Home Meal Prep Ideas for Kids

3 ideas for a quick homemade meal-prep
If your children are still very young, you are likely to spend a fair amount of time preparing their meals. Let’s take a look at 3 ways you can quickly prepare your child's meals.

1. Bento boxes
Bento boxes help to add variety to your children’s meals. If possible, get your children involved by letting them choose the vegetables or fruits they want. This will increase the odds of them actually consuming what's in the bento box. Here are some suggestions:

• Vegetables such as cherry tomatoes, cucumber, carrot sticks or capsicum
• Meat or protein food such as slices of lean meat, hardboiled egg, or peanut butter
• Dairy such as a cheese stick, or sliced or grated cheese
• Bread such as rolls, pita, flat bread, fruit loaf, scones, muffins, crumpets or rice cakes
• Pasta with tomatoes, basil and cheese
• Crackers or baked sweet potato
• Muesli or breakfast bars

2. Smoothies
If your child avoids vegetables, veggie smoothies can be a great option as it will somewhat taste like a milkshake.

• Choose your milkshake base - With milk or yogurt or both
• Choose a ripe banana and another extra fruit
• Choose a vegetable
• Optional - Add more protein, fiber, or healthy fats

Blend the smoothie well. Add more milk (or water) if it is too thick or use yoghurt instead of milk if you added a fruit with a lot of liquid, like orange. Use half milk and half yogurt for a creamier texture. Then, serve in a bowl or cup, and sprinkle some granola or a favourite cereal. If your child refuses to drink it, freeze the smoothies into popsicles!

3. Meals on a stick
In addition to frozen smoothies, here are two options for meals on a stick.

Breakfast popsicles¹
All that’s in these popsicles is yoghurt and thinly sliced fruit such as strawberries, blueberries and kiwi! You could explore other fruits such as mango, pineapple, peaches and raspberries.

How-to: Add a little yogurt to the popsicle mold and slide fruit slices down the sides if you want them to be visible. Add more yogurt and more fruit until the mould is full. Alternatively, you can chop the fruits into small pieces, combine it with the yoghurt, and then pour into the moulds and freeze. Remove the mold and serve with granola if desired.

Banana pops²
These are great as a snack or as part of breakfast. All you need are:

• ² bananas (makes 4 pops). You can try this with other fruits such as strawberries, pineapple, and so on.
• Your preferred yoghurt
• Granola or crushed cookies
• Add-ons: Chocolate chips, shredded coconut, cinnamon sugar, raisins
• Popsicle sticks or silverware to insert in the bananas

How-to: Pour granola into a shallow dish or plate. Peel bananas, cut in half, and insert popsicle sticks. Dip into yogurt (or coat with a knife), then roll into granola and add-ons. Place on a parchment or wax-lined tray and freeze. Keep uneaten pops in the freezer!

References:
¹ http://www.caramelpotatoes.com/2013/07/12/breakfast-popsicles/
² https://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2012/06/20/breakfast-banana-pops/