The first thought that comes to my mind every morning as soon as I wake up is what to pack in kids’ tiffin. Mornings at my end are usually hectic. I have to get my twin toddlers ready, make them eat breakfast, pack their tiffin, pack husband’s tiffin, myself get ready and drop the kids to school–all in the span of one to one and a half hour. Every minute from the morning hours looks precious and I can’t afford to spend too much time thinking what to pack in school tiffin. Sounds relatable?
Thankfully A&A’s school doesn’t have any strict regulation on what to include in the child’s tiffin. So I have the liberty to be flexible in terms of my choices. Since both my twins are still learning the concept of eating on their own from the tiffin, I mostly prefer packing finger food for them. Something they can eat quickly and easily without creating a lot of mess.
To save myself some time and energy, I have prepared a school tiffin schedule as per the days of the week and as per the food choices of my kids. I have categorized the usual breakfast dishes in broad groups. My mornings are now pretty sorted as now I don’t spend a lot of time brainstorming. I rather simply choose one dish based on the group of the day.
Sharing with you how I have categorized the school tiffin menu and prepared a schedule.
Fermented Mondays
We all know the benefits of fermented food liked idlis, dosas, appams, etc. They have good bacteria that improves digestion and boosts immunity. For kids, I usually try to bring some variation to the standard idli or dosa by adding carrot or beetroot to the same. I use a pre-prepared batter, so it’s pretty simple to make in the morning. Kids can eat these as it is it or with sambar and chutney. You can also make ragi idlis and dosas if your child eats ragi.
Toast-y Tuesday
I mostly stick to vegetable sandwiches when it comes to breads. It’s an effective way of sneaking vegetables to the kids’ diet. I usually pick a selection of vegetables like tomatoes, capsicum, onions, carrots (depending upon whatever is available at home), and make sandwiches using different dressings. Sometimes it’s plain cheese and veggies, sometimes hung curd or mint chutney. If not sandwich then I prefer bread poha by simply frying all the veggies in the pan and adding small pieces of bread.
Chilla Wednesdays
There is a lot of variety when it comes to making Chillas. – besan ka chilla, suji ka chilla, oats ka chilla, moong dal ka chilla. I try to introduce a variety every week so that kids do not find it monotonous. Chillas are easy to make and delicious in taste. Apart from the basic spices, onion, coriander, one thing that I don’t forget to add is Flax seed powder in Chillas. It adds to the health quotient.
Pancake Thursdays
Thursdays are usually for pancakes- either sweet or savoury. Sometimes I use ready made Slurrp Farms batter if that’s available at home. Or make simple pancakes with whole wheat, ripe bananas and eggs. For savoury ones, I mix gram flour, semolina, whole wheat flour in equal amount with some water and add veggies to it.
Fried Fridays
Friday is for fried food. Cutlets, bread roll, french fries– all are kids’ favorite. Fried food isn’t bad especially if it’s just one day a week. I try to make it as healthy as possible by using sweet potatoes to make french fries and including a lot of veggies to the cutlets.
Categorizing and scheduling school tiffin menu this way not just saves me time but also helps in making proper prior arrangement at home. It helps maintain a uniformity, yet introducing a variety to the kids. As kids will grow, I will keep adding more dishes to this chart. For now, I prepared this list based on their tastes and preferences. After all we all want that kids come back home with an empty tiffin box, right?
In case your morning is also spent brainstorming what to pack in kid’s tiffin, try preparing your own schedule based on your child’s favorite. It will surely make your mornings easy
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Also read : Tips To Ensure Right Nutrition For Kids In Summer
Hi Charu..nice names..good idea.. Mornings are organized and it’s quick and easy once the menu is decided. Great! Nice post.
Your ideas of the family menu are quite similar to mine.
Whether it’s about fermented food, fried, baked or roasted, it’s a great way to ensure that we get the best nutrition out of all of them rather than sticking to just one type of cooking technique.
And hey! I liked what you do to sweet potatoes. Even I stir fry them instead of making shallow fried rava-coated potato slices.
Great post, Charu!
That’s an excellent idea. Categorising menu as per days makes the work so much easier. The worst thing is to plan a menu, and with this, half the battle is won. Also, kids love uniformity, with fixed menu, they know what they will be getting which day and avoids unpleasant surprises. Let me try these too, Charu!
Interesting and different taken on approaching the school tiffins. I like your ideas and would love to try a few of them!
wow awesome list charu, I really like you had divided the whole week with variation and nutrition. will try some ideas from this
That’s an easy to prepare items, saving time but complete nutrition as well. And yes, all moms love an emoty tiffin box. I agree with you that kids can have fried food. Right quantity of oil and ghee are very essential for kids. Oil is not bad. Kids require fats. Loved your post. Thanks for participation.
Such a lovely list, with us it’s almost same though it was forced on us from school. But glad that it happened and it’s become a blessing in disguise. Thanks for sharing the list.
Even we have a tiffin calendar for my kiddo which we try to follow almost regularly. We have a fruits day which allows me to pack a fruit which the kiddo can eat at school without creating any fuss.
That is a very good idea of yours you know, creating a group for each day. I will recommend it to my wife. My daughter is a very picky eater and my wife is usually at her wit’s end trying to figure out a way to add nutrition to my daughter’s meals. This idea of yours definitely sounds great. And children do love variety.
That’s awesome weekly menu. Nice names.
Wow that’s a helpful post for all mom’s strygstrug with tiffin ideas daily.
What a wonderful way to categorise tiffin items! This will simplify our mornings so much .Thanks!
Setting up a calendar definitely makes our job easier and helps us schedule better. This will be handy for me for my lil one, for my older one likes to have roti sabzi in tiffin mostly.
Superb tips to make the mornings easier. I know how difficult it is to decide everyday what to give in tiffin and you made it easier for other moms.
My kids fav is moong dal chilla and palak paratha which surely goes once in week will try pancake too
Love the idea of categorizing days like that. Makes it so much more simpler. Tiffin decisions are my biggest problem everyday. Gonna take up ur suggestion.
N’s school has fixed days just like you have set up – Steamed Monday, Fruit Tuesday etc. It really makes things very easy to plan
Wow that’s super easy ideas and fun way for daily tiffin I am surely going to try this
great ideas for tiffins but my daughters school has compulsory roti sabzi tiffin and only one day sandwiches n junk but never fried n hence i get less options but ur ideas are so good
The best thing I loved about this post are the lovely names you have given to the Tiffin ideas
My favourite part are the tiffin names! LOL! Really handy recipes and ideas. And the bonus for moms like me is that theyre all easy enough to implement. ?
Thanks a lot for this post. It’s going to help me a lot.And really it’s good to fix it day wise.
This is a cool idea. I usually start thinking on what to make the next day in the evenings but by decidijd such categories of food, I can easily plan and stock ahead.
Wow such a great idea to have a theme and then the freedom to make multiple things under them. Lovely idea Charu. I may totally steal this one. Morning rush and filling Ts dabba is a big hassle sometimes.
This is such a cool way of deciding on menu. And kids will also know what to look forward to. My mornings are usually so unplanned & haphazard. I think I should just duplicate your menu!
Kids are too picky when comes to what they eat.
When its time to have food my toddler turns on his Sherlock holmes side. Fact i appreciate his patience, he spends enough time to pick every speck of vegetable.
Usually I end out up chopping vegetable too small so that he won’t be bale to spot it. Even though he spot it it seems like a tedious task.
Also, I try to include a handful of dry-fruits.
Your sub headings are super interesting. Besan ka chilla is my all time fave breakfast