Like so many mum’s out there, I am busy being a mum, a wife, a housemaid, a taxi service, a cook and working. I am always looking for an easy way to ensure my children have healthy lunch boxes that are quick to make, colourful and full of variety.
Today I thought I’d share one of my favourite ideas for achieving variety in the lunch boxes I pack. I call it Cook One Dinner, Make 3 Lunches. It goes something like this.
If my kids like a dinner, then I find 3 ways it can be turned into a lunch. It’s that simple!
Google is usually wonderful for helping create ideas. I just usually google “leftover blah {insert name of dinner or ingredient} recipes. It really is a simple way of achieving variety. Another great reason for turning dinner into lunch is that dinner meals quite often have vegetables included in them too. When I first started on transitioning my family to healthier eating, I use to grate vegetables into meals, now I don’t have too but either way you do it, these vegetables are now going into the lunch box too – quite often unnoticed!
Here are some ideas for Cook One Dinner, Make 3 Lunches you may like to try.
Please remember,
- it is always best to try these foods at home cold before sending them to school. This way you can ensure your child will eat them and won’t go hungry. If they are like my children, hangry (hungry & angry) kids are not fun and I wouldn’t wish that on any teacher:-)
- pack an ice brick in the lunch box to help keep food cold
Spaghetti Bolognaise
This is an all time favourite meal in our house. It’s always good on a night where sport activities mean dinner is later than normal. I know everyone will eat it without any fuss. I usually pre-make it on the weekend so all I need to do is reheat it (of course, I need to remember to get it out of the freezer the night before I am using it but my trusty menu plan reminds me to do that).
My bolognaise sauce has zucchini, carrot, broccoli, celery and mushroom all diced up in it so I know for dinner and lunch, everyone is getting a good dose of vegetables too.
- Send it in a thermos as is for a tasty warm lunch
- Mini meat pies using the sauce and some puff pastry
- Spaghetti Bolognaise Muffins – here’s my recipe.
Tuna Pasta or Rice
This is one of my laziest dishes for those days where I either haven’t planned my week well, am too tired to cook what I had planned or when I simply haven’t been shopping. Over low heat mix a 400g tin of tuna, some garlic, grated zucchini and carrot, add some peas and corn, and lemon juice, salt & pepper to taste. Then serve over some pasta or rice. If I am feeling a little more energetic, I’ll add a bowl of salad to the centre of the table too. You can change the vegetables around to what ever you have in the fridge too. Great with added chilli on top for those who like it a bit spicy.
- Tuna Mornay. Make a white sauce and stir it through the dish above. Send it to school in a thermos.
- Tuna Mornay Muffins – this is a simple recipe by Circle Of Moms (I omit the bread crumbs because we don’t eat gluten and they still work fine).
- Tuna Mornay Pies – keep some of the mornay aside before you mix through any pasta or rice, and use puff pastry to make pies. (note, if I happen to have bolognaise & mornay in the same week, I would one dinner left over a pie, and the other a muffin for further variety).
Roast Dinner
I am pretty sure that as I am getting older, I am turning into my mum. I know this because I now cook us a baked dinner every Sunday night. It is our extravagant meal for the week! Roast meat (usually lamb or chicken), roast vegetables (potato, pumpkin, sweet potato, onions), lots of steamed broccoli and green beans and served with lashings of gravy made from the juices of the meat. Yummo! This is another winning meal in the house – no complaints. The plates would be licked clean if I actually allowed it (they sometimes are if I am not watching).
- Cold Roast Lunch – this is one of our daughters favourite lunches. Cold meat, baked veggies and broccoli.
- Left Over Roast Hash Browns – check out my recipe here.
- Roast Dinner Rice Slice – check out my recipe here.
Meatball Minestrone
I make mini meatballs and a minestrone soup, then combine them together for a heartier soup as a main meal. Sometimes I will also add some pad thai rice noodles so the meal spreads further.
- Send it as is in a thermos for a warm yummy lunch.
- Meatball salad – keep meatballs separate from the soup, and add them to quinoa, rice, cous cous along with cherry tomatoes, avocado, shredded lettuce or baby spinach, and grated carrot. (or any other salad items your children like)
- Simply send the meatballs as a finger food
Crumbed Chicken
Crumbed Chicken and fried rice is a meal my husband recalls fondly from growing up. I make it now, but as we are have gone gluten free (because of the affect gluten has on his depression and our daughters moods), I use rice crumbs or create quinoa crumbs instead of bread crumbs. And I use brown rice for the fried rice instead of white rice. So the meal is same same as growing up, just a little different. Nonetheless, it’s still one of his favourites today.
- Crumbed Chicken Fingers – slice into finger strips
- Crumbed Chicken and salad wraps or tortillas
- Chicken Salad – dice up the crumbed chicken and serve it on top of a salad
Mashed Potato
We don’t have mashed potato alot any more, but when we do, I make a big batch so I have left overs to create other meals and lunches.
- Croquettes – I use this recipe from Good Food as a base but use whatever vegetables and meat I have available .
- Pancakes – this is a great recipe from Just A Taste. I add some shredded chicken or some bacon, grated zucchini and carrot to it for an enhanced flavour and more nutrition.
- Topping for mini pies – using a muffin tray, I create a pie base (usually puff pastry but can also be a slice of bread), then spoon in a leftover sauce such as spag bol, tuna mornay, chicken etc, then add mashed potato for topping. Place a little bit of butter on the top of the mashed potato and cook in oven until top has browned.
These are just some of the ways I turn our dinners into lunches, and they always get eaten.
Are you already turning your dinners into lunches?
Can you think of ways to turn your evening meals into lunches?
I’d love you to share your ideas with other like minded parents who are part of The Root Cause community. Please share by adding a comment to this post.