Author Topic: Kid friendly low sugar breakfast and lunch options (make ahead options too)  (Read 2676 times)

coffeelover

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The breakfast thread has me thinking about what I'm feeding my kids.

I hate feeding them the sugary cereal. Which seems to be our go to 3 out of 7 days a week. I'll make scrambled eggs or toast/bagel with peanut butter or apple butter once or twice a week. We only drink almond/cashew milk now so that is whats put in cereal instead of cows milk.
Oatmeal out of a packet once a week.

I want to feed them healthier. I'm getting pretty health conscious and only get our eggs from a local farmer, organic, grass fed etc. I'm a vegetarian and have been embarking on trying out lots of new recipes. Which the kids will embrace now and again.

My littles are 4 and 6. Just like typical kids , pretty picky 4 year old. My 6 year old will eat almost everything. She loves my cooking.

I'm tired of the standard breakfast and the standard sandwich, fruit, yogurt I pack for their lunches.
Also my 6 year old is always begging to get school lunches. I usually let her once a week, sometimes I'll give in and do twice a week. Ugh, they seem so unhealthy!.

Shoot when I see the kids eating breakfast at school, (that they buy) it's a poptart and applesauce, or bagel and some sort of fruit.
Just doesn't seem that nutritrous to me.

Oatmeal make ahead options that the kids will love?

I did oatmeal this morning and topped it with peaches. My 4 year old loved it and my 6 year old not so much. 6 year old confuses me at times. I think she's going to love something and then, nope. sigh.

So recipes that don't involve meat would be awesome. Or if they do involve meat I can substitute with my vegan options.

I no longer have a toaster oven. We've gone through 4 toaster ovens in 4 years. So I'm done. As much as I love having them around I just can't justify buying a new one each year only to have it catch fire, electrocute me, burners went out, and another fire/electric issue. Yes those all happened.

Microwave, stove top, and I've started throwing stuff in foil and putting it on top of a very small flame on my stove to heat up, while watching it, seems to work pretty well.



MaybeBabyMustache

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Definitely have this challenge as well. We've had great success with making batches of (veg) breakfast burritos, freezing & quickly defrosting in the am. http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-freezer-friendly-breakfast-burritos-234556

With lunches, have you considered thermoses with hot lunch or leftovers? That gives you quite a bit more flexibility.

MrMoneySaver

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Astatine

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Bircher muesli? You could try different types of fruits for soaking overnight. Like green apples, various red apples, ripe nectarines.

Plugging Along

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8 hate the morning rush, so often do make ahead quick breakfasts.   Ironically, it’s me that l8ek surgery cereals, my kids aren’t fans. 

In addition to fruits, toast, and the standards, other make ahead are...

- Waffles, pancakes, or crepes topped with fruit, peanut butter, etc, I make them in  Large batches on weekends, and toast them or microwave them for a few seconds.
- bacon, I know you are vegan, but for other peopl, I make a big batch in the oven freeze them on cookie sheets, and throw in a bag, in less than two minutes, crispy bacon.
- steel cut oats - I don’t like the packaged oats, and they are better for warming up.   Make a large batch, separate in coaingers for the week, reheat in the microwave with wsome milk, add in your favorite toppings, everyone has different ones from fruits, coconut, nuts, peanuts butter, etc.  I even add in chia, flax or buckwheat for extra  nutrition
- boiled eggs, I add it onto toast or croissants with sliced advocado
- frozen egg McMuffin.  Make a large batch or scrambled eggs with onion, peppers, veggies,ham for the non vegetarians, on an English muffin, add salsa, the scrambled egg mixture, sprinkle with cheese, bake on the oven tilljust melted, then freeze.  Reheat on the microwave for about 1.5 min.  I will make a whole package of English muffins at times.
- breakfast burrito wraps, same as above but in a tortilla

Stashing Swiss-style

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I don't let me my kids have cereal for breakfast.  I usually buy one kind of cereal and they are allowed to have a bowl, with milk, as an unhealthy snack, in the same category as cookies or chocolate.  They know cereal is not nutritious and not a good food to start the day with. 

Check out nomnompaleo - she is great at providing delicious ideas for kids breakfast and lunches.  I eat her spicy tuna cakes for breakfast 2-3 times a week.  Mostly I give the kids bacon and eggs, mushrooms on toast, tuna cakes, avocado and fruit, smoothies, bagels with smoked salmon and cream cheese....

BUT I really wish I had started earlier in giving them "dinner for breakfast"!  We are conditioned to think breakfast food has to be different from any other meal.  I have changed my own habits dramatically and now I love soup for breakfast!  Your kids are still really young so try to give them their favourite, healthy meal for breakfast, whatever it is!  Avoid sweet stuff for breakfast if at all possible.

Northern gal

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One handed cooks has great stuff.

I love their chews, quinoa muffins, banana bread.

I make my own calcium enriched pot set Greek yoghurt and add oats and fruit on top.

For lunch I freeze batches of risotto balls (I just hand form them without crumbing or frying), veggie sauce and (sorry non-vegetarian) Annabel Karmel  pork & apple meat balls. I hide lots of veggies in all three and they just go from the freezer to the microwave.

« Last Edit: January 15, 2018, 06:25:27 AM by Northern gal »

badger1988

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My 2.5 year old twins are obsessed with raisin bran...have been since they started eating. We go through 4 boxes a week. I'm ok with it...cheap, easy, and there's definitely worse cereals they could want.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2018, 12:52:24 PM by badger1988 »

newgirl

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We do blueberry oatmeal for our toddler. Lately I've been adding a spoonful of peanut butter and a bit of blackstrap molasses to get extra protein/fat/iron into her. She devours it. You can hide a lot of good, healthy mix-ins in oatmeal - I also frequently add hemp hearts.

big_slacker

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There are some low sugar pancakes and waffles at trader joes that are decent. Eggs and bacon on a ciabatta (AKA starbucks breakfast sandwich) are a favorite with my kids.

As the vegan representative in the house I like to just do oatmeal with coconut milk and sweeten with a little bit of stevia. I usually make a greens/fruit/protein smoothie for myself and give some to the kids as well. That's not technically low sugar just like a lot of the fruit suggestions aren't but I don't believe sugar with fiber and lots of micronutrients are the enemy here. :D

AmandaPanda

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We do a lot of plain pancakes and multigrain waffles, but no syrup.  I've conditioned the kids that it's a huge treat if they get TWO chocolate chips per waffle/pancake, which ultimately is way better than drenching it in syrup.

Will they eat plain cheerios?  It's not a bad breakfast.  I also grew up eating leftover baked potatoes with shredded cheese.

For lunch, we use bento boxes, so every day they get a fruit, veg, side, and main.  Mains are shredded meat a lot, but for vegetarian options it could easily be an already cooked black bean patty, hardboiled egg, pasta salad, bagel thin cheese pizza, hummus on toast, etc. I slice up a bunch of cucumbers and carrots on Sunday and just dump them in their lunch every day.  Their side is their treat, which is usually goldfish or pretzel sticks.

If your kids like oatmeal, the Budget Bytes site has a ton of baked oatmeal recipes.  Every one I"ve tried has been delicious.  I usually double it once I've tried it so it will feed all of us all week.

MaybeBabyMustache

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We're getting the kids ready to take over the meal prep this week for their own breakfasts & lunches, so this is top of mind. A few other options:

-Protein rich yogurt (Greek yogurt). They like the fruit at the bottom kind. I'd prefer plain, but we're starting with this, particularly because it's easy for them to grab a serving.  Double the protein of an egg, but obviously has some sugar.
-Bagels w/cream cheese and/or peanut butter. I make our own nut butter, for topping bread, etc.
-LOTS of fruit. The typical breakfast plate at our house has 3-4 varieties, depending on how quickly they are trying to plate up.

For lunches:
-Sandwiches
-Soups
-Leftovers from other meals
And, we always add fruit, vegetables, & water.

My kids have only ever had cereal when traveling, so they don't consider it a breakfast option at all, nor have I ever bought it for them. Stock up on other supplies & then go cold turkey. :-)

aneel

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I started making egg cups with veggies for my husband, but turned out our 4 year old liked them more. 10 eggs + 1.5 cups roasted veggies distributed across a 12 count muffin tins = good filling bfast!

Parizade

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Potato pancakes (white or sweet).
Grate the potato, add an egg and a tablespoon or two of flour.
Drop spoonfuls into a skillet with hot oil. Fry until golden brown, flip and fry the other side.
Serve with cooked apples (chunky unsweetened applesauce)
I always made the cakes small so my son and his friends could eat them as finger food. You can add cheese, onion, zucchini, whatever you think your kids will like. My son like them plain.

coffeelover

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Took a lot of the advice here.

I already started preparing some kid friendly, freezer friendly breakfast foods for my girls.

I made english muffins with cheese, sausage and egg. Froze them. 1/2 of this sandwich is good enough for each little one in the morning. Plus a fruit on the side.

I also make a ton of breakfast burritos.

I made myself some food too without meat.

When I have time soon I'm going to make some pancakes, healthy, and freeze those as well. Top them with some peanut butter and fruit. Sounds good to me but my littles will complain. Hopefully in time they will start to become used to the new normal.

I stopped myself from buying new sugary cereals from Aldi. I know I'm going to get complaints from my stepdaughters because they love the unhealthy cereal. I'll probably keep a box of gluten free cereal that is no sugar and raisin bran in there and call it good.

Thanks for all the replies, it's appreciated.

nancy33

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French toast
Homemade quiche make ahead and heat up
Frozen burritos

nancy33

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Homemade pudding the recipe with egg yolks in it, make a big batch ahead of time and serve for breakfast can slice banana on top yum! Also tapioca pudding and flan, same idea. I cook with eggs a lot because we have hens. Maybe not low enough in sugar but a lot healthier than sugary cereal and kid friendly.

HipGnosis

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I'm diabetic (type II) so I'm hip to low sugar.

Over night soaked oatmeal is heat-n-eat in the morning.  They say you can eat it w/o heating, but I just can't bring myself to do that.
My current version is 2 parts (by volume) no-sugar added cinnamon applesauce to 1 part oatmeal (steelcut).  A bit of milk and warm in the microwave.  Can add fruit, sugar free jelly or syrup.

I recently found this; https://www.brit.co/homemade-cereal/   I haven't tried any yet, but will.
I'm pretty adept at converting recipes to low sugar.

I like eggs, but don't make them for breakfast often as I don't like having to clean up in the morning. 
You can get tin-foil potato baking pans, and I've seen small silicone bakeware, that could be used to make individual frittatas  to heat-n-eat.
I use to have eggs quite a bit for lunch.  Fried egg sandwich with tomato and cheese was my go-to.  But egg prices have doubled and I need to re-calculate the cost.

good for lunch;
lunch meat & cheese sandwich   Rye and sourdough have the lowest glycemic index
Lunch meat and crepe roll ups (around half a piece of string cheese).
Lunch meat or shredded chicken, cream cheese and a pickle spear rolled in a wrap.
Tuna cakes   - I've made them with mackerel (rinsed and add some lemon juice), but the price of that has gone up too...
PB&J w/ sugar free jelly    Rye and sourdough have the lowest glycemic index
cheese sticks or sting cheese
Nuts
sugar free pudding or jello
Yogurt - I buy vanilla by the quart and add sugar free jelly for the flavor I want at the time
 

FireHiker

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For breakfast, I often make homemade granola (using the recipe from 100 Days of Real Food; it's in the first cookbook and at least used to be on the website free) and my 8 year old will eat it with or without milk. He also really likes grapefruit, so we'll sometimes do a piece of peanut butter toast (whole wheat with homemade peanut butter) and half a grapefruit. We only allow sugary cereals if we're on vacation staying at a hotel that has them as part of free breakfast. I will every once in a while buy the Trader Joes honey nut O's or shredded wheat cereal, but it is an exception rather than the rule.

Stachetastic

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Posting to follow.

My 5 year old likes sugary cereal, pop tarts, and cinnamon toast. Ugh. Sometimes we can get him to eat toast with homemade (low sugar) jam. He is super picky--won't eat oats, PB, any fruit aside from peeled apples. I've recently started thinking about non-breakfast foods to give him instead. He LOVES cheese and pickles, and croissants. Those would at least cut down on sugar and give him some protein. Maybe skip the pickles, lol.

I pack his lunch every day, which was easy when he liked sandwiches. About 3 weeks into the school year, he changed his tune. Now I send deconstructed sandwiches of bologna/turkey slices, cheese, pickles. He also likes bread with butter, and sometimes I send leftover pizza or mini corn dogs. Sides include pretzels, goldfish, and sometimes a Gogurt (I know, the sugar is off the charts with these). Always plain water to drink.

galliver

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I second many of the above suggestions, also these were surprisingly good: https://www.fivehearthome.com/banana-breakfast-cookies/ (mostly oats and PB or other nut butter of choice).

I also rather enjoy simple sandwiches as a breakfast food. A slice of deli meat on bread or toast.

seemsright

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My 7 year old would live on oatmeal if I would allow her to.

Her current favorite breakfast is dry oatmeal with a spoon of sugar covered with milk.
She loves over night oats, oats put into a mason jar with what ever fruit I have and then covered in milk
She will have oatmeal warmed up in the microwave

She is easy to please and it is not much work for me. On the weekends I try to make things like hash-browns, or pancakes more brunch type foods because I love to eat brunch...:)

I think I could eat eggs for every meal.