Thank you so much to Cami who sent me all of her WONDERFUL ideas on how she gets prepared for school lunches. It’s such a great idea and I’ve heard it from a couple of other people as well (including Tammy who gave us that AWESOME blender no-bake cheesecake recipe) so you know it’s got to be good! You make a bunch of sandwiches and freeze them. That way you have one mess to clean up instead of a the same mess everyday. You could even do this on the weekend and have your kids helping to make all of the sandwiches. (Why do everything yourself? 🙂 My favorite part about this is that it means you have lunch ready for yourself, as well as kids and husbands! So if you are running errands you can grab a sandwich (instead of buying fast food) and eat it in the car or just know that you’ve already got lunch made with no mess. I love it! I know I rarely get to eat lunch before 2:30 p.m. and by then I’m cranky and much more prone to eat junk food and then I’m not hungry for dinner! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS TIP!! I JUST LOVE IT!!!
**Just one tip before you begin, I know that mayonaise curdles in the freezer so maybe just use mustard…does anyone know how Miracle Whip holds up in the freezer?**
Straight from the kitchen of Cami, in her own words:
Lunch Organization from the Not So Secret Life of a Soccer Mom with FIVE kids!
I have tried to simplify lunch packing this year. Each child gets one bin for all their snacks, drinks etc. for the whole week. If you have a child that is a snack sneaker…this is a good option. They will learn how to pack snacks so that their stash lasts the whole week. They can pack several snacks in one day…and then they will have to compensate by not taking a snack other days if they run out before the end of the week. So far it is working really well.
Another thing that works really well for me is to make sandwiches in a mass production. I made 20 sandwiches half ham & Cheese and half PB&J…label and freeze. By the time lunch comes the sandwich is defrosted and the meat hasn’t been warm all morning. PB&J does freeze well…put peanut butter on both slices of bread and Jelly in between, it keeps the jelly from soaking into the bread.
and a tuna lunch kit for variety (the tuna looks just like this…but tuna instead of Ham!)
I do this very thing and it is great! I got the idea from the Freezer Dinner gal.
Will the sandwiches defrost if the lunch box is ‘insulated’ (has the silver-grey lining on the inside of the zip up style)? I used to freeze the kids’ drinks until I found out that didn’t work out so well – the lunch box wouldn’t let it thaw. (I could probably just stick them in the fridge – but I’m not sure they’d last all week).
If they don’t defrost in time, what if you made a bunch, froze them, then put the ones you needed for the next day in the fridge the night before?
how long do they need to defrost for? do you pull them out in the morning? how long do they last in the freezer? Do you just put mayo on the sandwich right when you pull them out of the freezer?