Peanutless Lunches

My son's school is 100% nut free. I usually put leftovers into a container (the school will heat-up in microwave) when I'm serving dinner. I got one with sections. I have also made cream cheese and jelly sandwiches for my son. Another mom I know makes a big pot of soup or stew at the beginning of the week and sends that with different sides. Good luck!

My 2 and 4 year old are in a nut free daycare. Sunflower butter is yummy! Also, the whole wheat mini bagels with cream cheese cut into little bites always go over well. I pack cheese sandwiches with butter which helps them stick together and cut them into fun shapes. Last but not least, the beech nut microwavable meals are nice to have on hand in a pinch.

When you can't use peanut butter (and I just love a peanut butter, banana, honey sandwich sometimes), you can try cream cheese and jelly. It tastes pretty good. If your daughter's chewing pretty good, you can send in celery sticks filled with cream cheese (and if you stick raisins in the cream cheese they call it Ant's on a Log). Some crackers stuck together with cream cheese works well, too. Cream cheese is very versatile.

Wouldn't the almond butter not be allowed? With my daughter's school, they recommend soy nut butter or sunflower butter. Personally I think they're both awful, but I never said that to her. I just made her sandwiches with it and she never noticed a difference. Even at 10, she's perfectly fine eating one of those for school and having regular peanut butter at home. I think as long as you don't make a big deal out of the fact that it's different your daughter will be fine.

Will she eat eggs? You could make a breakfast burrito for her. We love having those for lunch! Or you could do an avocado spread on a tortilla too. That's yummy. :)

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Will she eat eggs? You could make a breakfast burrito for her. We love having those for lunch! Or you could do an avocado spread on a tortilla too. That's yummy. :)

We're in the same boat. I recently started making coconut butter & jelly sandwiches. Coconut butter is a little bit difficult to find (I found it at a health food store) but it is SO DELICIOUS with jelly!!! I've even started making them for myself sometimes. You can also try an avacado & cheese sandwich and maybe even sneak in some cucumber or tomato.

We use Walmarts Great Value Soy Butter. Myself and my oldest son are allergic to peanuts. My daughter likes the Mini Corndogs (no sticks) and Pizza Bites. At 2, I am not so worried about healthy foods as I am getting her to eat period.

My son has peanut allergies and at first I thought the soynut butter was disgusting, but now that we've been using it for a while, I really like it. It might just take awhile to get used to. I'm still at a loss for what else to pack him b/c he has other allergies to deal with too. Good luck!

our daycares have always provided lunches. the breakfast is an extra cost, but lunch is/was always included.

Don't forget, kids don't crave variety as much as adults do. So she probably doesn't mind getting the same lunches over & over... I bet it bothers you more than it bothers her! ;)

Trader Joe's sunflower seed butter is our favorite pb-substitute... my oldest will ONLY eat that now, not pb.

Bagels are a staple in my kids' lunchboxes. I mix it up between plain w/ flavored cream cheese, or flavored bagels w/ plain cream cheese... also mini vs regular. One of my kids doesn't like cream cheese, so those are the days I put in a yogurt or string cheese. Also, my kids like Bagelfuls - easy & quick to throw in the lunchbox - they're sold frozen, so I just put them in the fridge the night before.

My son didn't like peanut butter but he loved jelly sandwiches (not that you want to send that every day but it gives you options because you have lots of flavors). Boiled eggs. Chicken or Tuna salad on bread or with crackers. You can do chicken, turkey, roast beef etc. wraps.

what about tuna?? My son is 2 and has not yet eaten peanuts. We often eat hot lunches since I'm a SAHM. But tuna salad is yummy and healthy.

I know you said you aren't a lunchmeat kinda gal, but you could make your own lunchables and just buy the better brand in the deli.

Carrot and celery sticks with some sour cream and dill to dip it in.

Fruit salad

Pasta salad (we get rotini noodles and I toss in olives and cooked chicken or ham, tossed with salad dresssing. You could shred some carrot in there too with the cheese grater).

String cheese

My son will make "nachos" out of anything. We had tuna "nachos" using rice crackers and tuna with salad dressing on it. And then we made regular beans with meat "nachos." I put nachos in quotes b/c I just call them nachos. If he'll eat it because it comes with a chip or a cracker - heck I'll call anything a nacho.

I have 4 kids, and 1 of them has a very severe peanut allergy. So we have a completely peanut-free menu every day. Lunches are one of many highlights in their days (and a couple others are breakfast and dinner ; ).....they love to eat, and eat just about anything!) So here is a list of lunches they have and enjoy. They are home schooled, so a couple may not be practical for making and packing, but they are lunch ideas anyway:

tuna salad
egg salad
chicken salad (with chopped apple and celery)
red roasted humus with cheese (sandwich)
" " " with raw vegetables
apple slices and cheese tortilla (made like quesadillas, microwaved)
fried egg sandwich (with cheese and ketchup, on toast
soups and grilled cheese
cream cheese and jelly
warmed left-overs from a dinner
Kosher hot dogs (National Hebrew)
*Sunbutter and jelly

* We really love Sunbutter. It was a very happy discovery after missing peanut butter so much, so I once did a big blog post about it: http://ourhouseofjoyfulnoise.com/Vittles/2009/11/12/sunbu...

Hope these help!

Not only does my son attend a nut-free school, but I work there as well, and have seen many a nut-free lunch.

My son used to bring soybutter and jelly or cream cheese and jelly every day, or sometime a super-delux as he calls it which is soybutter AND cream cheese and jelly. Sometimes I would put frozen berries in the sandwich with the other ingredients and by lunch time they were thawed out in there. And another big hit was to make one of these sandwiches on a waffle. We called it the waffle-wich.

Now that he's a little older he doesn't like to bring that every day, so sometimes he brings sliced turkey or ham rolled up, or hard boiled eggs (his new fave) or even pancakes.

Besides hot dogs, mac & cheese, and nuggets, I've seen pizza, cut up veggie burgers, regular pasta (with tomato sauce), rice and stuff (rice & chicken, rice & beans, rice & veg) noodles, dumplings, crackers and cheese and pepperoni, grilled cheese sandwiches, spaghetti-o's (and all their Chef Boy-r-dee cousins), and a variety of soups. Most kids in our center own a thermos for bringing anything "warm" as we don't heat lunches for kids.

I hope all that helps. Good luck! (ps, most kids adjust quite nicely to the nut free lunch thing. I've only ever known one kid in 4 years of nut free-ness who had a hard time because all he would eat was PB&J. He eventually caved and settled for soy butter, but one in hundreds is pretty good.)

one of the things my daughter LOVES is a tortilla wrap, but it's with the rotisserie chicken. You can buy 2 at CostCo for like $6 and then cook them and freeze the meat.
We use laughing cow light spreadable cheese (1/2 of a ind package per tortilla) with lettuce and the chicken. She LOVES it.

She also likes ham - which is salty, but I just watch what else she takes that day. B'cuz you can also cook an entire spiral ham and then cube it and freeze it and she just eats the pieces with her fingers or a fork.

She is also into chef salad - so I can do lettuce, hard boiled egg, shredded veggies etc and then a small amount of dressing. She will also just take a hard boiled egg (no yolk) sometimes and have that as her protein. I got lucky she likes celery and cucumbers so she takes them alot. We also make 'pizza' but she has to eat it cold, so she doesn't always want to do that!

My daughter always loved hummus sandwiches or cream cheese and jelly. Sometimes we would do crackers and cheese with fruit and and a veggie. Leftovers always work well also. Good luck! Oh yes and I found a soybutter that is made with honey that both my kids like!!

I switched to sunflower butter and my son who was a very picky eater loved it...he got so use to it that he would not want peanut butter any more at home either. Have you tried a roll up with hummus and veggies?

I think that you will find sunflower butter the best substitute for peanut butter, most kids really like it and you will be right back on track with SB&J. One alternative we like is a whole wheat hotdog bun, with sunflower butter and a banana in it, probably half or less for a two year old.

I have one that has started likeing cottage cheese. She takes that wih triscuts and fruit.

There are nitrate free cold cuts that are not unhealthy, or you can make your own from baked meats like chicken or turkey, these make very good sandwhiches. Left overs are terrific.

Those go in my kids lunches first...if they will eat it at dinner, they see it again.

M.

Fruit and/or vegetable muffins (like zucchini) are great with a banana or yogurt on the side. We have some good recipes on our blog that are peanut-free (and allergen-free), www.welcomingkitchen.com.

If they heat up her lunch, just make life super-easy and pack dinner leftovers. That way you're already giving her food that you know she likes, it'll probably be different every day, and you can pack up lunch right after you have dinner.