Simplify School Lunches

I don't know about you, but I'm so tired of packing school lunches.  Lunches Smunches.  So...I decided to streamline the lunch packing process for the rest of the school year. I WISH I would've done this in August.  This has changed our mornings so I thought I'd share it with you.

Chips: I'm just too frugal to buy those miniature bags of chips so I bought one big bag and separated them into snack size ziploc bags.  I got 20 small bags of chips out of the one big bag that I bought for $2 at the grocery store! I get super excited about savings, I'm a dork like that.  I don't like to pack junk in lunches because...well, I was a fat kid, and I don't want my kids to learn bad eating habits so the one "treat" my son gets in his lunch is 7 Cheetos puffs.  I'm okay with it.

Dairy: I usually pack either a cheese stick or a Greek yogurt tube in his lunch, which is super quick.  This week I put a couple of boxes of Chobani yogurt tubes in the freezer so in the morning I can just grab one and throw it in the lunchbox and it is mostly thawed by lunch.

Fruit/Veggie: I always pack either a fresh fruit or veggie.  Clementines are super simple to stick in the lunchbox and he can peel and eat those quickly at lunchtime.  Robbie doesn't like to have apples in his lunch because it takes too long to eat so I pack a clementine, pear, baby carrots, bell pepper strips or celery sticks.

Sandwich: Throughout the year I will try to be creative with his main lunch item.  Sometimes I'll make a burrito and put it in foil, put a hot dog or leftovers of some kind in the thermos, but I'm tired of the hectic mornings.  No more creativity, it's sandwiches from now on.  Last week I got two loaves of wheat bread and made one loaf of turkey and cheese and one loaf of peanut butter and jelly. I put them in ziploc bags, stacked them in the bread bag, and put them all in the freezer. In the morning I grab a sandwich out and it's thawed by lunch.

To make the turkey and cheese I laid out all of the bread. On one side I put a slice of cheese, turkey on the other and squeezed some mustard in the middle.  I put the mustard in the middle so the bread wouldn't get soggy. 

To make the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I spread a very thin layer of peanut butter on one side of the bread hoping that would keep the bread from getting soggy. Then I topped it with strawberry jam (that I made, yummy!) and on the other piece of bread I spread a thicker layer of peanut butter.

And that's it! Less than 45 minutes of prep work and I have 18 school lunches prepped and ready to go. In the morning it now takes me one minute to pack my son's lunch and move on with life!