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 who has a nut allergy. (And these days, some schools ban nuts altogether, to be safe.) But regardless of food allergies, you and your family will love these inventive recipes, because they taste great. Best of all, each one of these nut-free snacks requires just 20 minutes or less of prep work.
Fully Loaded Snack Bars
These are what every snack bar should be: tender, sweet and chock-full of flavor. The dried fruit keeps the bars moist for five days, so bake a batch Sunday afternoon for a full school week of snacking.
These cuties look like mini burgers, so they have extra kid appeal. They come out of the oven crisp-tender, and then the jam filling softens them overnight, making them more like jam-filled cakes by the next day.
Believe it or not, these muffins get better after a stay in the freezer. So make a batch on Sunday, freeze them, and then pop one straight into a lunchbox for a moist, tender and delicious midmorning or late-afternoon snack.
Remember: The longer you dry the chickpeas before baking, the crisper they will be. If you have time, strain and rinse them, pat them dry, spread them on a baking sheet and refrigerate them, uncovered, overnight, before roasting.
Roasted green peas make a crunchy and colorful replacement for nuts in this snack mix, which you can easily enhance with a homemade buttermilk ranch-flavored spice blend.
No one will guess that you made this crispy granola in the microwave in just six minutes! The secret ingredient is an egg white, which helps the granola cluster and crisp as if you'd nursed it through a long oven bake. And the granola gets mixed and cooked in the same bowl, making cleanup a snap on a busy school morning.
Crunchy Sunflower-Butter, Bacon and Banana Pinwheels
This savory lunchtime treat channels Elvis Presley's cherished flavor combo of peanut butter, bacon and banana, but trades peanut butter for sunflower butter — a slightly sweet, creamy spread that satisfies every bit as much. Save a few pieces of cooked bacon from brunch on Sunday and you'll need just 10 minutes on a busy school morning to wrap and roll a snack that does The King proud.
