Family-Friendly Food and Meal Ideas

Yogurt. My little kids are picky about what they’ll eat at school for lunch, and won’t eat most foods with protein, leaving them hungry. Thankfully, I recently realized they'll eat yogurt, which has helped a lot.

Peanut butter. By itself, on a sandwich, with sliced fruits - it’s a delicious work horse in the protein department!

Hard boiled eggs. We will hard boil maybe 6-8 on Sunday for my teen to eat throughout the week. Stinks up the fridge, but worth it! (And actually, when I store them in a container with a lid it’s not so bad.)

Edamame is a good source of protein and fiber, so I like to keep it in the house for snacking. Costco has bags in the freezer section that you can steam in the microwave, but we also really like crunchy roasted edamame from "The Only Bean" because it comes in different fun flavors and is easy to pack for school snacks.

We buy small Graham cracker crusts (in the tiny pan) and add chocolate chips or pieces of chocolate bars. Then top with small marshmallows. Perfect on a grill or oven!

S'mores nachos: lay out graham crackers on a skillet and top them with mini chocolate kisses and mini marshmallows. Toast and enjoy! Add more toppings if you want too (i.e., peanuts, coconut, m&ms)

Grasshopper S'more: made with traditional graham crackers and marshmallows - and Andes chocolate mints!

Nutella, marshmallow and graham crackers

Popcorn. We have a silicone microwave popper that my tween and teen use on their own when they feel like having a snack.

Roasted seaweed snacks are a favorite for my kids right now. We like the ones from Trader Joe's because the individual packages are a little smaller and sized right for a 1-person snack.

Cheese sticks, Babybel, or any other pre-portioned cheese.

I always have cheese zits for on the go, juice boxes, sliced fruits of their liking and also yogurt packets . Even a favorite cereal of theres put in a zip lock baggie.

One of my kids is vegetarian. We have a meal box subscription (HungryRoot) that has a lot of vegetarian options. I let me child scroll through the list of ingredients and pictures and choose three things they'll eat. When the box comes, we unpack it together and my child decides what order we have those meals. All of the meals are simple to make, so when we find ones we like, we'll often buy the ingredients on our own and they become part of our regular routine. The meal plan allows us to skip boxes, so we only get it when we know we'll have a busy week or are out of ideas.

Try making "build your own" meals. Put out a bunch of components and let each person pick and choose what they want. You're only making one meal, but it's customized for each person. We do build your own salads (greens and veggies, beans, chicken, cheese, croutons) or rice bowls (protein, rice, cheese, salsa, avocado, beans, mango) and these go over really well with my kids and their different food preferences. Picky eaters can enjoy their dinner "deconstructed" if they don't want their food touching.

When it comes to picky eaters I try to veer away from making multiple meals only because I want my children to actually try something before just deciding "they just don't like" something. I have also found different ways to make meals and hide certain ingredients/foods they may not like and it definitely works. There are also times when I decide to "cave in" and just give that specific meal just to assure my picky eater is actually eating. Either way I'm learning to just be patient because children's appetites or what they may like changes as they grow.

I don’t have the time or energy to make extra meals so if they don’t like what I make, my kids have a choice to have peanut butter on bread (PB is a complete protein) so at least it’s something! They are asked to sit at the table with the meal I’ve prepped. Sometimes, their curiosity gets to them and they end up trying (and liking) what I’ve made 🙌🏻

My husband and I try to plan 3-4 meals for the coming week before the weekend is out, so we can make a plan for grocery shopping and actually cooking. We often invite the kids to each pick one meal for the week as well - they tend to eat it better when they've been involved in the planning in some way!

We have a binder of "greatest hits" recipes that we use almost exclusively for our family dinner rotation. My weekly meal planning involves picking recipes from the binder each weekend to meal plan for the week ahead, and I go to the grocery store once. I just have too many new recipe failures to bother wasting my time with trial and error on our busy weeknights. I'd rather cook something tried and true, and my kids would much rather eat something they already know they love. On the rare occasion that I cook something new and the family loves it, it gets printed out and added to the binder.