I don’t know about you all, but coming up with snacks on the fly is something I am not great at. Unfortunately if left un-attended my kids will grab something non-healthy, or make a gigantic mess with the contents of my pantry. So out of necessity, I’ve come up with an easy way to store all of our snacks, while at the same time providing quick and hopefully healthier snacks for them.
First off I should mention that we do two snack times per day. Typically 10:30am and 3:00pm are our standard snack times. Setting these times has been so helpful, the kids all know when snack time is and so they don’t ask for snacks all day long anymore. Hallelujah and amen!
So here are some of our snack ideas as well as how we store them!
Fruit: Of course fruit is one of my number one snack go-to’s. I do my best to keep a variety of fruit on hand, it’s usually sitting right on the counter so they can grab it and go. Here are some things you’ll find in our fruit bowl (depending on the season):
- Honey Crisp Apples
- Granny Smith Apples
- Pears
- Kiwi
- Grapes
- Bananas
- Oranges
- Plums
Dry Snacks: Okay, so here’s where we got crazy one day. I grabbed some generic brand snack-sized, and sandwich sized baggies and we went to town separating out all of our dry-snacks into snack sized portions. I just grabbed this plastic tub from our basement and it just so happened to fit into the bottom shelf of my pantry perfectly!
So Strawberry Shortcake and Turbo sat one day separating all of our snacks out and putting them into the baggies. Now I know it looks like a lot of baggies, but if we can re-use them we do. After all it’s just dry food and will most likely be re-filled with something similar, so it’s no big deal to re-use them.
I’ve found this method comes in extremely handy when we’re doing school and snack time rolls around. I normally grab one of these baggies and put it in each of their workboxes, but if I forget, and it has happened, I can send one of the kiddos in to grab 4 snacks out for us and head back in. They should be able to do this by the time I count to 10 so there’s no unnecessary dawdling in the kitchen!
This also comes in handy when we’re heading out the door and need something to grab in a rush. That way we’ll always have snacks with us and be less tempted to head for a drive-through.
Some things you’ll find in our dry snack tub:
- Pretzels
- Goldfish
- Granola Bars (Not bagged obviously)
- Trail Mix
- Chex Mix
- Dry Cereals (My kids like Kix and Cheerios in various flavors)
- Yogurt Raisins, or golden raisins (They don’t like regular raisins for whatever reason?)
- Fruit Leathers (Not too many of these due to sugar content)
- Nuts & Seeds (Almonds, peanuts, Cashews, Pistachios, Sunflower Seeds)
- Homemade Granola Bars
Refrigerated Snacks: I also keep some healthier snacks in our refrigerator. The kids have a drawer on the bottom that is sort of dedicated to them. We do the same thing with our dry snacks putting them into baggies if needed, to make them easy to grab on the go. Here are some things you’ll find in our refrigerator snack drawer:
- String Cheese Sticks
- Yogurt
- Carrots
- Sugar Snap Peas
- Yogurt
- Mini-Babybel Light cheese rounds
- Sliced apples for younger kiddos (Just sprinkle slices with lemon juice and shake them around in the snack baggie so they don’t turn brown.)
- Strawberries (Clean and bag these so they’re ready to go)
- Blueberries
- Peaches (I’ve found they last longer in the fridge?)
- Edamame
- Cherry Tomatoes
- Pickles (Yes, pickles.)
- Hard Boiled Eggs (They love these!)
Other: Here are some of our other snack ideas that aren’t so easy to prepare ahead of time, but still great for when you have a little extra time!
- Apple slices with peanut butter (We currently use Skippy Natural)
- Carrots with hummus or ranch
- Avocado with soy sauce
- Soft Pretzels with mustard or sugar/cinnamon
- Graham Crackers with cream cheese and your favorite jelly
- Cheese and crackers
- Frozen Gogurt
- Fruit Salsa and Cinnamon Tortilla Chips
So that’s about it for our snack ideas! I hope you found them helpful, and honestly they’re not just for kids, I like most of those snacks too! So maybe I should have called this post Healthy Snacks for Kids and Adults!!
Have a great snack idea to share? Make sure to leave a comment below so we can all share in the goodness!
What brilliant ideas I really do need to get organised when it comes to meal and snack planning. I have one who is homeschooled and one in school so this would make lunch box packing easier as well.
Must admit my children were horrified though as in the UK we have never heard of a goldfish snack and the only goldfish my children know about is the one swimming around the fish tank. They were rather horrified that people eat them for a snack in the US!
Great ideas – although mine will always eat carrots if he has a choice. May want to add “Ants on a Log” tha perenial stand by of celery, peanut butter and raisins. Also tasty with a soft herb cheese like Boursin squished in the middle.
Great list! What time is lunch usually? I struggle with not wanting to have snack time to close to lunch.
We do Snacks at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. So it’s kind of in between breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
I literally just did this same thing on Sunday. I washed up and cut up all our fruit and bagged it in snack size portions and put it in the bottom drawer of the fridge. I also had just purchased some blocks of cheese that were on sale and cut them up and bagged them. Our dry snacks so far are only popcorn and a mix of almonds and craisins.
I also found that we still have candy hanging around from Halloween. I am not big on my kids eating a lot of candy, so I am stingy with it which is why we have so much around still. I went through that bucket and put 3-4 pieces of candy in each bag. I told my girls that when they finish reading a book or ace their spelling tests or whatever else amazing thing I can think of, they can replace one of their snacks with a candy bag. Oh man, my kids have never wanted to read so much! 🙂
Thank you. We just introduced a snack and lunch menu for our school days so there wouldn’t be so much time arguing over what to have or having to make 3 separate things. I love this idea. Definitely going to put it to good use. Thanks.
I love your suggestions! I did this a couple of years ago with Alex and it was so great. I don’t know why I got away from doing it. I am definitely going to be putting some together today. Thanks Erica!
I love this..I do the same thing..
We do something like this too. We have been using snack containers from the Dollar Tree though. They are small and we just wash and reuse them. I found them in the baby section.
I have done similiar but I din’t break them up individual. I too have used the Dollar Tree’s little containers but the lids always kept breaking off so I think we are gonna try the little baggies this month. Thanks.
Fantastic list! I’m goin to go separate our goldfish, chex mix, raisins and such into baggis right now lol. I love the idea of already having them separated. That will really cut down on time throwing snacks in a bowl or what have you. Thanks!