A+ Brown-Bag Lunches

Say good-bye to B-O-R-I-N-G. You can make brown-bag lunches great again! All you have to do is streamline the process. We’ll show you how.

We promise: you will shop less, stress less, and spend less time in the kitchen while you whip up food your child will happily eat, not trade.

Here’s how the plan works: Just read the following brown-bag suggestions. Then, each day, put together one of the lunches—in order, without changing any of the components, or tweak them as needed, based on what you have in the pantry or what your kid likes. Either way, the basic concept remains the same.

What follows is two weeks’ worth of brown-bag suggestions. Look closely. You’ll see that first we give you five different lunches to make for your child—one new lunch for every day of the week.

Then we provide a second week of totally different lunches—with one new lunch for every day of that week.

But that’s not all.

To get through an entire month of brown-bag lunches without much repetition, we direct you back to the week-one and week-two lunches, but we suggest “swaps” for you to try (you can also make a few of your own.) Our swaps are indicated in blue type on the week-one and week-two plans.

So relax. You now have a month of brown-bag lunches—all of them delicious. It’s that easy. Now, read on to learn how to become a brown-bag chef extraordinaire!

Week One

Monday

Turkey-and-Muenster-cheese sandwich with fresh spinach leaves on whole-wheat bread

Apple / Banana

SunChips^TM

Low-fat chocolate milk

Tuesday

Confetti pasta (wagon-wheel-shaped pasta with cooked frozen mixed vegetables and diced turkey) / Linguine with pesto (from a jar) and peas

Banana

Pretzels

Low-fat milk

Wednesday

PBJ sushi (flatten whole-grain bread, spread with peanut butter and jelly, roll up jelly-roll style, and cut into slices)

Grapes

Whole-grain Goldfish^TM  crackers / Whole-wheat pretzels

Water

Thursday

Container of hummus with whole-grain crackers / Hummus wrap with diced cucumber and tomato

Carrot and celery sticks

Low-fat cheese stick

Low-fat chocolate milk

Friday

Hard-boiled egg / Edamame

Whole-wheat mini bagel with low-fat cream cheese

Cheese stick

Grapes

Low-fat milk

Week Two

Monday

Ham-and-cheese pinwheels (spread whole-wheat tortillas with Dijon mustard, layer with provolone cheese and ham, roll up, and cut into slices with sharp knife)

Cherry tomatoes and cucumber wedges / Celery with peanut butter

Pretzels 

Low-fat milk

Tuesday

Whole-wheat spaghetti with tomato sauce and turkey meatballs / Meatball hero (meatballs in sauce, and a roll packed separately)

Grapes

SkinnyPop^TM  popcorn

Water

Wednesday

Turkey-and-cream-cheese wrap (spread whole-wheat wrap with cream cheese, top with turkey slices and fresh spinach, roll up, and trim ends)

SunChips^TM / Pretzels with a peanut-butter dip

Banana

Low-fat chocolate milk

Thursday

Cubes of Cheddar cheese and whole-grain crackers / Cheddar cheese sandwich on whole-grain bread

Edamame (cook and chill if frozen)

Apple slices with peanut butter for dipping

Low-fat chocolate milk

Friday

Mexican wrap (whole-grain tortilla stuffed with canned, drained black beans, corn, shredded Cheddar cheese, and salsa) / Container of brown rice, canned black beans, corn, shredded Cheddar, and salsa

Cubed fresh mango

SunChips^TM

Low-fat milk