Years ago, my son played in a traveling, summer baseball league that lasted the first two months of summer. And because I’m a frugal mom, living on one income, it required eating a lot of packed lunches. It’s easy to start off with sandwiches, but when you’re attending a couple of games on weeknights and tournaments on the weekend that might last through lunch and dinner, well, there’s only so many ways you can make a sandwich before you tire of it. The same goes for picnics. This is especially true for us when we road trip! But there are other options for picnic foods for kids and they don’t have to be difficult!
I did a quick search of quick, easy picnic lunches for kids and you wouldn’t believe the ideas that came up! I mean, really? Who is baking salmon, wrapping it all up in tinfoil, and dragging it to the park?
When we need a packed lunch, we are either bringing it to a sporting event of some sort, going to the park, or we’re on a family road trip and I need to be able to make a lunch from a hotel room or a campsite. I am not baking salmon and wrapping it in tinfoil to bring to the park to eat! I am also not making risotto, or a smoked mackerel plate (?), or bringing shrimp to a picnic (though, if you like raw, cold shrimp, that’s actually not a bad idea.)
No. Whatever I pack will be quick, easy, and will taste good served cold. If I’m going to the work of baking salmon, I’m going to eat that while it’s hot and in my dining room with decent tableware. But if you happen to have leftover salmon in your fridge, wrap that up and take it on your next picnic, I guess!
Most of our picnic take-alongs are some variation on either a salad or sandwich, or both. But with many possibilities for variation, it keeps picnic lunches from becoming too boring.
So, if you have a picnic on your list for family-fun, here are some quick, pretty easy picnic foods for kids to throw in the basket!
5 Picnic Foods for Kids
- Calzone “puffs”—
I don’t know what to call these, but they are definitely the most labor-intensive on the list; however, still quite simple to make.
Start with your favorite pizza dough. I make mine pretty close to this recipe https://www.yummly.com/recipe/Homemade-Pizza-Dough-2513008?prm-v1
Press it out into circles approximately six inches in diameter. Lay loosely into a greased muffin tin. Be sure it is stretched pretty thin, or you’ll end up with a LOT of bread and very little filling. Then, fill with whatever you wish. Sometimes, we do pizza sauce, pepperoni, and cheese; other times, we do sweet chili sauce, leftover shredded chicken, and cheese. You could also do barbecue or buffalo chicken; chicken, bacon, ranch and cheese, etc.
Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes.
These are better when served warm, but we’ve eaten them at just “room temperature” before and they’re good too.
- Rotisserie chicken—
One of my best friends taught me this trick! We were on a road trip and were near where they lived. We called them, spur of the moment, to see if they could meet up for lunch at the park. My friend said, “Yes, but let me take care of lunch.” She came to the park, kids in tow, with a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store, along with some grapes and other picnic treats.
It was so smart and something I had never thought of! Then, she told me that whenever they travel and they are tired of eating out or eating sandwiches, they find a Sam’s Club, pick up rotisserie chicken and head to a nearby park to eat it! It’s way cheaper than eating fast food; quite a bit healthier; and a nice change of pace!
- Wraps—
I mean, I know this one is pretty obvious, but it’s a stand-by for us. My kids, especially like BLTC (bacon, lettuce, tomato, and cheese) wraps; or sweet chili chicken wraps; chicken, bacon, ranch, and cheese wraps; barbecue pulled pork with coleslaw wraps (my favorite!); taco salad in a wrap; and the list goes on and on. You can put almost anything in a wrap and make it taste a little different than a sandwich!
- Quesadillas—
For our wedding, nearly twenty years ago already, a former classmate of my husband’s gave us a $15 sandwich press. That thing has been used and used and used and is still going! We use it to make all kinds of sandwiches, but also for making quesadillas.
Again, you can put anything you have into a tortilla shell, fold it over and press it into a quesadilla. Pizza quesadillas are my kids’ favorite, but bacon bits and cheese, chicken and cheese with peppers and onions, or just plain, ole cheese are all great options.
- Pasta Salad—
If you can keep something cold, easily, then why not pre-portion some pasta salad to either go with your sandwiches, or in place of them? I love pasta salad and so do my children! And there are so many varieties of pasta salad that, surely, you can find one everyone loves! Most of the time, I throw it into small plastic containers, but even Ziploc bags work, as long as you don’t put anything on top of them that will squish the pasta.
Another website recommended putting salad-type food into Mason jars. At first, I thought, “Yes! What a great idea!” and then I remembered how heavy Mason jars are. Yeah. I’m not lugging six Mason jars in a picnic basket anywhere! So, that might work okay if you’re just packing a lunch for yourself, but that will get heavy fast!
Of course, with any of these picnic foods for kids, you would want to add some fun snacks on the side and with so many options, that’s not difficult! I usually like to make sure we have a couple of healthy options (fruits and veggies), and then something fun that we don’t usually get to have like potato chips.
When it all boils down though, it really doesn’t matter that much what you eat. Involve your kids as much as you an in packing the picnic and have fun along the way! A picnic is such an easy way to add family-fun to your schedule so if you were struggling to come up with an idea, now you have one!
RElated: Fun Family Activities