cdkitchen > cooking experts > amy powell
No matter how cool the super hero is on the outside of the lunch box, it’s getting your kid to eat what’s on the inside that’s the real challenge. Now, you could cop out and send your child to school with a box full of cheesy crackers, sugary fruit punch, and bologna sandwiches, but in the interest of health and good parenting you might consider a more interesting, and healthy, packed lunch. Even if they hate you now for not packing something full of sugar and fat, trust me, they’ll thank you later. And with a little ingenuity in the kitchen, their lunches might be so good that they start thanking you now.
I hated school lunches so much as a child that my mother would send me with string cheese and fruit for years just so that I would eat something. Even with my mother going to those lengths to appease my picky eating habits, half my food would always go up on the barter block the second we hit lunch break. As any kid learns early on in the schooling process, if your own food isn’t interesting enough, with a little skillful trading, you’ll find someone else whose lunch is. That means that as the parent making the lunch, the food that goes inside the lunch box has to look fun enough to eat that they won’t trade it away, while sneaking in the healthy stuff they think they hate in ways they will learn to love.
Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are as much a part of childhood as recess and kickball. Aside from switching from chunky to smooth or grape to strawberry, there are not many ways to change up an old favorite. Sandwiching real fruit inside is a tricky and fun way to get your kids to add some vitamins to their diet. Ever since Elvis started eating his favorite peanut butter sandwich, bananas have been a classic peanut butter pairing. Not to mention the fact that sneaking banana into a sandwich is a great way to avoid the classic bruised banana problem which sends too many bananas to an early demise in the trash instead of your child’s belly.
Sliced strawberries are another great fruit to sneak in between the layers of bread and peanut butter. Spread a little Nutella on one slice of bread and you have a chocolate peanut butter sandwich so good they might not even notice all the fruit you snuck inside.
Kids might enjoy taking leftover pizza to school for lunch more than they like eating it fresh out of the box. It would be tough to find a food that elicits more playground envy than a foil wrapped slice of cold pizza. But if you are trying to serve healthy food at home as much as you are trying to send your kids to school with something healthy in hand, those pizza nights will be few and far between.
Enter a Poor Man’s Pizza, the name for pizza made with marinara and cheese on French bread. When making the pizzas in the morning, sneak some paper thin slices of zucchini or yellow squash between the sauce and the cheese before putting it in the oven. Eight to 10 minutes in a hot oven should be enough to melt the cheese and cook the squash. Then squish the two sides together, wrap the whole thing in foil and send the kids off with pizza that tastes so good, they won’t even realize it’s good for them.
Making a good sandwich of meat and cheese that will hold up to five hours out of a refrigerator can be as hard a task to properly execute as just about any fancy dinner. Tomatoes make bread soggy, mayonnaise will go bad if not refrigerated, lettuce wilts, and cheese sweats. To avoid all possible sandwich disasters, at the end of the day your sandwich might be little more than mustard and meat on two slices of bread.
Using a tortilla or wrap in lieu of standard bread is a great way to avoid the soggy factor. Some sort of vinaigrette with an olive oil base will sidestep the spoilage issue and pack a ton of flavor. You can even send the vinaigrette alongside in the form of salad dressing packets for your child to add themselves before they eat. If you layer colorful vegetable like spinach and sun-dried tomatoes between the meat and cheese, when you cut the wrap crosswise you can make brightly colored pinwheels that will be fun for your kids to both look at and eat while you sneak in some valuable servings of fruits and veggies.
School is back in session, so while your kids learn math and science, maybe it’s time for you to learn some tricks to make their lunches a bit more fun and a bit better for them. Sneak in fruits or vegetables wherever you can and with them tucked securely in the sandwich, trading that banana for fruit snacks will not be an option. Fun to look at and delicious to eat makes for school lunches that are as cool on the inside of the box as the as the colorful superhero gracing the outside.
©2026 CDKitchen, Inc. No reproduction or distribution of any portion of this article is allowed without express permission from CDKitchen, Inc.
To share this article with others, you may link to this page:
https://www.cdkitchen.com/cooking-experts/amy-powell/757-school-lunch/
Making School Lunch as Cool as Their Lunchbox
No matter how cool the super hero is on the outside of the lunch box, it’s getting your kid to eat what’s on the inside that’s the real challenge. Now, you could cop out and send your child to school with a box full of cheesy crackers, sugary fruit punch, and bologna sandwiches, but in the interest of health and good parenting you might consider a more interesting, and healthy, packed lunch. Even if they hate you now for not packing something full of sugar and fat, trust me, they’ll thank you later. And with a little ingenuity in the kitchen, their lunches might be so good that they start thanking you now.
I hated school lunches so much as a child that my mother would send me with string cheese and fruit for years just so that I would eat something. Even with my mother going to those lengths to appease my picky eating habits, half my food would always go up on the barter block the second we hit lunch break. As any kid learns early on in the schooling process, if your own food isn’t interesting enough, with a little skillful trading, you’ll find someone else whose lunch is. That means that as the parent making the lunch, the food that goes inside the lunch box has to look fun enough to eat that they won’t trade it away, while sneaking in the healthy stuff they think they hate in ways they will learn to love.
Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are as much a part of childhood as recess and kickball. Aside from switching from chunky to smooth or grape to strawberry, there are not many ways to change up an old favorite. Sandwiching real fruit inside is a tricky and fun way to get your kids to add some vitamins to their diet. Ever since Elvis started eating his favorite peanut butter sandwich, bananas have been a classic peanut butter pairing. Not to mention the fact that sneaking banana into a sandwich is a great way to avoid the classic bruised banana problem which sends too many bananas to an early demise in the trash instead of your child’s belly.
Sliced strawberries are another great fruit to sneak in between the layers of bread and peanut butter. Spread a little Nutella on one slice of bread and you have a chocolate peanut butter sandwich so good they might not even notice all the fruit you snuck inside.
Kids might enjoy taking leftover pizza to school for lunch more than they like eating it fresh out of the box. It would be tough to find a food that elicits more playground envy than a foil wrapped slice of cold pizza. But if you are trying to serve healthy food at home as much as you are trying to send your kids to school with something healthy in hand, those pizza nights will be few and far between.
Enter a Poor Man’s Pizza, the name for pizza made with marinara and cheese on French bread. When making the pizzas in the morning, sneak some paper thin slices of zucchini or yellow squash between the sauce and the cheese before putting it in the oven. Eight to 10 minutes in a hot oven should be enough to melt the cheese and cook the squash. Then squish the two sides together, wrap the whole thing in foil and send the kids off with pizza that tastes so good, they won’t even realize it’s good for them.
Making a good sandwich of meat and cheese that will hold up to five hours out of a refrigerator can be as hard a task to properly execute as just about any fancy dinner. Tomatoes make bread soggy, mayonnaise will go bad if not refrigerated, lettuce wilts, and cheese sweats. To avoid all possible sandwich disasters, at the end of the day your sandwich might be little more than mustard and meat on two slices of bread.
Using a tortilla or wrap in lieu of standard bread is a great way to avoid the soggy factor. Some sort of vinaigrette with an olive oil base will sidestep the spoilage issue and pack a ton of flavor. You can even send the vinaigrette alongside in the form of salad dressing packets for your child to add themselves before they eat. If you layer colorful vegetable like spinach and sun-dried tomatoes between the meat and cheese, when you cut the wrap crosswise you can make brightly colored pinwheels that will be fun for your kids to both look at and eat while you sneak in some valuable servings of fruits and veggies.
School is back in session, so while your kids learn math and science, maybe it’s time for you to learn some tricks to make their lunches a bit more fun and a bit better for them. Sneak in fruits or vegetables wherever you can and with them tucked securely in the sandwich, trading that banana for fruit snacks will not be an option. Fun to look at and delicious to eat makes for school lunches that are as cool on the inside of the box as the as the colorful superhero gracing the outside.
Turkey, Sundried Tomato, and Spinach Wrap Pinwheels
Made with provolone cheese, baby spinach leaves, sun-dried tomatoes, water, salt and pepper, olive oil, whole wheat tortillas, sliced deli turkey meat
Made with provolone cheese, baby spinach leaves, sun-dried tomatoes, water, salt and pepper, olive oil, whole wheat tortillas, sliced deli turkey meat
Serves/Makes: 2
- 10 sun-dried tomatoes
- 1/2 cup boiling water
- salt and pepper
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 whole wheat tortillas
- 6 ounces sliced deli turkey meat
- 1/2 cup packed baby spinach leaves
- 2 ounces sliced provolone cheese
Pour boiling water over sun-dried tomatoes in a small bowl and let sit for 20 minutes. Remove from water and finely chop tomatoes until almost a paste.
In a small bowl mix tomatoes, olive oil, a pinch of salt and some cracked pepper.
Lay out tortillas. Spread each tortilla with half of the sun-dried tomato paste. Layer tomato paste with half the turkey on each tortilla. Spread out spinach leaves evenly over both tortillas. Top spinach with cheese then roll up each wrap tightly.
Cut each wrap crosswise into 2 inch pieces then turn on their side to form colorful pinwheels.
share this article:
related articles
Write a comment:
©2026 CDKitchen, Inc. No reproduction or distribution of any portion of this article is allowed without express permission from CDKitchen, Inc.
To share this article with others, you may link to this page:
https://www.cdkitchen.com/cooking-experts/amy-powell/757-school-lunch/