Healthy Real Food Lunch Ideas

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These healthy real food lunch ideas will help keep your kids feeling their best while they’re at school.

Packing healthy school lunches is the best way to oversee what your children eat while they’re at school.

In my experience, homemade lunches fare better than school-issued lunches when it comes to whole grains, healthy protein, and produce that children will actually eat. It’s also more affordable to pack your own lunch, as I detailed in this post about saving money by packing lunches.

How to Make a Healthy Lunch for School

It’s easy to get in a rut with packed lunches. Below you’ll find a list of different components that can go together to make a healthy, satisfying packed meal.

Whole grains, produce, and protein should always be part of the equation. I include examples in some of the categories, but there are so many other options. There’s no need to pack the same boring lunch day after day with these real food school lunch ideas.

Real Food Lunch Ideas: Grains

Sandwiches
Wraps
Pita pockets
Macaroni and cheese
Pasta
Tortilla chips
Whole grain pretzels
Whole grain crackers
Popcorn (fiesta popcorn, maple gingerbread popcorn)
Muffins (raspberry lemon muffins, blueberry chia muffins)

Real Food Lunch: Produce & Dips

Fresh fruit (grapes, apple slices, cherries, berries, melon)
Packaged fruit (applesauce, dried fruit)
Veggie strips (carrot, cucumber, red pepper)
Salsa (corn salsa, peach salsa)
Hummus
Honey yogurt dip
Ranch dip

Real Food Lunch Ideas: Protein

Yogurt
Cheese
Nuts
Seeds
Roasted chickpeas
Energy bars
Soup (black bean soup, southwestern chicken soup)
Build your own taco kit (beans, meat, cheese, lettuce, salsa, tortilla)
Sandwich fillers (chicken salad, tuna salad, lunch meat)
Sandwich spread (nut butter)

Real Food Lunch Packing Supplies

There are loads of different options for lunch packing supplies, but here are a few that we like for these healthy real food lunch ideas:

Thermos
Divided Lunch Containers
Water Bottle
Lunch Tote

How do you keep lunches interesting? What would you add to my list? I’m always looking for new healthy school lunch ideas, so please share them in the comments.