Growing children are often hungry between meals especially after school and before school clubs. Snacks are a great opportunity to add in extra nutrients into your child’s diet and stop them getting hangry!
Packaged snacks for children tend to be extremely unhealthy - often full of refined flour, added processed sugars, and artificial ingredients.
Try out these options below and fill your child’s tummy with whole foods that will provide energy and nourishment.
- Yogurt - Greek Yogurt is an excellent snack for kids as it’s a good source of protein and calcium. There are also some good healthy dairy alternatives too. Yogurts aimed at children tend to be high in sugar, so I would suggest a plain full fat yogurt which you can add fruit, nuts, oats, seeds etc to add variety and increase nutrition.
- Popcorn - A very quick, easy, high fibre nutritious whole grain snack as long as its lightly seasoned. Try adding cinnamon and/or health supporting essential oils as an alternative.
- Mini Frittatas - Another easy way to pack in lots of nutrition into a portable snack. As they can be eaten hot or cold, they provide high quality, inexpensive protein keeping children fuller for longer. This is a great snack for after school or before a school club try out the recipe on my blog here
- Vetables and Dips - Kids will happily crunch on vegetables such as Carrots, Cucumbers, Sweet Peppers with homemade hummus.
- Fruit Pairings - If children tend to get hungry quickly after having fruit as a snack, considering pairing with a nut butter or cheese. The added protein and healthy fats will provide sustenance and longer lasting energy. Try sliced apple with almond butter or pear with ricotta cheese.
- Energy Balls - Energy Balls containing oats, nut butter, a natural sweetener and add ins such as seeds, dark chocolate, dried fruit, essential oils provide variety to this easy and portable snack. Oats are filling and full of fibre while the nut butter provides much needed healthy fats.
- Smoothies - A well-balanced smoothie with plenty of greens, seeds and natural sweetness from berries can be quickly blitz up and tastes so good, the kids won’t even know they contain vegetables. Smoothies can be poured into Lolly moulds too for a healthy ice lolly to cool down with during the summer months.
- Quesadilla - Fillings for quesadillas are endless and it’s easy to sneak in extra veggies too. Pack them with a variety of nourishing foods to keep kids full until dinner time!