You can freeze sandwiches. Why didn’t I realize this about 3 years ago?
I have a school-age daughter, and naturally I want her to have nutritious, healthy lunches. My attempts to send my daughter in with various kinds of frugal, left-over based meals have met with mixed success, and all too often my kid would come home with a barely eaten lunch.
I hit my limit when, early one Monday, I retrieved from my daughter’s backpack a forgotten lunch from the previous Friday. The containers were full of untouched (and now disgustingly moldy) wild salmon and sesame-edamame salad.
Have I mentioned I really hate food waste? I really, really do. Particularly expensive, wild-salmon food waste.
Then and there I decided I was being ridiculous. Clearly, my daughter needed more kid-friendly food and I needed to stop pretending she had the same tastes and lunch food preferences as the adults of the family.
The Sandwich-Plus Formula
I have friends who make it easy to throw school lunch together with pre-packaged food. They go for the Sandwich-Plus route. Lunch is a sandwich, homemade – or maybe not (Uncrustables? WTF?) – plus some combination of commercially made snacks: granola bars (candy), fruit snacks (candy), pudding cups (candy), various flavored crispy (starch) things like potato chips and cheesy crackers, etc.
I am of the belief that almost all moms are just basically trying to do their best, but I can tell you that, for me personally in my rather more sugar-sensitive family, a lunch like that would make my job as mom way harder. My kids tend to become totally energy-less human slugs (daughter) and totally fucking crazy whirlwinds of hyperness (son) when they have too much sugar or simple starch.
So a more DIY approach to the kid-friendly lunch would be necessary for my household, I knew that. But the goal was not just to provide my kids with a decent lunch, it was also to make my life a bit easier. Basically I wanted a more whole foods Sandwich-Plus plan.
I started with a sandwich. I went to Costco and loaded up on the least processed looking ham and turkey I could find, sliced cheddar and provolone cheese and four loaves of organic 100% whole grain bread.
And then I assembly-lined basic sandwiches. Mayo went on both slices of the bread, meat and cheese in the middle. No veggies, nothing fancy. Each sandwich got wrapped in plastic wrap and put in the freezer. I ended up with 30 of them.
Then I got busy on the “Plus” portion of the Sandwich-Plus plan. I spent half of a Sunday turning the random bits of things hanging out in my fridge and freezer into kid-friendly foods I knew my children would eat and that I could feel moderately okay about.
- Sun-nut butter and chocolate chip granola bars (based off this recipe.)
- Low sugar pumpkin-chocolate chip-cranberry bread (based loosely off a combination of this recipe and this recipe.)
- Cranberry orange mini muffins
- Cornbread buttermilk muffins
These items were all cooked, cooled, appropriately portioned and then wrapped in plastic wrap. They got stacked in metal baskets and popped in the freezer with the sandwiches.
Now we have our own, homemade version of the Sandwich-Plus plan and I have to say, it’s simplified things mightily.
Often, my daughter makes her own lunch. This is as simple as grabbing one sandwich and one treat from the freezer, and adding in whatever veg or fruit we have in the fridge or on the counter.
Is this all ideal? No, not really. In an ideal scenario all the meat and cheese would be from a local artisan. The bread would be homemade, long-soaked sourdough. There wouldn’t be so much dammed plastic wrap. There wouldn’t be a trace of sugar anywhere and my kid would thrive on being the weirdo with the hippie lunch.
But for now, for where we are now, I’ll take this solution gratefully. Lunches are being eaten. My irritation over the food waste is gone. The pre-made sandwiches and treats have saved a ton of time and frustration, and have made it easy for my daughter to take ownership of her own lunches. I think she is at that age where she prefers not to be quite so “unique” at the lunch room table, too.
It is what it is, and for now it’s far better. No more rotten food. No more resentful mom. Simplified mornings. Empowered, lunch-making kid.
PS: The sandwiches thaw fine in a few hours at refrigerator or room temp. Once thawed, they taste totally normal. There’ve been no complaints. However, if you try to quick-thaw them in a microwave, the bread gets a bit soggy.
Do you batch-make food for work or school lunches? What has worked best for you?
16
Great post, Erica. Will definitely use these ideas in the future!
When I was six, I complained to my mom that I didn’t like PB&J, and she (having to deal with my two-year-old brother) said, “Fine, then you make your own lunch from now on.”
So I did. Every school day, for the rest of my school career. Made my own sandwiches, packed my own leftover burritos, made soup in the microwave, whatever I needed to do.
I give huge amounts of credit to my mom. That was one of the wisest things she could have done. It taught me plenty of responsibility, and it meant that I packed food I would eat.
I am so glad to read your post, Leanne. I told my sons this several years ago and there are days when I do feel guilty that I am not doing it for them. But our way, there is no argument & that makes for a much better morning.
Oh, good for you! No, you shouldn’t feel guilty at all. You are doing a *great* thing, in my opinion. Everyone should know how to cook and take responsibility for their food, and the only way to learn it is to do it. Your sons are getting practice all the time!
Yes! The goal is to raise independent adults. Kids are far more capable than we often give them credit for, as long as they are given appropriate building blocks for their own success. Way to go, both of you.
My son’s been packing his own lunch since he was about 6, too. I made up a card with the basic food groups and some ideas for each. He’s not a huge sandwich fan, so he often ended up taking crackers, string cheese, yogurt, baby carrots, and applesauce.
It has worked out GREAT. He not only gets food that he wants, but the amount he thinks he’ll eat (I used to pack HUGE lunches in kindergarten, only to have them come home only half eaten). At 13, I periodically have to remind him to include fruit and veg, but overall, it works great.
We make our own mayo. I wouldn’t freeze it, either, but the reality is as long is there is no harm you should do what you want to do.
Lunches for our six kids was a royal pain. The problem was never really resolved, even when they decided to pack their own. Hubs wants a hot lunch. I am always cooking for our meal and the lunch box. At the age of 12, and in retrospect I would have done it around 8, they were introduced to the washing machine. They were required to wash and hang dry their own clothes. They are grown now. It didn’t bother them. They liked it. I asked.
Can mayonnaise be frozen?
Storage
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If my refrigerator breaks down, how long will my open jar of mayonnaise be good?
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Other
Is there any risk of illness from eating store-bought mayonnaise?
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By Ethel Tiersky
Jul 02, 2009
Freezing mayonnaise is not recommended. It may become grainy, and the various ingredients will separate and curdle. When thawed, it will not return to its normal consistency. Therefore, don’t freeze any sandwiches or any dishes made with mayonnaise.
Source(s):
USD Food Safety and Inspection Service: “Mayonnaise”
What a fantastic idea. My eldest won’t have to bring lunch for another year (her kindy is half day starting in the fall), but I really like the idea of not having to fuss every day about a healthy lunch.
My mother sent me leftovers when I was in high school. I never knew what would be in the bag, but I ate it. My brother, OTOH, demanded a PB&J sandwich each and every day of his school career, gummy white bread and all…
I wouldnt thaw the sandwiches at all. One problem we have is food getting warm in her lunch bag, even with the ice thingy. The whole lunch being an ice thingy is brilliant! All of the plastic wrap makes me cringe too. I could totally see doing a month worth of main dishes (sandwiches), and the add-ons all at once. I could make lunch for the rest of the school year TODAY!!
My farm friends froze sandwiches when we were in school — and they keep like a dream in the lunch bag & are thawed by lunch. I know everyone makes a sandwich differently, but in our experience, butter worked better for the glue because it didn’t separate or get watery. Just my 2.
This is awesome. Any chance you would post the recipe for the sun nut butter and chocolate chip granola bars? Those sound fantastic.
You put *baskets* in your *freezer*! Brilliant! The rest is cool too, but we homeschool so not as useful to us. But baskets in the freezer… Love it.
I did similar things back in the day. One sandwich you might not think to freeze is grilled cheese. My kids loved leftover frozen grilled cheese sandwiches! My kids packed their own lunches (with my make-ahead help) for years. Then my youngest spent a year at a very small high school which offered a microwave and refrigerator for the kids, which changed the options a bit. We played around with bento boxes, which can make the lunch a lot of fun. Everyone at the school brought lunch, often leftovers. It was a very multi-cultural school so everyone was intrigued by everyone else’s leftovers and sometimes they organized sharing days, where each person brought lots of one thing to share.
This is friggin’ brilliant.
If your kid is mostly veggie (like one of mine), another easy lunch “entree” is a half avocado. Her typical lunch looks like this: half avocado sprinkled with adobo, lemon pepper, or other seasoning, a piece of fruit or a handful of veggies, yogurt, some crackers or chips of some sort, and water.
Great post — picking battles and living with better but not-quite-perfect. Here’s an idea for the plastic wrap problem: Could the treats be frozen on trays and then grouped together in larger plastic bags? We use bento box lunchboxes here, and I could see my kid popping a frozen muffin or granola square into a bento. I suppose they could get freezer burn with all the opening and closing of the ziplocks…maybe grouping into four or five and re-using them? Thinking out loud…
Oh yeah, this time of year there seems to be an “I’m done with this school routine already and getting up before 8am” attitude from both parent and children in our house. Instead of our usual good mornings with meet each other with an “ugh, I can’t believe it’s morning already”. I am lucky enough to have one child who happily takes a leftover based lunch and is not treated like a wierdo because she goes to a Waldorf school full of weirdos. BUT… we still can always use helpful tips like this. When we are organized, we precut veggie sticks and store them in water in the fridge for the week (sometimes they need refreshing) and during school breaks have cookie baking days where we freeze batches of homemade baked goods. We are regualar homemade soup makers, some of every soup that moves through our kitchen gets put in the freezer in lunch sized portions for a quick thaw and into the thermos (especially nice to have a hot lunch mid-winter). I too have labelled metal baskets in the freezer to be it confusion free as to what they are grabbing. And I am most ecstatic to say that my youngest, who is now 12, is becoming as much of a foodie as I am, wants her own garden plot every year now and is happy to make not only her own lunches and baking, but breakfast in bed for mom. Sweet!
Also, (excuse me for my terrible spelling errors above) a not- perfect- but- better solution to the plastic wrap problem:
I have not purchased plastic wrap in years. Instead when it is necessary, I use unbleached waxed paper bags and stack them in a ziploc bag for the freezer. Here (Westcoast Canada) we have a brand of ziplocs called Natural Value that are PVC free and available in most natural food stores. That way you are still using plastic (but slightly less toxic) and using less of it. The ziplocs can be reused many times.
Great solution for the plastic- I’ve already added the waxed bags to my Amazon cart! I’m definitely going to do this sandwich-plus thing now!
I was going to recommend the wax bags as well. Wish we had those ziplocs in the US!
Never underestimate the power of peer pressure at lunchtime. A friend told me about how her mom made bread and my friend was embarrassed/envious of the cool kids with Wonder Bread- how would she ever be cool with homemade wheat bread?! That scene in Breakfast Club when Claire unpacks her sushi board and chopsticks- that was some cohones by the girl who worked so hard to be popular.
Does your daughter prefer her daily lunch ‘shopping’?
Actually Bella came home one day and told me her everyday-school lunch-buying peer was VERY jealous of the homemade bread in her lunch that day. The peer said she wished HER mom would make bread and I think B felt really proud of her weirdo family lifestyle. 🙂 But every kid has their limits….and salmon and edamame salad were apparently past the limit.
I bet the salmon and edamame salad was probably too smelly to her buddies. If she ate it for dinner, why not lunch?
I appreciate the eco-friendliness of leftovers, but I know in my office, fish causes a fuss. Especially when people heat it in a microwave!
My kids refused to take tuna sandwiches in elementary because they were embarrased by the odor.
We use zip-lock type bags in most cases instead of plastic wrap, then we wash them and reuse. That’s a lot better for the environment than all that plastic “sealing meals” in. If the bags are rolled or folded to get rid of most of the air before sealing, and then double bagged, I’ve not had any problems with freezer burn either.
Made me laugh because my dad would go salmon fishing once a month with colleagues and we’d invariably get “salmon salad sandwiches” in our lunch bags that next week. We got a lot of strange looks from friends, but we were smart (all that brain food!) and no one ever made us feel belittled. We learned early we were “different” (like most everyone else, in different ways) and that’s a very good thing to be OK with.
My daughter has a peanut allergy, so uncrustables are out of the question for us – and still would be if she weren’t allergic (too expensive, preservatives, etc, etc…). She and my son have a soy butter sandwich for lunch everyday. I found a pin online where a woman found a special cutter (Wonder bread actually makes it – yeah, I know…) to make her own. I found it for about $2 or $3 in the jelly section of the grocery store and I make my own and freeze them for her out of natural whole grain bread. It is a square instead of round and it almost covers the whole slice of bread without a lot of waste (which you could use to make breadcrumbs) – just a little tip. It makes it so easy to just throw the frozen sandwich in the bag in the morning instead of making it, and the kids think it’s fun.
Brilliant! This year H was participating in a homeschool enrichment program where he went to school one day per week for things like art, foreign language and music. I had to pack lunches. I totally packed him hippie lunches. Which he did not eat, even though it’s what we would have eaten at home. After a few weeks in, the moms that volunteered to help during lunch would always say to me, “Oh I knew H was your son when I saw his lunch.” I didn’t know if I should feel pride (I did, a little) or embarrassment (I did, a lot).
This is a great solution.
AMEN! I make lunches ahead for the week, but a month at a time would be even better.
Thankfully, Jackjack doesn’t care that he gets a “weird hippie lunch” because I put a joke in there every day. He and his friends are bummed when I forget!
Today’s joke: What does a triceratops sit on? Its tricera-bottom.
[wocka wocka wocka!]
You inspired me to go into the kitchen and make up 5 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, because that’s how many days are left in the preschool year (3 days/wk). Then I realized how close it is to the end of the school year. O_O
Was reading… and you popped the “F” bomb “.
(My kids tend to become totally energy-less human slugs (daughter) and totally fucking)
I know this will slip out verbally at times.. and words are just that.. Words.. but I still don’t prefer to read or listen to them. And definitely won’t share them.. and I so wanted to.. As I know many mom’s and dad’s out there trying to get a healthy, fast lunch to their kids at school.
🙁 It is sad that you are so judgmental of someone who just provided you with a good tip.
Get over yourself.
I don’t think Donna was being judgmental, I think she was stating her preference. I don’t happen to care, but she does so good for her for standing up for her beliefs. (p.s., don’t ever read Mr. Money Mustache, Donna, if you dislike swearing!)
The problem is that you don’t get to go to someone else’s blog and tell her what words to use. It’s like going into someone else’s house and telling her how to decorate it. And “I know this will slip out verbally at times” is pretty condescending, as if she’s forgiving the writer for doing something shameful.
and ‘moms and dads’ are plural!!! not mom’s and dad’s. bothers me far more than an f-bomb.
Concern Troll in every bunch. Waddya gonna do? I suggest Donna not pay you this week.
I say good for you, Donna. By the grace of God I’ve been able to cut cursing from my vocabulary and now find it truly offensive when I hear it as a part of common speech from my friends, neighbors, etc. You’ve stood up for your beliefs and I have total respect for that.
I do also understand that the rest of the world still swears, and one slip is not enough to keep me from sharing this post with others… : )
And Erica – good idea, I have a mommy-of-4 friend who is going to get this article in her mailbox!
My Grandma used to say that people who were so easily offended by cuss words probably thought their shit didn’t stink. Just sayin’…
For folks who homeschool, work from home, etc, I’ll add the note that this has proved tremendously handy even on weekends, for our 2 1/2 year old, on sick days, etc. Even if you aren’t packing it out, having that freezer full of instant meals is incredibly handy.
There’s a reason that convenience foods, of various kinds, are a zillion-dollar business, and even if you are out of (or trying to get out of) the corporate-style “busy” world, grab-and-go can be worth its weight in gold!
That’s a really good point. I would save myself a lot of scrambling when we have an unexpected outing and our leftovers are not in the easily-transported category (or the kids just want to seem normal!)
And it’s funny that I needed Erica’s reminder about freezing sandwiches. All throughout middle school and high school, I’d help my dad make 2 weeks’ worth of assembly-line style sandwiches that he put in the freezer for his own lunches!
We make Avalon’s lunch every night. I usually give her left overs of dinner or foods used in dinner (such as cooked beans, left over fruit salad, etc.). But if that won’t work, I make PB&J or PB tortilla, cheese tortilla, tofu cubes, or hard boiled egg. I do include a starchy snack like pretzels and she does get a little treat, guilty there! We use a Laptop Lunch box so no extra garbage is produced. Have you considered something like that? You could take the plastic wrap off, put the food in the lunch box, and reuse the plastic wrap for the next batch of frozen lunch goodies. We also have wrap ‘n mats and beeswax wraps for sandwiches if you already use a fabric lunch bag.
Awesome. My second is starting next year and I’ve been dreading the onslaught. I love the idea of reorganizing the freezer for ready to go lunches! Thanks.
I made up about 30 Chicken Pot Pie pockets for my husband and I to eat for lunch. It really helps to have something in the freezer for a quick lunch.
It did take me all day, though. Making all that pie crust by hand was a chore, but buying it in the store would have been crazy, at like $3.50 for two 9″ crusts.
I recommend making pie crust in a food processor. It comes together fast.
🙂 On my list to get! Believe me, after the 4th batch of pie crust, I was cursing myself for not having one.
This recipe has served me well for pie crust via food processor: http://piechef.com/crust/butter_processor.html
I got a mini-pie maker for Christmas and haven’t figured out what to use it for yet. I think chicken pot pies for lunch would be perfect!
we LOVE chicken pot pies in the mini pie maker… and I love salmon + dill + peas mini pies. hubby, not so much.
The sogginess issue is why I’ve never tried making sandwiches ahead. Does it really thaw completely in the morning? Will have to experiment with my kids.
My problem is the opposite… that I should be giving my girls ‘weird hippie lunches’ for our small home tutoring group and I tend to just go with sandwiches (home-made bread but still frowned on!) cos it’s so much easier.
It seems to thaw pretty reliably. If we don’t pre-stage into the fridge at night just putting the sandwich into a soft-side cooler (without any extra ice) seems to let it thaw slowly enough to stay fresh but thoroughly enough to be edible.
I made my (multiple food allergy) kid lunches for years. As he got older, more and more of it came home at the end of the day and went into the trash. Frustrating! Then, a few years ago, he was able to start eating more foods (the only exceptions now being eggs & nuts/peanuts) and I gave in completely – I funded his lunch account through the public school for the entire year and he now eats whatever slop they are serving in the cafeteria that day. The point, though, is that he is EATING. I force him to eat my hippie-healthy-homemade food at dinner. 😉
Erica, this is a great idea! Since I left my day job to work on FARMcurious full-time I’ve been trying to save money by packing my husband’s lunch every day. It’s been going well but it’s so hectic that I dread mornings. I will try this, I think. Also, email me your address and I will send you my favorite new plastic wrap alternative: http://www.farmcurious.com/bees-wrap-set-of-three-small-medium-large/
Wow, those are super cool! Thanks for sharing!
I grew up doing this with my sisters. And I did this happily with my daughter — but watch out for cream cheese! My daughter loved cream cheese and jelly sandwiches, but cream cheese TOTALLY melts into a disgusting mess if you freeze and thaw it.
Aside from this, it’s a total win!
My mom did this when I was a kid. There were seven of us so you can imagine attempting to make lunch for the “army” in the morning was out of the question. She’d do 1-2 weeks at a time. It was fine, didn’t bother me. Sometimes a sandwich would end up looking a little less “fresh” because it was frozen, but the taste was just fine, so I didn’t care. I also didn’t want school lunch after seeing what the other kids were served. I was rather happy to have a school lunch. In high school I did occasionally want to go check out the ice cream machine though.
In one of my elementary schools, I remember quite clearly one day when the school cafeteria was serving hamburgers. Not to many of the kids were eating that day, and one of my friends pulled the top off of his burger to show me there were worms in the thing… I really valued my “home” lunch.
In high school, I got pretty ticked when as part of a fund raiser for a trip I was selling candy and got chewed out because I sold some of it in the school cafeteria. It was then I discovered the school had a contract with a food services group and was making money off of what was sold in the cafeteria. This explained the vending machines and whatnot around school as well. As part of this contract, no one else was allowed to sell food in the cafeteria. This revelation opened my eyes and I started to figure out how school fundraisers, crap like “Channel 1”, etc. were all ways the school could push advertising and products at the students to make a buck – and we were a captive audience. It’s always nice to discover your school is not only exploiting you, but also thinks your an idiot. Perhaps they’re a bit confused about the taxes that fund them and where they come from?
Loving this! We also homeschool so I wouldn’t do it for the kids but it would be great for my husband! This fixes a real problem for my family, thank you! Also, I like that you drop the f bomb. It makes you seem more human, less holier than thou. I enjoy your writing style anyway. My two cents.
Was the “f” bomb essential to your article?
You’ve clearly never seen my son after a cupcake bender.
**snork**
Barb – you sound like a mother reprimanding someone. very unpleasant.
Again, a good idea. I tried something like it some time ago and fell off the wagon. You might want to read the post about my child weeping about her hippie lunches. Makes me laugh now. . .
Hi Erica,
I used to do this same thing with my girls when they were growing up. It was such a timesaver! I would also make up a couple batches of english muffins, toast ’em, add cheese and sausage/canadian bacon/ham, wrap in foil. A couple minutes in the toaster oven before heading out the door and we had a fairly mess-free breakfast they could eat on the way if we were running late.
Thanks for the many ways in which you inspire!
I will avoid adding the links that I found (being unsure of your blog’s protocol). I wanted to share a product that I found here in NY once. It’s a sandwich container. Just Google Search “Trudeau-Fuel-III”. I have 3 of them and they are awesome. I can put a thick bagel with spread in there, or a super thick sandwich. Or Daughter can have a small sandwich and a side of some kind. The problem is that they are very limited production and cost $4 a piece!!! Be warned when you search for them they show all 4 colors but you only get one! I’m sharing becuase I’ld like to see some more products like this on the market. Good Old Tupperware styled, reusable, safe, functional products for food. (I’ve used various containers and they don’t work nearly as well). I think if more people request products like this it will help.
My mother used to freeze my sandwiches. Mayo separates once frozen.
He gets PB&J on whole wheat (sometimes homemade, more often from the store), and either a banana, an apple, a pear, a bag of raisins, a bag of trail mix, or etc. We make the night before when we’re getting the baby’s milk and our lunches ready for the next day.
Holy cow, you are a genius! 😀
Thank you for being real!
We homeschool as well but are out all day a few times a week at the public school homeschool center. I realized pretty quickly that leftover dinners for lunch weren’t a big hit. I think the key is presentation – the leftovers don’t look very appealing most of the time. I ended up getting a bunch of tiffins, each with the same sized bowls. I stick fruit in one of the bowls (sometimes on skewers), another bowl gets cubed or sliced meat and cheese or pepperoni sticks or boiled eggs and some sliced bread. The last bowl has lettuce or sliced peppers or tomatoes or sliced cukes or small carrots – whatever is in season – and a smaller container of oil and vinegar. That way they can have a salad, or make a sandwich or dip the bread in the oil and vinegar if they feel like it. I got very small glass and stainless containers at Daiso that fit inside the tiffin bowls. I give them chopsticks or little bamboo appetizer forks. The visual appeal makes it inviting and even my 11 year old daughter who is sensitive to what her friends think is good with it, it helps that her friends are interested in what she has to eat. The best part is when we get home, all the tiffin parts and containers go into the dishwasher.
Next year I will definitely freeze muffins for when fresh vegetables are out of season and freeze homemade pizzas. I should have thought of this sooner because there is something about being at home that makes my kids want to eat all the time. They will be just as handy for days we’re home.
I suspect that you have a lot of better ideas about visual appeal being a chef . . . I’d love to see more of your creations! (But maybe not until late summer when we’ve all recovered from lunch packing burnout!)
This post is great. I don’t have school-aged kids with me, but this would work for me and my husband! We’re always scavenging the fridge every morning trying to piece together lunches (as if food magically appears in there overnight).
I do a lot of frozen mini muffins and extra bits like that. I make the sandwiches fresh though and use a sandwich cutter (I have way too many) to make shapes like whale and octopus or a train or something. They make them to use most of the bread, so you’re not wasting (much) food. It’s amazing how quickly it gets eaten when it’s in a cool shape. I have a few too many bento boxes, so we tend to pack in those. I found cutting up veg for the week like someone mentioned above meant the whole family ate more veg, so that’s great. If you poke around some of the bento blogs, they often have good ideas for pre-made sides to freeze.
Hey…
When you do preserves of things like apple sauce or those spirally peaches, do you ever do them in half-cup jars to be used as single-servings for lunches?
Flippin’ brilliant!
I have been doing mason jar lunches. A big mess of casserole or oatmeal one week at a time. Haven’t tried freezing a quantity of lunch stuff in jars. Not sure if it would thaw in the jar by lunch time. Will have to give it a shot. Plastic wrap work around maybe.
Before even reading the comments, I said to myself I’m glad she expresses herself realistically, as if we were friends sitting in the kitchen together. I teach my own kids (9, 10, and 12) to speak honestly and save those expletives for when they suit the situation or when they want attention drawn to a particular issue. This is a great example–sugar response going largely ignored by most parents. It might not be for everyone, but it’s honest and real and I appreciate your style.
Related to the post: for us, switching to a bento style box (Laptop Lunches) streamlined lunch-making into a 10 minute affair (for 5 lunches). My fuzzy morning brain seems effectively prompted by the instruction to “put fruit in this box, veg in that one.” I make box-shaped cookies ahead and freeze.
This is such a great plan. I may actually have to do something like it for my own lunch! It would definitely make it a lot easier to just sit down and eat instead of 1. succumbing to buying a bagel or what have you or 2. taking 45 minutes to cook something in the middle of the day.
So for those of you who have done this…one of my kiddos loves lunchmeat and cheese dry (no mayo), so I guess that would work. What about PB&J? Works? Also one of my kids likes peanut butter with Justin’s cocoa hazelnut butter (she hates jelly). Do you think it would work too? starting next month, I will be making FOUR lunches a day, so I am loving this idea!! Thanks for sharing!
Hi. This looks like a handy idea. I’m all for freezing ahead whenever possible. I worry about your plastic wrap in the freezer though. I don’t think plastic wrap is a freezer safe plastic, meaning it breaks down more quickly in the cold, and leaches into the food. I usually do an inner wrap of wax paper, and then put multiple items in a gallon plastic bag to keep out freezer burn.
What a great idea Erica! I have been making homemade freezer burritos and snacks, but sandwiches do happen a lot around my house, so yea, for this one. Four kids and the Hubbs needing lunches, my freezer will be crammed full. I do have my older kids make their lunches, but making them once a week and stashing them, will certainly make them happier.
I was so grateful that you posted this. It is the lunch solution I needed!! One of those “why didn’t I think of that”. Oh, and I totally agree with everything STH says – no blog snob here! I LOVE that you are always real, and yourself.
What a great idea, I never thought about freezing sandwiches. Just a tip from someone who has made tons of restaurant sandwiches…put the meat first then mayo on the meat. If the mayo doesn’t come in contact with the bread then the sandwich won’t get soggy or gummy.