THE SCHOOL LUNCH SHUFFLE [2026 UPDATE]

Jul 19

If you have ever struggled with what to pack your kids for lunch, this post is for you! I’m going to share some of my tried and true tips, my favorite lunch box essentials and am going to give you a library (that will be updated weekly) with school lunch ideas!

All of my school lunch ideas utilize the bento style lunch container. I started using these when Jack was in preschool. As a former teacher, I know how annoying it is to open a million bags of goldfish and lunchable packages. So I wanted to make it easy for him to eat independently and make it easy on his teachers!

Now, that sweet little preschooler is going into FIFTH GRADE and my youngest is going into first grade! Time really does fly by. Our school doesn’t have a cafeteria, so all students bring their lunch everyday. Needless to say we have really perfected our school lunch game over the past year!

Here are a few of my tried and true tips for making school lunch prep stress free:

Invest in your tools. Kids are hard on literally everything, so making sure that what they take their lunch in won’t leak and will last through the school year is key. We love Bentgo boxes because they stand up to the Hulk-like strength of my children!
Utilize your leftovers. Kids like to eat the same things over and over. If there’s a meal that they LOVED for dinner, let them eat it again for lunch! If it’s a hot food, I use the Thermos food jars to keep it warm.
Buy snacks/sides in bulk. Since you are putting everything into a bento style box, you can save ALOT of money by buying the snacks/sides you put in your box in bulk at Costco or Sam’s Club!
It’s OK to repeat foods! Please, please, please hear me….school lunch is not worth making yourself crazy trying to be Pinterest worthy. You will see in my lunch library below that I repeat things alot, often in the same week! If I only have the mental capacity to put together Ritz Crackers, Turkey and Cheese sandwiches for the week, then that’s what they get.
It’s OK to let them get a school lunch. If you have a really busy week, let them go through the hot lunch line. Most of the time, kids love the hot lunch line. During the pandemic when the federal government provided a waiver for schools to make all lunches free for everyone, Jack ate hot lunch most days! However, when that changed and they were $4.50 a pop, we decided that at the beginning of the month, he could decide on one hot lunch each week. This gives him a chance to get his “favorites” and gives me a day off each week!
PREP on the weekend and pack lunch boxes the night before. My boys LOVE fruit and raw veggies, so on the weekend I go ahead and wash/chop/prep those for the week. When the boys were younger, I would pack their lunch box the night before and store it in the fridge overnight. NOW that my boys are older, they are responsible (mostly) for packing their lunch the night before. I created this chart for them as a guide for what to pack!

These are all of the things we have AND USE on a weekly basis for school lunches! All of the items below are recommended because we personally have them and love them.

I also put together a Mix and Match Guide to make lunch packing as easy and stress free as possible for you! This could just be a guide for yourself OR a great way to start teaching older kiddos independence. When in doubt, pick something from each box and call it a day. You’ve got this MAMA!