Healthy Lunchbox: Packing a full meal is easy

Our healthy lunchbox is back!  Last week I whined shared about my daughter begging for junk food in the grocery store.   She’s 13 and I try not to control her food too much.  Last week’s lunch had a chicken patty on a hamburger bun, grapes, a single serving of Pringles and a mini granola bar each day.  Not terrible, but we’ve definitely done better.

This week she asked for rice, beans and grilled chicken.

Bam!  Now that’s more like it.

I love packing her a full meal.  I cook it up Sunday evening and then it’s just scoop, heat and pack each morning.  It’s actually easier than packing a sandwich most of the time.

There was no school yesterday, so I cooked up the rice and beans last night.  I made the rice in my microwave rice cooker.  Love that thing.  Yeah, it’s white rice.  We often eat brown, but this time it’s white.

I didn’t have time to soak the beans and get them in the crockpot, so I used canned.  Two huge cans of black beans.

They are chock-full of veggies.  I used my mini Ninja to chop up carrots, onion, celery and bell peppers very finely.  I sauteed them in a bit of olive oil with garlic powder, oregano and cilantro salt and pepper before pouring in the beans and letting it all simmer to deliciousness.

I marinated the chicken over night in lemon vinaigrette salad dressing, then threw it on the George Foreman grill this morning.

Easy peasy.

A complete meal for the rest of the week is now neatly stacked in the fridge ready to go in her lunchbox each morning.

I was so into it that I whipped up a batch of gluten free spice muffins!

So the healthy lunchbox this week has:  

• rice and beans (with a sprinkle of cheese)
• grilled chicken
• a gluten-free muffin
• grapes 
• water

Note the two sided eating utensil.  Isn’t it cute?!  Fork on one side, spoon on the other.  I picked it up in the Target One Stop right before school started.

Oh, and the best part about making this lunch for my girl?  There’s enough for me to eat for my lunches this week, too!

What do you pack in lunchboxes – either for yourself or your kiddos?  Post a picture of it on the Shrinking Momster Facebook page!