Packing Hot Lunches For The First Cool Fall/Autumn Days

After long, hot summers, we look forward to those first crisp fall/autumn days. And with it, our daily menus start to change.

Why not change the lunch you pack for your kids as well? Salads, wraps, and cold sandwiches are great options, but when the temperatures start to drop, our little humans might like something a little warmer in their lunch box.

Soup And A Hot Sandwich

One of my favourite school lunches as a kid was tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. I mean, who doesn’t love soup and a hot sandwich for lunch on a cool, crisp day, right?

If you thought those were outside your packed lunch capabilities, think again! All it takes is a small thermos, some aluminium foil, and ideally, an insulated lunch box…And you’re sorted!

Make the soup the day before from scratch, or heat up some canned soup in the morning, right before school. Get it piping hot, and if possible, run some hot or even boiling water in the thermos first to get everything as warm as possible. Leave it for a few seconds and empty it out. Then, pour the soup in the thermos and sit it in the insulated lunch box.

Don’t forget to pack a spoon!

And, of course, don’t forget to make that important hot sandwich. Grilled cheese or grilled ham and cheese are always a favourite in our house, as is any sort of Panini.

Fix the sandwich as usual and then wrap it in foil. If you’re worried about the bread getting soggy, wrap it in a paper towel first, then the foil. Keep the sandwich in the insulated lunch box; everything should stay toasty warm for hours.

Mix and match the soup and sandwich combos for endless portable lunch possibilities.

Chili and Stew

Of course, you’re not limited to just soup!

A nice hardy stew or a bowl of chili with some corn chips or a side of fresh cornbread make a nice addition to any lunch box. Make a batch of your favourite chili or stew and put it in your kids’ lunch boxes for the following days.

Another great option is to freeze it in smaller portions and take them out as needed to add to lunch boxes. This is also a great time for you to take lunch to work or keep a bowl at home to reheat at lunchtime.

As with the soup we talked about earlier, you can get a short thermos, run hot water in it, and then fill it with the piping hot chili or stew. That will keep the lunch warm until well past lunchtime.

Leftovers Galore

Last but not least, don’t forget about leftovers. Leftovers are always great for lunch box additions. There are wide-mouthed thermos out there that can hold a variety of leftover food, from pasta dishes to things like fried rice or anything you can think of that would work well put in a bowl.

I hope you’ve found these simple hot lunch ideas helpful. Please do share some of your awesome ideas with us in the comments below.

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