Easy Packed Lunch Ideas for Busy Parents

Need inspiration for your kids’ midday meals? We’ve put together a list of healthy packed lunch ideas — plus nutritional info and practical tips for busy parents.

Creating healthy, nutritious packed lunches for kids is hard. With all the madness of weekday mornings, finding the time to create meals that will sustain them throughout the day is just incredibly difficult. 

But you don’t have to be some kind of perfect parenting influencer on social media to create high-quality kids’ packed lunches. Often, just a few small changes to your planning and routines can make a big difference. 

In this guide, which has been reviewed and approved by Huel’s AfN-registered nutritionists, we’ll cover:

• Nutritional essentials for kids’ lunchboxes

• One week of children’s packed lunch ideas

• Practical tips for planning and prep

Nutritional essentials for children’s lunchboxes

Before we look at kids’ packed lunch ideas, it’s helpful to do a quick refresher on what a healthy lunch should include. 

Put simply, kids (and adults!) need a nutritionally complete meal that contains all the major food groups and a range of vitamins and minerals. Different countries have slightly different guidelines, but the UK’s Eatwell Guide is a good general basis. For each meal, you should aim to include:

• Some veg and fruit

• Starchy carbs (bread, potatoes, rice, pasta, etc.)

• Protein, such as beans, pulses, eggs, fish, or meat

• Plant-based or dairy milks, cheeses, or yoghurts

• A small amount of healthy fats

• Plenty of water

By including all these food groups in your kids’ packed lunches, they should get most of what they need from the meal. 

Related: Complete beginner’s guide to nutrition

The importance of a good quality packed lunch

We get it, making a healthy packed lunch is difficult. In one UK study, researchers found that less than 2% of packed lunches met nutritional standards required for school dinners (that is, meals in the school canteen). 

So, if you’re worried your kids aren’t eating the healthiest lunch, you’re definitely not alone. It’s also been shown that giving kids healthy, packed lunch options is often more expensive. Many kids are fussy and reject healthy options. And there’s an effect from peers — if a child’s friends get chocolate bars at lunch, this can be hard to argue with.     

But it really is valuable to try and improve meal quality if you can.

Countless studies have shown that when children eat healthier, more nutritionally complete meals, they perform better too. For example, one study of almost 50,000 school children found that those who ate more fruit and veg and fewer sweets appeared to have better academic performance. 

One week of packed lunch ideas for kids

The following plan covers a week of healthy packed lunch recipes for children. Of course, you know your kids best, so you may want to substitute specific ingredients, depending on what they’re likely to eat. 

As you’ll notice, we’ve repeated certain ingredients throughout the week to make shopping and prep easier. But these ingredients are presented in different ways to keep things interesting.

Very little cooking is required for these packed lunch ideas, but we've provided instructions where needed.

Shopping list for our healthy packed lunch recipes

• Eggs

• Cheddar cheese

• Margarine

• Pot of Greek-style yoghurt (zero sugar)

• Mayonnaise (low-fat option)

• Cooking oil (such as olive or sunflower oil)

• 1 large tub of hummus

• 1 medium tub of ready-made guacamole 

• 1 bag of wholemeal baps

• 1 bag of wholemeal wraps

• 1 can of black beans

• 1 can of chickpeas

• Ground cumin 

• Low-sugar jam

• Chocolate-coated raisins

• Malt loaf

• Protein bar

• Bananas

• Apples

• Satsumas

• Bag of frozen mixed berries (to add to yoghurt - they’ll defrost by lunchtime)

• 1 head of lettuce

• 1 bag of cherry tomatoes

• 1 bag of carrots

• 1 cucumber

• 2 red bell peppers

• 1 lemon

Practical packed lunch ideas and tips

For many families, creating packed lunches can be a real chore. There’s no ‘right’ way of doing things. But we’ve put together some tips and ideas for making the process a little bit easier. Pick and choose suggestions that you think could work for your family, and adjust them as needed. 

Put a plan in place

Having a plan worked out for your kids’ meals can massively ease the burden of prepping lunchboxes and make mornings less chaotic. When you have a moment, decide in advance what food they’re likely to eat, buy the necessary ingredients, and choose an evening to do your prep.

If you want to take planning to the next level, creating a spreadsheet with lunches and the associated ingredients can make it easier to remember what to buy and keep everything in one place.

It’s also helpful to set aside a specific time for making packed lunches, which means you can avoid the morning madness. 

If you’re super organised, trying to fit as much in as possible on Sunday afternoons can save a lot of hassle later in the week. But if that’s unrealistic, try and make a packed lunch while you're cooking dinner the night before. It’s a bit of extra work, but since you’re already prepping other foods, it only adds a couple of minutes to your cooking time. This can win you back precious minutes in the morning and reduce the amount of washing up you need to do. 

Related: Huel’s guide to meal planning

Keep it simple

Most kids are happy with simple, plain, and predictable meals. There’s a lot of pressure, particularly thanks to social media, to make elaborate packed lunches. But so long as you’re hitting all the main food groups, that’s more than enough. You’re also more likely to stick with it if it feels doable. 

The freezer is your friend

Stocking up on essentials in the freezer is super valuable (especially when ingredients are on offer). When it comes to packed lunches, freezers are especially good for loaves, wraps and pitta breads, as well as big batches of sandwich fillings that you can then defrost the night before. 

Bulk prep where you can

Bulk prep isn’t always possible, since ingredients may go off. But where you can, try bulk prepping. If stored in an airtight container in the fridge, many sliced vegetables will last 3-5 days. If you use reusable pots, you can also portion out things like hummus or yoghurt into separate tubs and keep these for up to five days in the fridge.

Get kids involved

If your children have more ownership over their packed lunch options, they’re more likely to eat their meals. Try to:

• Get them to make their meals themselves. Frame it as a fun activity to do together, giving them choices over ingredients and fillings. 

• Give them closed options (“you can have potato salad or bean salad”) that they can decide on.

• Ask for feedback and act on it. If they really hate boiled eggs, cheese, tuna, or whatever else, take this on board. There’s little point in giving them meals they throw away. Try to find compromises or alternative healthy options. 

• Encourage them to come up with their packed lunch ideas. Again, this can be an opportunity to think about food together, give them some education on nutrition, and hopefully help form good habits for life. 

Make veggies easier to eat

If it’s a struggle to get them to eat veg, there are a couple of ways to increase the chances they’ll eat some:

• Dips - particularly hummus and variants - make slices of carrot, pepper, or cucumber a lot more palatable. 

• “Hide” vegetables in other parts of the meal. Practically any sandwich can have some lettuce or tomato thrown in; spring onions can be mixed into an egg mayo; cooked peppers, peas, onions, or leeks will go well in a frittata or omelette. 

Suggested: Our guide to brain food for studying

You’re the expert

Coming up with healthy packed lunch ideas can be really hard. Most parents are short on time, their kids can be fussy, and unhealthy options are often easiest, so it’s no surprise that many parents struggle. 

But it is possible to make some simple changes that can improve your kids’ meals, and set them up to study and play to the best of their abilities. 

By using some of our packed lunch ideas and adapting them to your family, we hope you’ll find some approaches that work for you and yours.

Words by Len Williams