With school starting for my kids in just about a week, I’m beginning to come up with a list of healthy snacks to stock up on! I like to keep snacks in the house that are full of protein, to keep my kids full and energized for the day as well as their after school activities. The school season is a long one and finding the perfect items for snack time is not an easy task. It’s important to me that I focus on school snacks that are healthy foods, rather than filling them with sugar that will tire them out. Luckily, there are a variety of options these days and I’m pretty happy with this list. Moreover, even the picky eaters will like these snacks! Therefore, I’ll lay out my shopping categories below for you to think about.
Here are 15 snacks you need for the school year ahead!
Quick Ideas
If you aren’t interested in keeping any bars or crackers in the house for snacks, there are a variety of things you can pack. Fresh fruit, vegetables with hummus or ranch to dip into, or even yogurt are great ideas to start with. Whole fruit, whole grains and whole foods really are the best snacks out there, just really simple ingredients. You could even make homemade fruit roll-ups as an after school activity with your kids! Homemade trail mix also makes for easy snacking.
Here are a few snack containers if you are on the hunt for any:
Salty
Furthermore, salty sweets can mean so many different things these days. Chips don’t have to be the first thing to cross your mind! For instance, this can be crunch seaweed snacks, veggie sticks, pickles, salty baked chickpeas, flourless crackers or chickpea puffs. All of these salty snacks can fulfill a craving while still being both a quick snack and a healthy snack option.
Sweet
I think this is everyone’s favorite category for school treats! Sweet doesn’t have to mean high fructose corn syrup and added sugar. For example, these can be granola bars, vanilla yogurt, dark chocolate chips, delicious bars and fruit snacks with less sugar or no added sugar. Overall, the possibilities are endless these days for sweet school snack ideas. Similarly, my kids love confetti protein balls, which I’ve listed below! They are great alternatives to protein balls with added sugar or nuts.
Peanut-Free
Most schools have a rule where you cannot bring peanut products into the classroom or lunchroom due to allergies. Specifically, this is where sun butter or seed butter is really ideal for school time. Comparatively, avoid things like peanut butter protein bars and go for the products that use other replacement ingredients. Finally, it’s important to follow the school’s rule for safety reasons and there are plenty of other snacks out there that can become your child’s favorite snack that can fit into the parameters for rules on the first day of school.
This post was originally published August 29th, 2022*
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11 thoughts on “Back to School Snacks”
I love these ideas. I’ve always been a fan of making sure the kids have healthy snacks that they’ll love rather than a ton of junk.
Lots of delicious snacks here to choose from. I love packing healthy snacks for my boys.
Yes, nutrition is so important!
Great snack ideas, and something all parents think about as we worry about how they will cope with not eating eevery 5 minutes
Yes, exactly!
These snacks are awesome…..The launch box is the cutest thing ever, I am buying one for my daughter.
I’m so happy to hear you like it!!
Lots of great healthy snack options here! I love the variety now that families have when it comes to after-school snacks.
Yes, so glad there’s so many options!
These are some really good healthy snack ideas to pack up in lunch box for the kids. Will pass to my friend for her kids.
Making sure kids are well fed with their favourite snacks in cool snack box is so important so thank you for reminding me to ensure I get my children’s snacks ready