Peanut-free Preschool Snack Recipes

What I did for my daughter (peanut allergy, corn protein sensitive) was buy raw pumpkin and sunflower seeds from the health food store. I'd "roast" them myself, either in the oven or my castiron skillet, depending on summer or winter (heat given off, you must stir skillet much more often). Which seed I used depended on the recipe, the texture. Sometimes I just preferred one over the other. Make a batch splitting the batter in half, using pumpkin seeds in one and sunflower seeds in the other.

You can use sunflower seed butter or soy nut butter in place of anything that calls for peanut butter.

Last time I took a snack for my son's birthday, I made apple leather and graham cracker/frosting sandwiches. My son actually preferred the apple leather to the frosting!

Just make sure you look at the ingredients on any packaged mixes and snacks. By law, they have to state if they have allergens in them (soy, nuts, eggs, milk, etc...).

Roll-ups are always a hit as well. Things like turkey, cream cheese, and romaine lettuce, or sunflower seed butter and fruit spread are always enjoyed.

I used to take snacks to doctor's offices a lot (used to be a pharmaceutical rep). One of the novel things I'd take was make your own trail mix. I know most trail mix has peanuts, but you don't have to make that an option. Do dried fruits, pretzels, chocolate chips or M&Ms, marshmallows, chex mix. Be creative in finding things you think kids would like to throw together.

Jello-Jigglers are always a hit. You can use cookie cutters to make festive shapes. You can use Knox gelatin and juice to make a more natural treat.

I am fresh out of ideas but wanted to mention to double check your preschools snack policy before making anything. Ours only allows prepackaged items, nothing homemade. They are looking out for any food allergies, not just nuts. I love the candy sushi idea but again, our preschool discourages sugary snacks for the kids. When its our childs turn for snack we usually take string cheeses and goldfish.

we made candy sushi for my little ones class and all the kids loved it! We even gave them all chopsticks to try.

Candy sushi is made like regular sushi, but use fruit roll-ups, Rice Krispy "dough" and gummy candy, such as jelly worms. Here are some helpful tips: 1) You will find the rice krispie dough recipe on the side of any Kellogg's Rice Krispies box 2) Make only half a recipe of rice krispie dough at a time, since you will want to use it while it is still warm and malleable 3) Pre-peel the fruit roll-ups from their plastic and otherwise fully prepare all equipment and ingredients before making the rice dough 4) Line your sushi rolling mat with a piece of cellophane to keep the fruit roll-up from sticking 5) After they cool, use a very sharp knife for cutting rolls (as you also would for real sushi) 6) They are best the same day, and not refrigerated. Otherwise, they get unacceptably chewy. For sushi rolling instructions with illustrations: http://www.mediterrasian.com/cuisine_of_month_sushi.htm Sushi rolls, before cutting. The purple one on the right was rolled in flavoured, coloured sugar.

You can make almost ANYTHING out of Rice Krispy treats...Christmas trees, bells, etc. They can decorate them with gumdrops, red hots, nerds, or whatever. You can use cookie cutters to shape them if you want. Will be quicker if you're doing alot of them.

Popcorn balls with some red & green candies mixed in for color. You could even "tie" a strand or two of twizzler for the bow on top, if you wanted.

One of the cutest things we did was to cut out a strip of brown paper about 3" high and about 6" -7" long. Glue the ends together to form a circle.

We then took ORANGES and put on antlers made of brown pipe cleaners, a red small pom ball for the nose and wiggle eyes. They were SO cute! I can still remember one of the little girls kept kissing hers. Many named them, as well. We used a straight pin to put the nose on, glued the wiggle eyes and the pipe cleaners can be shaped to fit the orange. Use a little glue if you want. Crayola now makes something called a GLUE ROLLER. I've thrown away SO many glue sticks. These things are GREAT and ALOT less messy. VERY cute!

There are always candy cane reindeer. Use a pipe cleaner for the antlers and glue wiggle eyes on either side of the curved part of the cane, just above the place where it curves the most.