Andrea Dekker

33 Comments

Our Favorite Easy At-Home Lunches

This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure here.

Simon finished school last week, Nora finishes next week, and tomorrow is Dave’s last day!! 

Thanks to the fact that Dave started school super early in August, he’ll finish the year in MAY instead of June. So crazy! 

I’d honestly rather have him start later (closer to Labor Day) and end later in June (more like Nora’s schedule) — but apparently his school district doesn’t care about my opinion! 🙂

Either way, he’ll be home all summer long after giving one last exam tomorrow morning! I can’t wait to put him to work at home! 

Although I love having everyone home during the summer, lunch time in the summer months is always a big change for me as I often feel like I need to cook or prepare a big meal since everyone is home.

However, after a few summers of Dave continually reassuring me that simple summer lunches are just fine, I thought it was a good time for me to re-share some of our favorite quick and easy at-home lunches (perfect for busy families with lots of kids home all summer long!)

 

I personally don’t “plan” all our lunches ahead of time (like I do our breakfasts and dinners). Instead, I have a short list of favorite hot and cold at-home lunch ideas that we choose from every day around 11:00am.

Sometimes I have an idea in mind as to what would be the best choice for lunch on specific days, but most of the time I just ask the kids “what would you like for lunch today?” and after a few minutes of conferring, we come to a consensus (I try to always make everyone the same thing for convenience sake!)

 

Easy At-Home HOT Lunches:

Back before the kids started school, I made hot lunches almost every single day. At the time, my kids wouldn’t eat sandwiches at all, and it was just easier to reheat leftovers or make one of the foods listed below versus try to force feed sandwiches to stubborn toddlers! 

Now during summer break, we enjoy hot lunches at least once a week — usually as more of a special treat!

Here are some of our favorites — all of which are fairly simple in my opinion. 

  • Chicken Nuggets
  • Fish Sticks
  • Quesadillas (bean and cheese, just cheese, meat and cheese, etc.)
  • Grilled cheese and tomato soup
  • Baked Sandwiches
  • Pizza Sammies or pizza quesadillas
  • Mac and Cheese + Hotdogs
  • DIY personal pan pizzas
  • Leftovers — casseroles, soups, etc. (this is my personal favorite)
  • Pancakes, eggs, and sausage (if we didn’t have a big breakfast earlier in the day)
  • Occasional fast food — Arby’s is their favorite and it’s almost walking distance from our house!

Easy At-Home COLD Lunches:

At this point, everyone in our family enjoys cold lunches, which makes life a lot easier for me.

We have 3 types of cold lunches that we eat — but there are several variations among them so if we rotate through these a couple times a week, everyone is satisfied!

1. Meat and Cheese

This option is by-far the preferred cold lunch for all 4 kids. It basically involves me cutting up various types of meat and cheese, and serving it along with cut-up fruit, raw veggies, pickles, and maybe a few crackers or pretzels.

If you look in the meat drawer in our refrigerator, you’ll almost always find containers of sliced summer sausage, pepperoni, salami, already cooked bacon and sausage, and a grilled chicken breast or two. And the cheese drawer ALWAYS has containers of sliced, cubed, and stick cheeses — I just slice or cube them from larger blocks and always try to keep a variety available for quick meals and snacks.

Sometimes I get all fancy and serve everything on a big platter — like a kid-friendly Charcuterie! 

2. Sandwiches or buns

Peanut butter and jelly on homemade bread or ham and cheese on my homemade rolls are usually the kids’ request. 

Dave and I also enjoy cheesy chicken wraps or BLT’s every now and then.

 

3. Salads

The kids don’t eat salad very willingly, but I almost always have at least one or two different pre-made salads in the fridge (I make them myself; I don’t buy them). I make enough for 2-3 days worth of lunches each time — which is SO nice when I’m busy making kids’ lunches and don’t always have the time or energy to cut up everything for a nice salad each afternoon. 

Here are a few of our favorite lunch salads: 

 

 

Easy At-Home Side Dishes:

I’ve always been big on variety when I eat (I love buffets!) and my kids have followed suit. So I try to have a large variety of side dish options that can be prepared ahead of time and just dumped on their plates as they request it.

Here are a few of our favorites.

  • Already washed and cut up fruits (strawberries, grapes, bananas,  blueberries, pineapple, melons, and clementines are favorites around here)
  • Already washed and cut up veggies (here’s how I prep and store them)
  • Finger Jell-O
  • Craisins or raisins
  • Frozen blueberries
  • Dill Pickles
  • Gogurt or Yogurt pouches (I usually make my own using these pouches)
  • Pretzels, crackers, or nuts

 

The thing I love about almost every food listed above is that they all have some elements that can be prepared ahead of time and ready to go for lunches.

The meat and cheese can be sliced ahead of time, the fruits and veggies can be washed and prepared ahead of time, the salads can be made ahead of time, even PB&J sandwiches can be made ahead and frozen if you’re really in a bind.

This makes it easy to bring lunch outside or go on a last-minute picnic (both of which the kids LOVE doing). It’s also really nice when unexpected visitors stop by mid morning (something that happens regularly around here) and decide to stay for lunch. It might not be ‘fancy’ food, but it is simple, quick, and easy.

Our lunch options are much more limited than our dinner options, but we still have enough variety ready to go each day that we don’t get bored or feel like we’re eating the same things day after day.

What are YOUR favorite at-home summer lunch ideas?

Reader Interactions

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

subscribe without commenting

Comments

  1. Sam says

    Love that these cold options could also be take to work lunches! The idea of prepping everything ahead of time would really make my life easier. I just have to get myself to do the prep

    Reply

    • Andrea says

      yeah, KNOWING what to do and actually DOING it are 2 totally different stories! I think everyone can relate to this struggle at times 🙂

      Reply

  2. Jody says

    Pasta salads filled with the protein, fruit and veggies of your choice mixed right in. I also eat lots of fresh fruit and raw veggies in season.

    Reply

  3. Nancy says

    Love this post and all the suggestions! You just helped with my menu plan and grocery list 😉
    Definitely going to try a few of your salad ideas. Now that warmer weather is here, I’ll be decreasing/eliminating use of the oven and increasing salads & grilled meals.

    Reply

  4. melinda says

    I love all of your food ideas! Thank you for the great descriptions & photos.

    I put a twist on grilled cheese for my husband and me. Once I spread butter on the outsides of the bread I pat the buttered side into parmesan or shredded cheese. This gives the sandwich a lot more flavor and extra crunch. Mmmm.

    Reply

  5. Kate says

    Corn dogs from Aldi! They are more of a special treat for us, since I’m sure they aren’t healthy. My kids really like them. 🙂

    Reply

    • Andrea says

      oh my, I totally forgot about these! I will have to pick some up the next time I shop there — my kids love them too.
      Also, one thing my children’s doctor told me years ago has stuck with me — she said that as long as the kids are consistently getting at least ONE very balanced meal every day (with fruits and veggies), she’s not overly concerned with the other 2 meals. Obviously, this isn’t an invitation to feed our kids junk food on purpose, but it does lessen the “guilt” we place on ourselves for less nutritious meals 🙂

      Reply

  7. wilma says

    I always love these types of posts. My favourite at -home lunch idea is not about food, it’s about eating OUTSIDE. I love it, and we eat every lunch/dinner possible outside when the weather is nice (and before the wasps come out in earnest). I am even willing to bring the toaster outside (we keep it in a lower cupboard in a shallow plastic bin to contain the crumbs because I love having a clear counter, so it’s easy to transport) if the kids would like toast. The best thing about eating outside is that the mess stays outside!! I even hose off the table/chairs, ha! It’s also a good way to keep my kids outside–after dinner, they can play outside for a while, but if they want to come inside, it’s bath/bedtime :).

    Reply

    • Andrea says

      yes, we love getting outside to eat too — it’s not always easy with younger kids, but we try to do it often throughout the summer!

      Reply

      • wilma says

        one thing that helped for us was having an old high chair that was all plastic that we left outside in the summer, and later on a strap on booster seat. it definitely made it easier w/ the babies–but I know what you mean, there’s definitely a cost/benefit analysis to make, haha

        Reply

  8. CARLEY says

    Great list! My kids also like pizzadillas. You take a tortilla and put a little pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, pepperoni (or whatever toppings) fold in half and cook it on a skillet.

    Reply

  9. Calliope says

    My lunches are your dinners! You see in Greece, usually the big meal is during lunch. So dinner is – hopefully – smaller and lighter. So for something smaller I usually have a salad or an omelet or greek yogurt with quinoa,honey and nuts, or a wrap or leftovers.

    Reply

  10. Elizabeth says

    This post is a god-send! We are on day three of Mac and cheese and even the baby is getting tired of it

    Reply

    • Andrea says

      haha — I don’t think my kids would do mac and cheese for 3 days in a row either 🙂
      glad to offer a few new (easy) ideas!!

      Reply

  11. Leigh says

    Homemade lunchables (so cheese, crackers, carrot/, hummus etc) are a classic for us.
    We also love scrambled eggs, veggies scrambled eggs or scrambled egg burritos.
    Today reheated mac and cheese was lunch.

    Reply

  12. Amy says

    My tip for getting kids to eat salads well…..put some easy to use serving spoons in the big bowl. Let them get out their salad and put it on their plate themselves. I also set up a salad bar with different toppings and let them pick their own like in a restaurant. They LOVE this and ask me for salad all the time 🙂 It’s messy…but, eh….at least they are eating salad!! lol!

    Reply

    • Andrea says

      I know someone who doesn’t let their kids eat salad until they are 4 — so it’s a “privilege” they all look forward too and ALL their kids gobble up the salads starting on their 4th birthday. I thought that was pretty clever!

      Reply

    • Alicia says

      PB&J over here every day too! It started out as the only thing my kids would eat, but now it’s just what we have for lunch. The rare occasions I try to mix it up, they generally don’t like it! Go figure!

      Reply

  14. Jo says

    Love this, and I actually already do some of these ideas – especially the salad one for myself! It makes my lunch a “no brainer” everyday for spring/summer and it’s so easy to add almonds or hard boiled eggs or chicken or carrots or whatever I have laying around! For the mac n cheese one, I often will mix in a can of green beans and my toddler seems to enjoy it. (Some days its a hit, some days a miss, let’s be honest, toddlers are not always easy to please! That’s why I also do lots of variety like you with different fruits, crackers, in case the ‘main’ part is a miss). Availability of easy food options are key – thanks for posting this!

    Reply

    • Andrea says

      hmmm… I’ve never tried mixing veggies in with mac and cheese. Well, actually I mixed squash in once and the kids wouldn’t touch it. 🙁

      Reply

  15. Christine from The (mostly) Simple Life says

    I work from home and have realized that if I don’t plan for some simple lunches, making lunch ends up sucking up too much time. I love your simple ideas!

    I like to make quesadillas with refried beans, cheese, and taco seasoning. Or I’ll make up some Pasta Roni and add some leftover chicken and chunks of tomato on top.

    Reply

  16. Angela says

    Perfect timing for this post – school gets out early for us this year so summer will be upon us next week! And now that my husband is working from home alongside me, we will ALL be home. Feeding my people is my least favorite wifely duty so I’ll be using a lot of these tips to simplify! : )

    Do you have a post about how you organize your fridge? I’d love to see how you organize all your cut up fruit, veggies, meats and cheeses while still having space for milk and leftovers. If I recall, do you have an extra fridge? I’m considering that. With six of us, we almost always have three gallons of milk in the fridge so that takes up a lot of space.

    Reply

    • Andrea says

      no post about fridge organization — but yes, we DO have an extra fridge that we use for extra milk, juice, soda, eggs, etc. I currently have 2 gallons of milk, 4 dozen eggs, several bottles of water, an extra orange juice, and extra lemonade, and a bunch of pop and juice boxes in our extra fridge. It’s awesome and makes it way easier to organize our kitchen fridge.

      In general, I keep all meat, cheese, fruits, and veggies in their own separate drawers, yogurt and sour cream on two shelves, eggs on one shelf, beverages on one shelf, leftovers on one shelf, condiments and other small containers in the doors.

      Reply

Footer

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.