When it comes to snacks and mealtime, my kids tend to be creatures of habit – they could eat the same foods over and over if I let them! I was feeling burned out on lunches a while back, so I decided to take a page from Lindsay Kingdon’s (a fave blogger of mine) book and make a snack tray with a variety of finger foods for them. Since then, I’ve made so many variations that I thought I’d share some of my favorite easy snack tray ideas with you guys in case you need inspiration!
Healthy and Easy Snack Tray Ideas for Kids
I like to start with a variety of ingredients for the snack tray, but my focus is on protein, veggies and fruit (depending on what we have on hand!). I will also include a few “fun” foods that aren’t quite as healthy, but I’ve found that my girls will naturally gravitate toward the protein and veggies first when given the option – who knew?! These are some of my favorite easy snack tray ideas:
- Deli turkey and ham
- Cheese cubes
- Mini bean and cheese quesadillas
- Peanut butter crackers
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Carrots
- Hummus
- Cucumber slices
- Strawberries
- Grapes
- Apple slices
- Blueberries
- Banana slices
- Pineapple
- Orange slices
- Plantain chips
- Crackers
- Pretzels
- Animal crackers
- Goldfish
- Cereal
- Dried fruit
- Nuts
Putting Your Snack Tray Together
It’s so easy to throw this together once you’ve gone through easy snack tray ideas and picked your ingredients! Chances are, you have a muffin tin in your cabinet that probably doesn’t get a whole lot of use (at least ours doesn’t!) – grab that and get ready to make the easiest snack tray ever. Having all of your ingredients laid out makes things easier! I like to begin by adding all types of proteins – it usually ends up taking 4 or so of the cups for this. Then, I’ll add in the veggies and fruit options, which takes up another 4-5 of the cups. Finally, I’ll fill in the remaining cups with less healthy items like crackers, chips, cookies, etc. The key here is to fill each cup at random so all of the ingredients are spread out across the muffin tin. It makes it easy for both kids to grab different types of food and I’ll often try to put things like cheese or deli meat in two different spaces for easy access.
I love making these for the girls, not only because it’s so easy, but they seem to eat more and not pick at their lunches like they have a tendency to do. It’s also a good way to use up small amounts of leftovers in your fridge at the end of the week before your next grocery trip! PS – check out my tips for meal planning here to make grocery shopping easier.
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