Back to School Vegan & Vegetarian Lunchbox Ideas

A back to school lunchbox meal plan for vegetarian and vegan children. Tips, meal planning and recipes that kids will love.

Lunchboxes

How do you build up a veggie lunchbox for kids that they will enjoy, but has enough of the good stuff like fruit and vegetables in it?

Planning. That's the key.

Trying to scramble something together the night before or in the morning before you leave will just lead to stress and a lunchbox that comes home barely touched

Follow my lunchbox plan for a stress-free term and scroll down for a list of ideas and recipes.

KIDS LUNCHBOX PLAN

The Two-Week Plan

1. Plan ahead! Grab a sheet of paper or open Word to make a grid. Use this guide to plan a two week rota you can use during term. That will give kids enough variety to keep them interested and cut down on your stress levels. Next term you can change it up again or even at half-term.
2. Have the right tools. Their lunch bag is a good start, but you also want some lunchboxes, tubs and cutlery. You want different size tubs for sandwiches, salad, dips and nibbles. I like Yumboxes, which have different compartments that don't leak, but bigger tubs for sandwiches and pasta are good too.
3. Add some fun. Include animal picks, colourful cutlery and patterned paper napkins.
4. Jazz up sandwiches by using a sandwich press or a large cookie cutter to make them into fun shapes
5. Instead of serving whole fruit, cut it into chunks and serve them on little plastic skewers or with food picks.
6. Serve a dip with crunchy vegetable sticks. They will be more inclined to eat their veg if they have a tasty dip to dunk it in. You could also a sweet dip for their fruit.
7. Make sure your vary the fruit and vegetables you include. Think about what's in season.
8. Make extra for dinner and keep some leftovers for lunchboxes. 
9. Add a note to their lunchbox. Print these out at the beginning of term. It can be a little personal note, a joke, something inspirational or a quiz question. There are lots of free printable lunch notes available online.
10. Once you have your two week guide, type it up, print it out and keep it on the fridge where you can see it. Remember to let your children help pick the options.

Putting together your two-week plan

Make out a grid for the two week plan (you can add a table to a word document or just rule up a grid on a piece of A4 paper), make a column for each day of the week and a row for the main event, vegetables, fruit, dip (which is optional), snack and drink. 

Once you have your grid, scroll down and choose a main event for each day, using the suggestions or your own ideas, then add a vegetable, fruit, dip (optional), a snack and a drink.

When it's done, stick it on your fridge and add the ingredients to your weekly shopping list. It will take the stress out of shopping and packed lunches.

THE MAIN EVENT

You want one main ingredient to build your lunch box around. Start with this then add fruit, veg and snacks. It could be a sandwich or wrap, something made with pastry, falafel, veggie sausages or a pasta salad.

Sandwiches 

Vary your sandwiches with different breads, brown bread, toast, bagels, wraps, pitta bread, bread rolls, croissants or even lettuce wraps. You can also make pinwheel sandwiches by rolling fillings in bread or wraps and cutting into slices. 

For vegan lunchboxes  use dairy-free cream cheese and cheddar in the below fillings. We like Violife.

Veggie Sandwich Fillings

1. Peanut butter and jam
2. Peanut butter and slices of banana
3. Apricot jam and banana
4. Cream cheese, slices of tomato and fresh spinach
5. Cream cheese and strawberry jam
6. Cream cheese and grated rainbow vegetables - carrot, beetroot (vac pack, not pickled), courgette (zucchini)
7. Cream cheese, thinly sliced apple and honey (or maple syrup)
8. Cream cheese, refried beans and grated rainbow vegetables - carrot, beetroot (vac pack, not pickled), courgette (zucchini)
9. Cream cheese, flavoured tofu and roasted red pepper
10. Refried Beans and grated Cheddar
11. Grated cheddar and pickle
12. Egg mayonnaise and cress
13. Spiced chickpea and carrot sandwich filler
14. Black bean pate with slices of tomato
15. Mushroom pate with grated carrot
16. Hummus and grated carrot
17. Hummus, falafel (halved) and mango chutney
18. Hummus and and grated rainbow vegetables - carrot, beetroot (vac pack, not pickled), courgette (zucchini)
19. Mashed baked beans mixed with grated cheddar (add a pinch of spice if they would like it)
20. Hummus, roasted red pepper and fresh spinach
21. Hummus, cooked and sliced veggie sausages and fresh spinach or roasted red pepper
22. Sliced cooked veggie sausages and ketchup 
23. Mayo (or cream cheese), sliced tomato, salt and pepper
24. Mashed avocado, fresh spinach and tomato
25. Cold Baguette Pizza - lightly toast a piece of baguette cut lengthwise, then top with tomato puree, mozzarella (dairy or vegan) and slices of tomato. Pop under the grill again and toast until the cheese has melted. 

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Related - The Ultimate Sandwich Guide

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Veggie Pastry Ideas

Make your own with ready rolled pastry or buy something ready made. 

Decide how much time you have.

1. Slice of quiche 
2. Quorn sausage rolls
3. Cheese & onion sausage rolls
4. Vegan sausage rolls
5. Homemade beany sausage rolls - ready rolled puff pastry topped with a line of baked beans and grated cheddar (dairy or vegan), then rolled lengthwise, chopped into 1 inch/2.5cm pieces and baked until golden.
6. Vegetarian sausage rolls - veggie
7. Spicy 3 bean sausage rolls  - vegan
8. Pizza pies - veggie or vegan
9. Spicy tattie puffs -  vegan
10. Baby egg pies - veggie
11. Chickpea and vegetable hand pies - vegan
12. Veggie haggis tattie and baked bean patties - vegan
13. Mini spinach and cream cheese puff parcels - veggie or vegan
14. Savoury puff pies - veggie
15. Spinach and onion puff tarts - veggie

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Related - 25 Awesome Puff Pastry Recipe for Vegans

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And the rest

1. Summer pasta salad
2. Greek pasta salad
3. Pizza pasta salad - cook pasta until al dente, then run cold water over it until the pasta is cold and glossy, mix through a little tomato pasta sauce, some chopped cherry tomatoes and mozzarella balls (chopped vegan mozzarella or balls of vegan cream cheese).
4. Cooked veggie sausages
5. Falafel
6. Green falafel
7. Red falafel
8. Picnic Eggs
9. Spiced tofu fingers
10. Vegetable Pakora

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Related - 41 Insanely Good Vegan Lunches

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VEGETABLES & SALAD

There are many more vegetables and salad items you could include, but these tend to be the most popular with children.

1. Carrot sticks
2. Cucumber slices or sticks
3. Cherry tomatoes
4. Red and yellow bell pepper strips
5. Olives
6. Sweetcorn (add a small spoon)
7. Peas in the pod
8. Lightly cooked mangetout
9. Lightly cooked fine beans
10. Lightly cooked baby corn
11. Lightly cooked broccoli sprigs
12. Fresh spinach

FRUITS & DRIED FRUIT

Remember to chop fruit so it is easier to eat and you can also use tinned fruit (in fruit juice or water not syrup) if the fruit is out of season.

1. Strawberries
2. Raspberries
3. Blueberries
4. Cubes of melon
5. Sticks of watermelon
6. Banana
7. Apple
8. Pear
9. Peach
10. Easy peeler, clementine, satsuma or tangerine
11. Segmented orange
12. Cubes of pineapple
13. Cubes of mango
14. Grapes
15. Slices of kiwi
16. Cherries (remove the stones)
17. Dried apricots
18. Dried banana slices
19. Dried mango
20. Raisins

DIPS

Add a sweet or savoury dip to encourage your children to eat
more of the fruit and vegetables you pack for their lunch.

1. Nutella
2. Peanut butter
3. Almond butter
4. Cream cheese
5. Hummus
6. Salsa
7. Guacamole
8. Mayonnaise
9. Sweet Chilli Sauce
10. Pizza sauce

Homemade Dips

1. Moroccan pate
2. Vegan mayo
3. Red pepper sweet chilli sauce
4. Sweet chilli sauce
5. Roasted carrot hummus
6. Rocket (arugula) hummus
7. Spinach and lemon pesto
8. Kale and cashew pesto

LUNCHBOX SNACKS

Snacks are a tough one, kids want them, but they also tend to eat this first or eat the snack and leave the stuff you want them to eat. I would limit how many snacks you put in. See what they are eating and decide if you need to add a snack every day.

1. Oatcakes
2. Crackers
3. Flapjacks (oat bars)
4. Breadsticks
5. A slice of raisin bread
6. A slice of banana bread
7. Cubes of cheese or vegan cheese
8. Pot of yoghurt
9. A small muffin
10. A square of dark chocolate

Homemade Snacks

1. Easy chocolate chip banana bread -vegan
2. Blueberry and lemon oaty bars -veggie or vegan
3. Chocolate and banana flapjacks -veggie or vegan
4. Dark Banana Gingerbread - vegan
5. Blueberry muffins - veggie

DRINKS

It's more important for them to drink water than anything else and plenty of it, but it's sometimes nice to give them something different. If it's not water look for low sugar options.

1. Water
2. Milks
3. Fruit juice
4. Milkshakes
5. Dairy-free shakes

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LAST TIPS

Don't Stress

It's important not to get too stressed about lunches. If they don't eat much some days, try not to stress, make sure they have a good breakfast and dinner and you know they will be fine. Sometimes we give them too much, forgetting how small their stomachs actually are, sometimes they just aren't hungry and sometimes they just want to get out into the playground and play.

Let them choose

The best thing you can do is let them get involved in choosing some of their packed lunch choices, give them plenty of variety and don't stress about it.

Share your ideas

If you have any ideas or stories to share then do leave a comment below.

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FOR MORE KIDS RECIPE IDEAS

Check out these cookbooks, including my latest book Living on the Veg, which includes 12 easy recipes.

Click on the cookbook cover for the link