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Back to School Lunch Ideas: Super Simple Salmon Lunchbox

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It’s Day 3!

It’s the last day of our Back to School Lunch Series! I sure hope you have been enjoying seeing these lunch ideas and that they are inspiring you to put some fun, interesting lunches together.

For our last lunchbox of the week, I am going back to a tried and true meal that my daughter loves…my Super Simple Salmon! Our 6 year old loves pan sauteed salmon so it was an obvious choice for a lunch idea because I know that she will eat it!

Back to School Salmon Lunch

Super Simple Salmon

This salmon dish started out as a pretty regular Sunday dinner. We would inevitably have a few pieces of salmon leftover so I put them in the fridge. The next day, our 6 year old would ask for the leftover Salmon in her lunch so I started sending her to school with it. And she would eat it! Every morsel would be gobbled up! Nothing makes a mama prouder than when her kid eats all their lunch!

Salmon may not seem like an obvious choice for a kids lunch. I totally get it! I don’t know why but all of a sudden, our daughter started loving salmon. I am so happy she did because of all the incredible health benefits such as it is high in omega 3’s and 6’s, not to mention an excellent protein source for growing kids.

Here’s a breakdown of what’s in the Super Simple Salmon Lunchbox:

  • Salmon filet: see the recipe here
  • Quinoa salad with vegetables: at the recipe above
  • Mashed avocado with lemon juice, salt and pepper
  • Steamed broccoli
  • Sauteed green beans with slivered almonds
  • Pumpkin seeds

This lunch box turned out to be very green in color! Our kids really like fresh raw or steamed vegetables so I just tried to use a couple of already meal prepped vegetables in the lunchbox e.g. broccoli and green beans. If green vegetables are not getting shouts of excitement from the kids, you could easily sub in whatever fruits and vegetables your kid likes.

Back to School Salmon Lunch

To keep the food cool till lunch time, be sure to pack an icy cold freezer pack to put into your kid’s lunch bag. This should keep everything nice and chilled till time to eat.

Of course, if your kids do not like salmon, that’s ok! The real point of this lunchbox is to use a favorite healthy meal and divide it into the various sections of the Yum Box lunch box. I think that that is one of the best things about the Yum Box. Separating the ingredients into different compartments, makes the eating experience so much more interactive and fun for the kids. I’ve noticed that my daughter eats a lot more and she enjoys her lunch so much more too!

That’s it for the Back to School Lunch series! I really hope that you enjoyed it as much as we did! My daughter loved to play with the ingredients to put into her lunch box which I think helped her have responsibility over her lunch and she would tend to eat more!

Let me know if you give this Salmon recipe a try! Take a photo and tag me on Instagram at @nourish_with_renata and #nourishwithrenata on Instagram! I would love to see what you make! 

Back to School Lunch Ideas: Tuna Salad Lunch Box

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How did the first day of school go?

I hope your little one had a great time and is ready for Day #2! But first, what are you going to pack for lunch?

 

Lunch Box Idea #2

For Lunch Box Idea #2, I am sharing my family’s favorite Tuna Salad recipe. It is very easy to make and my 6 year-old daughter loves it!

Back to School Lunch Tuna Salad

I actually started making this tuna salad for my husband. He would ask for a snack on Sunday afternoons and I came up with this tuna salad when I didn’t have many groceries in the house. Of course, as soon as the kids see you eat something, they have to have a bite too! So the kids started eating the tuna salad too and when I asked my daughter what she wanted in her lunch box, she said “Tuna Salad please!”

 

What’s so good about Tuna Salad?

This tuna salad has a couple of secret ingredients. First, the savory tuna salad is perfectly contrasted with the addition of plump sweet grapes. Second, I add some crunch with lightly salted almonds. This really gives a great contrast of textures to make the tuna salad super interesting to eat!

To pair with the tuna salad, my daughter and I added some fluffy white bread (of course, I would have liked some wholewheat bread but I’m letting my daughter have a more active role in preparing her lunch as I mentioned before), crunchy cucumbers, sweet ripe mango, crisp gala apples, and one of her faves, cherry tomatoes.

As with most of her lunches, I throw an ice pack into her lunch bag to keep everything cold. What also helps is the type of mayo I use in the tuna salad. I actually use a vegan mayo from Hellman’s! There are no eggs in this mayo so you don’t have to worry about it spoiling if the tuna salad gets warm. This really isn’t an ad for Hellman’s. I just really like the idea of not worrying about my kid eating tuna salad at lunch time!

If you’re not a fan of tuna, you could absolutely swap the tuna for another protein of choice, like cooked and cooled chicken or turkey. I’ve seen a lot of recipes that use chickpeas in place of animal protein, so one day I think I am going to try this swap too.

Back to School Lunch Tuna Salad

The Key to Making Tuna Salad

The ultimate key to making tuna salad is… don’t use too much dressing! I find that when there is too much dressing, it overpowers the salad and makes it too creamy. So I use just enough dressing to coat the tuna, grapes and almonds, without overdoing it.

This tuna salad recipe is so easy! My daughter and I made this last week in only 10 minutes. Now that is pretty good! You can also store any leftovers in the fridge in an airtight container.

I hope you give this recipe a try! It really is a family favorite so I hope that your family will love it too. If you give it a try, take a photo and tag me on Instagram at @nourish_with_renata and #nourishwithrenata on Instagram! I would love to see what you make! 

Back to School Lunch Tuna Salad
Print
Tuna Salad
Prep Time
10 mins
 
A super easy tuna salad recipe made with a couple of unexpected ingredients.
Course: Salad
Cuisine: American
Servings: 4
Author: Renata
Ingredients
Ingredients:
  • 2 Five oz cans of tuna in water
  • ⅓ cup mayo such as Hellman’s Vegan Mayo
  • 1 tsp onion powder
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • ½ cup grapes quartered
  • ¼ tsp pepper
  • ¼ cup lightly salted almonds roughly chopped
Instructions
Instructions:
  1. Drain all the water from the tuna cans and set tuna aside.
  2. In a small bowl, mix the mayo, onion powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Taste and adjust seasoning as desired.
  3. In a medium sized bowl, add the tuna and about ¾ of the dressing.
  4. Add in the grapes and almonds. Gently mix together till all the ingredients are coated with the dressing. Add more dressing as needed.
  5. Serve as a sandwich, or as a dip for some veggies or crackers.

 

 

 

Back to School Lunch Ideas: First Day of School Snack Lunch

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What time is it???

It’s Back to School time! I can’t believe that our 6 year old will be starting First Grade tomorrow! Where did the time go?

I don’t know about you other moms out there, but I was sure enjoying the last few months of not having to make my daughter lunches to take to school! There is a special kind of stress involved with not only making a healthy lunch for a kid, but one that they would actually eat! I’ve had so many lunches come back partially eaten or not eaten at all because my daughter thought something was gross. I swear the lunch did not look gross when I packed it! There’s something about the jostling of lunch in a backpack that can make lunch look a little worse for wear…

How I’m Tackling School Lunches

So this year, I decided to make a couple changes to how I’m making my daughter’s lunch. First, I invested in a Yum Box. My lovely friend Sabrina told me about them because she swore that it helped her daughter eat more at lunch. You may have seen Yum Box or something like them before. They are a bento box style lunchbox where there are compartments to separate the food. The lid fits snugly over the compartments to prevent the food from getting jumbled up during transportation. I am not sponsored by Yum Box – I just really think it helps the food look better to the kids so that they eat more. Second, I’m investing in help from a professional on what kids eat…. My daughter! I’m letting her get more hands on and decisive about what to put in her lunch box.

So if you’re looking for some lunch box inspiration, get ready for 3 different lunch box ideas! I’ll be posting a new one every day to hopefully give you some inspiration for your own lunch box.

Lunchbox Idea #1

The first lunch box idea is this First Day of School Snack Lunch. It might sound counter-intuitive to give a kid snacks for lunch, but my daughter is a mega fan of a fruit and cheese board. So why not take this concept and make it into a lunch box.

Back to School Lunchbox

Here’s the ingredients for this super simple lunch that you and your child can make together:

  • Cheese Slices: we chose cheddar cheese. Other good options are colby jack or mozzarella.
  • Crackers or Popcorn: we opted for plain popcorn, but any of your kid’s favorite crackers would work here.
  • Fruit of choice: we love raspberries and blueberries. Apples, grapes or oranges would be good too.
  • Veggies of choice: carrot sticks are always a good crunchy choice, but my daughter also loves snap peas, green beans or tomatoes.
  • A sweet treat since it is the first day of school: we chose M&Ms.
  • OPTIONAL Dip for veggies: the little compartment where the M&Ms are could be used for a favorite dip such as ranch.

Back to School Lunchbox

In addition to this lunch box, I will also give her a reusable bottle of cold water and napkins. That’s it! Couldn’t be easier! On the first day of school, I think that the best thing is to give your kid something familiar that they love and will be more than happy to eat.

Head over to Instagram to show me what you packed in your kids lunch. Also, don’t just think of these ideas as kid-only. You could also use these ideas for what you can bring to work for snacks!

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post with a second idea for your kid’s lunch box!