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Finally a daycare child! Starting kindergarten is a new and exciting time for most families, especially if this is the first child to attend kindergarten. Many day-care centers provide the kids with breakfast and lunch, but in some facilities you have to pack a snack box yourself for breakfast or a snack. It should be healthy, but also provide energy, because daycare can be quite exhausting for your child. Sugar, empty carbohydrates and greasy snacks have no place in children's lunch boxes - instead there are delicious vegan alternatives. We have collected five tips and tricks for you so that you don't run out of ideas and you can pack more than just boring bread in the snack box. Even picky eaters look forward to their snacks in the day care center.
Vesper Kita: 5 healthy and vegan alternatives
In the long run, only the same breads in the snack box can ensure that your child only pokes around boredly in his or her breakfast or that the boxes are even brought back home completely untouched. But not all parents have the capacity to make elaborate bento boxes for their child, to bake extra, to swing the wooden spoon in the morning or to turn every meal into an experience for small children. Nevertheless, you can offer your child more than the same spread in the lunch box every day. The alternative is variety and fresh products. We have summarized the five tastiest vegan ideas for your lunch box for you in a practical article.
1. Nursery Skewers
Everything tastes so much better in small, bite-sized morsels. If mom or dad then prepared the snacks and arranged them a bit lovingly, children would probably eat just about everything or at least try it. If you want to offer your child a healthy alternative to white bread with chocolate spread, but are unsure whether it will be accepted, then try this slightly different idea for packaging vitamins and nutrients:
What you need:
- wooden skewers
- A round cookie cutter
- Whole wheat bread or whole wheat toast
- Vegan cream cheese and cheese cubes, vegan sausages
- Cocktail tomatoes, cucumber, peppers and other beloved vegetables
- Grapes, pears, apples, tangerines and other delicious fruit
How it goes:
For the healthy and vegan kindergarten skewers, you first smear the bread or toast with the cream cheese and build small sandwiches, which you then use the round cutter to cut into. Now alternately stick cocktail tomatoes, sandwich and cucumber on the skewer. You proceed in a similar way with sausages, peppers, cheese cubes and other vegetables. And the fruit can also be used to make delicious snacks for the day-care center, very quickly and easily. Try pairing cheese with grapes, cucumber and tangerines, or sticking a slice of apple between sandwiches. The possibilities are almost unlimited here.
2. Raw food pretzel snacks
Do you know the small pretzels and pretzels from the refrigerated section? No significant amounts for adults, but just right for your child's lunch box. Ready in minutes in the oven or our pro tip: even faster in the air fryer. Deliciously topped with vegan sausage or vegan cheese, your child will definitely be delighted when they open their box about the small pretzel or child-sized roll. You can also cut a few raw food sticks from carrots, peppers and cucumbers and put them in the lunch box with delicious hummus or a dip made from vegan yoghurt or quark.
3. Exotic overnight oats
Prepared the day before and simply packed from the fridge into the daycare backpack in the morning, this snack idea is not only super healthy, but also time-saving and stress-free. If your kids are skeptical about exotic fruit, you can of course use local fruit as an alternative. But one thing is for sure: This tip is not only a great breakfast for children!
What you need:
- A jar
- oatmeal
- Coconut milk or other plant-based milk
- Exotic fruit like mango, papaya or banana
How it goes:
Layer oatmeal, your exotic fruit and, if you like, some maple syrup or another sweetener in your jar. Now carefully pour the coconut milk or your plant-based milk up to the rim of the glass and close the screw-top jar properly. Put it in the fridge and the next morning you have a delicious oatmeal with fresh fruit that tastes like the Caribbean. You don't have to refill the oatmeal with the screw-top jar, you can simply put the jar and a spoon in the kindergarten backpack and you're ready to go.
4. Underestimate all-rounders: rice cakes
When you think of rice cakes, you certainly don't have the absolute taste experience on your tongue. But wait: the rice cake is completely underestimated and so versatile that it will surprise you. Did you know that you can conjure up an excellent vegan ground pork from the crispy rice-based waffle? In addition, the crispy slices are a great alternative to plain bread and can be topped just as well. Crumbled into small pieces, the rice waffle is a great topping for yoghurt and muesli, and with a delicious nut butter, dark chocolate and some caramel you can make almost healthy bars very quickly and easily. Why don't you try it out?
5. Quick wraps for kids
Crisp lettuce, vitamins and nutrients, colorful vegetables and a yoghurt sauce to die for: wraps are quick to make and popular with children. The different consistencies are fun and you can use almost anything that the little ones like - the perfect kindergarten snacks. So that the tortillas don't get soggy so quickly, you should make sure that you pack a layer of crunchy lettuce between the yoghurt sauce, cream cheese or other topping. A combination of vegan sausage and vegan cheese is particularly popular, simply roll it up and secure it with a small skewer.
As you can see, the kindergarten box does not always have to be filled with fancy treats. Sometimes it can be quick and it can still be healthy. We hope we were able to give you some inspiration with our ideas so that your child's food is varied and balanced without you having to rummage through countless recipes. All of our ideas are of course vegan and can also be enjoyed without meat substitutes. And if in the next lunch box there is only bread instead of grapes, quark, sausages and vegetables, your little one will still taste it - because nobody always has to be perfect and children don't need works of art every day at lunch, but above all caring parents.
