{"id":130759,"date":"2025-08-13T10:11:34","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T10:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/?p=130759"},"modified":"2025-08-19T22:59:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T22:59:15","slug":"meal-prep-for-kids-and-reducing-packaged-snacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/everything-else\/meal-prep-for-kids-and-reducing-packaged-snacks\/","title":{"rendered":"Meal prep for kids and reducing packaged snacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sharing some of my go-to meal prep ideas for kids, especially as we\u2019re in the back to school season. We\u2019ve also made a mission to reduce packaged snacks, but I still stock up on pantry essentials and faves from Thrive Market.<\/a> <\u2014 my link gets you 40% off your first order<\/em><\/p>\n

Hi friends! How are you? I hope that you\u2019re enjoying the week so far. We\u2019re finding our new routine with the homeschool situation + Liv is taking a break from dance (I\u2019m admittedly a little sad, but definitely don\u2019t miss driving 30 minutes there and back twice a day). Now that we\u2019re on the go and packing lunches again, there are a couple of things I\u2019ve tried to do differently.<\/p>\n

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Meal prep for kids and reducing packaged snacks<\/h2>\n

– Meal prep a ton. <\/strong><\/h3>\n

It\u2019s so helpful to have a fridge full of healthy staples for snacks and meals.<\/p>\n

Here are some of the things I\u2019ve been making each week:<\/p>\n

– Fruit prep.<\/strong> If there\u2019s fruit, ready to go in the fridge, they will absolutely eat it instead of grabbing a bar or packaged treat. Melons are in season and so good right now, so lately I\u2019ve been picking up a couple of different melons (the kids especially love Piel de Sapo and golden watermelon) and chopping them to store in glass containers. I also soak berries in water and vinegar for 2-5 minutes (1 part vinegar to 3 parts water), rinse, and let them dry completely. Then I put paper towels in the bottom of a glass container with a lid. They last so much longer this way! We usually do a mix of berries: strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries. I also soak grapes and plums in water + vinegar for about 15 minutes, dry, and store in an open glass bowl in the fridge. The kids will just grab handfuls of grapes throughout the day and I love that we\u2019re all eating more fruit!<\/p>\n

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– Energy bites<\/strong>. I have quite a few different recipes here on the blog (like these!) but a favorite is equal parts cashews and pitted dates, cinnamon, a little salt, vanilla extract and a drizzle of maple syrup.<\/p>\n

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(this is why I don’t take food photos for the blog anymore lol)<\/p>\n

– Protein prep:<\/strong> shredded chicken, seasoned ground beef, and egg bites<\/a><\/p>\n

–Veggie prep:\u00a0<\/strong>I’ll peel and chop some cucumbers, bell peppers, carrots. They’re easy for them to serve themselves and dip into homemade hummus or guac. They also like the ready-to-go edamame.<\/p>\n

–Dip:\u00a0<\/strong>hummus and guacamole are the fan favorites around here.<\/p>\n

– Breakfast options<\/strong>, like the egg bites<\/a>, overnight oats, breakfast cookies (they still love these!), chia pudding. I also make avocado in a snap for a school day bfast and serve with Applegate breakfast sausages.<\/p>\n

– One different\/new\/fun thing each week.<\/strong> This might be like a chicken or pasta salad, Spanish tortilla, quiche, or cold noodle dish with veggies and protein that they can easily grab out of the fridge on their own.<\/p>\n

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– Reduce packaged snacks.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

We still have our go-tos, which I\u2019ll list below, but the reality is that a lot of packaged snacks are expensive and don\u2019t have great ingredients. I could make 20 awesome homemade energy bites for the cost of 2 little four packs at Whole Foods. Our snacks were a huge portion of our insane grocery budget and it\u2019s so easy is to make them at home, and customize them for the kids.<\/p>\n

Some of the packaged snacks we still buy:<\/p>\n

– Nuts, dried fruit, trail mix<\/p>\n

– Canned beans (for hummus!) and they also love the Lupini snacking beans from Thrive Market<\/p>\n

– Seaweed snacks<\/p>\n

– GoMacro bars<\/p>\n

-Poshi veggie packs<\/p>\n

– Snack-sized cheeses<\/p>\n

– Cottage cheese<\/p>\n

– Chia pouches<\/p>\n

– Jerky<\/p>\n

– Popcorn or Siete chips<\/p>\n

– Deli meat – they\u2019ll roll it up with cream cheese or mayo<\/p>\n

– Sardines. I usually make a sardine melt, but the kids will eat them out of the can straight-up<\/p>\n

– Simple Mills products (like the crackers, cookies, and baking mixes)<\/p>\n

Some of my favorite Thrive Market finds and healthy brands are in this post.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

– Go back to planning dinners and prepping as much as I can during the day. <\/strong><\/h3>\n

We\u2019ve been doing a lot of on-the-fly dinners since we got home from Spain, especially since the Pilot has been working\/traveling so much. Back to school was the kick in the pants I needed to start planning and making more dinners, instead of last-minute takeout or random hodge podge meals. (Also, I\u2019ve found that I really have to plan and prep dinners when I\u2019m solo parenting because by the time we get home from sports, it\u2019s dinner time.)<\/p>\n

Some of my favorite solo parenting dinners are in this post!<\/a><\/p>\n

So tell me, friends: what are some of your go-to homemade snacks for the kids?<\/p>\n

xo<\/p>\n

Gina<\/p>\n

The post Meal prep for kids and reducing packaged snacks<\/a> appeared first on The Fitnessista<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sharing some of my go-to meal prep ideas for kids, especially as we\u2019re in the back to school season. We\u2019ve also made a mission to reduce packaged snacks, but I still stock up on pantry essentials and faves from Thrive Market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":130761,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":""},"categories":[20,1,21,22,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130759"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130759"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130764,"href":"http:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130759\/revisions\/130764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}