7 Nut-Free Snacks to Pack in Your Kid’s Lunchbox
Even if nuts aren’t off-limits for your own family, you never know when your kid might be sharing a lunchtime snack with a classmate (and some schools might ban nuts altogether). But regardless of safety concerns, we love these recipes because they taste great — and are much more inventive than yet another bag of chips, or cheese and crackers or baby carrots.
Fully Loaded Snack Bars (above)
These bars don’t have any nuts in them, but they’re chock-full of lots of other good stuff: dried fruit, oats, seeds, maple syrup and more.
Step 1: In a single bowl, mix an egg white, some oil, sugar, oats, seeds and more granola goodies.
Step 2: Pop that bowl in the microwave for just 6 minutes (that’s it!).
Step 3: Let cool and gobble up.
Step 4: Clean up in record-breaking time.
We channeled Elvis when we dreamed up this lunchtime treat — but traded peanut butter for sunflower butter for a slightly sweet, creamy spread that satisfies all the same.
Crunchy and tangy, this dish includes everyone’s favorite snack-time carbs (pretzels, bagel chips, rice cereal) but also throws roasted peas into the mix for extra texture.
Everyone’s got a can of chickpeas languishing in their pantry. If your kids are sick of hummus, here’s an even more genius idea for using those garbanzos: Roast ‘em. Try a vinegar-lime, onion-garlic, or taco-flavored variety (or all three!).
These cuties get even better with age: The jam filling softens the crispy cookies overnight, so they’ll taste more like mini cakes the next day.
Make a batch of these at the beginning of the week, and then pop them in the freezer. Pack them into lunchboxes in the morning and they’ll be thawed to deliciousness by midday.
