foods like pizza in the shape of savory pizza muffin, where many nutritious elements can be hidden like fresh tomato sauce, vegetables and lean protein. Pizza muffins can be stacked frozen, removed from the freezer the night before and taken at room temperature lunchtime, or put a few seconds in the microwave and taken anytime as a snack. Other examples of convenient healthy snacks are baked cheese or spring rolls and kibbeh balls. These items can add fun and variety to your lunch box and time saving for your rushed mornings
- Make sure you include water and an ice pack in your kid lunch box to maintain safe food temperature
