Creative Food: LunchBots

10 Simple {and EASY} Fun Food School Lunches!

Fun food can be daunting if you don't know where to start and looks like it takes a lot of time. It doesn't have to, I promise. I'm all about Simple and EASY Fun food that can be easily recreated. Making school lunch every day can get mundane. You might even find yourself packing the exact same thing day after day because it's what you have in your fridge/pantry (been there, done that!). I decided to put together this round up of lunches to show that with just a few minutes you can add some FUN to your school lunches; and put a smile on your kids' face :)

So a few things about these lunches. First thing; every lunch here was made in TEN minutes or LESS. These particular lunches were all captured with my phone right before school and I have previously posted them on Instagram. And, as always, all of these lunches are peanut free and tree nut free.

1. The Last of Everything Lunch

**Many times grocery shopping is put off til the last minute. I enjoy being creative with using everything up in the pantry! I take it as a challenge to eat out of our pantry and fridge/freezer so that we don't end up wasting food!**

Here Eliana's school lunch is all about lasts! As in last of everything in the pantry at that time! The last of the raspberries (some filled with mini chocolate chips), the last of the snowflake crackers, the last of the wowbutter (in the small container so she can make cracker sandwiches), the last of the pirate booty (found half a bag in the pantry) and a cut up last cheese stick and packed it all in her EasyLunchbox in square silicone baking cups.

2. Grab and Go!

I made this very simple and quick lunch for Eliana on a morning where my days got mixed up and I had to make it FAST before we left for school! I used square silicone cups in her LunchBots Quad and filled them with blackberries, chocolate soy butter mini sandwiches, sliced plum and a cut up cheese sticks! A cloth napkin and a lunchbox love note finished it off!

3. Flutter Flutter Butterfly!

Here Eliana had a lunch full of Butterflies. Cucumber, strawberries, yogurt (in the purple butterfly container) with nut free granola to mix in (inside small green container) and chocolate soy butter sandwich squares. Packed in her Easylunchbox.

4. Sheepishly Easy

A Sheepy Bento for Eliana's school lunch this day. Popcorn (looks like wool right?), sliced plum with a waving sheep bento pick, sliced apple with a sleepy sheep bento pick and two CuteZCute Sheep wowbutter sandwiches. Packed in a LunchBots Quad.

5. Springtime is coming; Ladybugs and Flowers

This Simple Spring lunch full of flowers and ladybugs is perfect to lift your wintertime blues! Packed with a homemade wowbutter granola bar, strawberries, yogurt (in the ladybug container) with nut free granola (in the orange container) and sliced cucumbers. The ladybug bento pick and flower silicone cups are simple touches that make the lunch complete :)

6. Roll it up!

Sometimes I pack lunch the night before.. Sometimes I am a quick!-rush--and-pack-the-lunch-before-we-leave! kinda gal. This lunch represents the latter. For less than 10 minutes this lunch is not too shabby! A babybel cheese, butterfly crackers, raspberries, blackberries and chocolate soy butter sandwich roll ups packed in Eliana's LunchBots Quad.

7. Leaping Dolphins

I went with a Dolphin theme for lunch this time! Packed in her Easylunchbox she had strawberries (with two cute dolphin bento picks), yogurt with mini chocolate chips, A wowbutter honey and cinnamon sandwich and dried cranberries (in the little blue container). I used this small cutter to make the dolphin bread cutouts.

8. Bear-y Simple Lunch

This panda-riffic school lunch was so simple and easy to make! In a LunchBots Trio Eliana had sliced plum and blackberries with cute panda bento picks, slightly overstuffed (whoops!) wowbutter, cinnamon and honey CuteZCute panda pocket with two fig newton cookies underneath it and a cut up cheese stick. I accidentally overstuffed the sandwich so some wowbutter was coming out of the sides... but that is just a minor casualty in rushing to make this lunch ;)

9. Froggy Fun!

This school lunch happened to fall on a Friday. A Fun Froggy Friday Lunch! Strawberries, cucumbers, cheese and wowbutter cinnamon sandwich roll ups on froggy picks, all packed in her Easylunchbox.

10. April Showers Bring May Flowers

This is one of my absolute favorite school lunches I've ever made Eliana! Flower cut cucumbers (with cucumber scraps underneath), a strawberry flower with a blackberry center, babybel cheese umbrella and a chocolate soy butter sandwich with cut outs. This was SO simple and quick to make! I'll have to make it again when those April showers come this year! :)

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SO, there you have it! Ten Super Simple FUN food school lunches that are EASY to make!
You'll notice there are some common themes throughout these lunches. I'll explain five of them in more detail :)

One, you will see repeats of my pantry staples: crackers, fresh fruit, cucumbers, cheese sticks, popcorn, bread and nut free spreads. These are things I always have in my fridge or pantry so that putting together a quick fun lunch is possible. These staples will be different for every family based on favorite foods/fruits/vegetables/seasonal availability.

Two, I use fun shaped silicone cups and bento picks. Just sliced cucumber inside a fun shaped silicone cup makes all the difference in presentation! Just adding a panda bento pick to cut strawberries takes one second and it really makes lunch more fun!

Three, I use sandwich stampers or cookie cutters to make quick designs on the fly.

Four, I try to add a daily lunchbox love note. Doesn't really make the food taste better or look more fun but I do try to add one and Eliana loves saving them and reading them.

Five, If I have no idea where to start I go with an overall animal or color theme-- butterflies, frogs, ladybugs, dolphins etc. Once I have the animal/theme down the rest of the lunch comes together quickly!

These Simple and Fun lunches are EASY to recreate! Your kids can make it with you, or make it themselves if they are old enough! I figure if I have to make her lunch every day I might as well make it FUN! and no. Not every lunch I send to school is fun. I have many times sent in a lunch with no cute shapes or picks because I'm too tired or don't feel like even spending the extra minute doing that. And that is OK too. The important part is providing her with a healthy and nutritious lunch every day :)

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Simple School Lunches (but still fun and creative!) :)

Although I may not considered a "newbie" lunch packer I certainly feel like it. I've been making bentos and packed lunches for Eliana for a while now even though she has been at home with me. I have never had to make her packed lunches consistently, or plan ahead really. I usually made them right on the spot and she would help me by asking what she wanted to make, eating the scraps, and by cutting out her sandwiches.

Now that she is in kindergarten I make her lunch the night before and I'm coming to realize my brain is usually fried at that point. When I was making her lunch at home I could make more elaborate lunches and spend more time on them, but now that I am packing and doing this every night- simple is best for me. I still make the lunches fun, but not every one is super detailed. These are examples of what some of her lunches have looked like the past two weeks:

Simple Ladybug School Lunch in a LunchBots Trio:

In this lunch Eliana had a ham and cheese circle sandwich with a cheddar cheese decoration on top; a ladybug container filled with sliced pineapple (with a bento pick inside), and sliced green pepper and some baby carrots all packed in her LunchBots Trio.

So I thought this lunch was a WIN. So simple, so cute-- it took maybe five minutes to put it all together. Except it wasn't. It was a complete fail (according to Eliana.) When I picked her up from school she told me immediately how she did not like her lunch. She did not like carrots, she did not "feel" like eating the green peppers and that the sandwich tasted "weird". sigh. She basically only at the pineapple (and her whole snack, which is packed separately, during snack time). You win some, you lose some. I shouldn't have been so surprised considering Eliana is a picky eater but for some reason I was. She loves bell pepper so I wasn't expecting her to come home with a full lunch! But heyyy It will still a very simple lunch and I did recreate it with different ingredients for other lunches that week and they were not considered fails!

Cheese and Crackers Sandwiches in a LunchBots Quad:

Eliana loves to make cheese and cracker sandwiches. So in her LunchBots Quad I packed sliced green grapes, raspberries, crackers and cheddar cheese slices. I put the crackers and cheese in silicone cups to keep them from getting any moisture from the fruits. I also cut the cheese into pretty flowers for fun.

All the scraps from the flowers go into my packed lunch or snack for the next day OR I just eat it then. I pack Eliana and my lunches at the same time and take all her scraps. Then I pack hubby's lunch separately. He can't get by on scraps and needs a heartier meal ;)

Eliana loved her cheese and cracker sandwiches so much she asked that I make it a few more times, which of course I did :) I switched out the fruits and added some veggies and changed up the design of the cheese. It may not be enough for some kiddos with bigger appetites but this is the perfect size meal for my talker. She also always has a separately packed snack for their snacktime. They get about 30 minutes for lunch and 10 minutes for snack but she talks a lot and is a slow eater. So I make her meals according to her appetite. Any food she doesn't finish during lunchtime and/or snacktime becomes her after school snack.

Simple Snack Sampler in a LunchBots Quad:

This is another simple school lunch that I have been sending with Eliana for lunches. I forget to take pictures of all the lunches I make, but this snack sampler lunch is a winner with her! I've made similar ones over and over for her. I made this specific snack box while we had to eat lunch on the go (before school started). You can read more details about this lunch HERE.

How it all fits in her lunch bag:

I've also been finding that I am loving my LunchBots for small compact lunches. They work so perfectly and I love how they fit inside her smaller lunch bags (Skip Hop Hippo Zoo Lunchies Lunch Bag shown above) with her thermos and ice pack altogether (ice pack is underneath.) Eliana has been liking it too! She has been forgetting her water bottle if it isn't in her lunchbox. But as she gets used to the transition and adjusts to school I can't wait to use other lunchboxes!

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