Easy Vegan Lunch Ideas For Kids

These easy vegan lunch ideas for kids are both nutritious and delicious. A list of a variety of options to break out of that bored lunch phase!

From colorful veggie wraps to protein-packed salads, these recipes make plant-based eating fun and satisfying. Fuel the day with wholesome ingredients and creative flavors that will keep kids energized and excited about their meals.

This post was originally published on December 14, 2015.

Making lunches can be one of the things I dread the most. As easy as it sounds, it's not my favorite. I love using these ideas and even creating a vegan lunch meal plan to follow!

Vegan Lunches For Kids

It's easy to get into a lunch rut, and as creative as you think you are, your brain may not cooperate when you need it most. So this list of vegan lunch box ideas will keep you from hating the every day lunch making task!

As we all know, you can't just throw one thing in the lunch box every day, day after day. Kids (all people really) like variety, at least to an extent. Pick one or two items from each section below to build a vegan lunch for school kids will be excited to eat!

Ideas for Mains

When it comes to vegan kids lunches, you need to make sure to include something that will fill them up. Skip the deli meat sandwich and try any of these:

• Avocado sandwich - avocado, bread, and a touch of lemon pepper if your kids are adventurous.
• Nut/sun butter banana rolls - spread butter on tortilla, top with thinly sliced bananas, roll & cut.
• Cooked pasta with chopped veggies - see recipe card below for instructions
• Nut/sun butter & jelly sandwich or burrito - put on bread or in a pita or tortilla
• Hummus & cucumber sandwich - spread hummus and top with thinly sliced cucumber.
• Vegan spinach grilled cheese sandwich or quesadilla - fresh spinach and vegan cheese grilled into a sandwich or a quesadilla.
• Bean burrito - include vegan cheese too!
• Vegan quesadilla - with beans
• Veggie pinwheels
• Rice salad - favorite rice mixed with veggies, works great with leftover dinner veggies.
• Veggie burger nuggets - I use my veggie burger recipes but bake them into nuggets.
• Mashed chickpea sandwich
• Grilled Burritos - these have become a huge favorite!
• Any leftovers from food they actually ate (dream big my friends, dream big)
• Bagel sandwich - fits perfectly in the big container area.
• Open faced bagel with vegan cream cheese - you can top with thinly sliced fruit or veggies (cucumbers, tomatoes, peaches, fresh figs, etc).
• Open faced rice cake sandwich - spread rice cake with peanut butter, vegan cream cheese or hummus and top with thinly sliced veggies, nuts, dried fruit, seeds.
• Mashed bean and avocado roll up - mash beans on tortilla, mash avocado over beans, roll and cut into pieces.
• Pita bread, bagel pizza, or English muffin pizza - (spread pizza sauce on top, add thinly sliced veggies if desired, sprinkle vegan cheese on top and bake in toaster or regular oven)
• Seaweed snack roll ups
• Mexican pizza
• Polenta quesadillas

Fruit and Veggie Ideas

No matter if you're making classic, vegan, or vegetarian kids lunches, you should include some produce! Not only are fruit and veggies tasty, they're nutritious too.

Don't forget to include some vegan ranch dressing for dipping the veggies!

• Banana
• Apples
• Tangerines
• Strawberries, blackberries, raspberries
• Grapes
• Kiwi
• Mango
• Peaches
• Pineapple
• Carrots
• Celery
• Peas
• Zucchini & yellow squash, cut into sticks or rounds
• Broccoli (both raw and roasted, see recipe card below for roasting instructions)
• Cauliflower (both raw and roasted, see recipe card below for roasting instructions)
• Cucumbers
• Green beans
• Asparagus spears (slightly blanched, see recipe card below for blanching instructions)
• Roasted radishes (see recipe card below for roasting instructions)
• Thinly sliced lettuce or cabbage
• Apple nachos (put the caramel dip and toppings in it's own container)
• Veggie tots

Snacks and Extra Treat Ideas:

A vegan lunch for school should be just as fun as any other lunch! Kids love snacks and treats, might as well give them something they're excited about!

• Beans - simply freshly made or rinsed canned beans on the side
• Pretzels
• Dried fruit
• Dried fruit and sunflower seed mix -or nuts if they can have them
• Homemade trail mix - dried fruit, seeds and/or nuts, oh's cereal, other favorite dry cereal, coconut flakes, etc. all mixed together
• Dry cereal
• Granola - try this homemade granola, it's amazing!
• Granola bar or Larabar (if not nut free)
• Apple butter sandwiches - nut/sun butter in sliced apples
• Hummus - see my Greek hummus recipe  or my white bean hummus recipe
• Crispy tofu - I simply do the tofu portion of this recipe
• Ants on a log - spread nut/sun butter in a celery stick and top with raisins or dried cranberries for red ants
• Muffin or healthy breakfast type cookie - like these banana oatmeal cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, or breakfast cookies, and these apple cinnamon muffins
• Waffle sticks - waffles cut into sticks
• Raw treats like bars or balls - see my raw superfood balls, brownie batter bites, or these pumpkin pie protein balls
• Chocolate avocado pudding (take out caramel layer)
• Freeze dried fruit
• Fresh fruit and treat skewers - cut up fruit into cubes and put on a wooden skewer switching off between fruit and chocolatey treats like balls mentioned above or chocolate covered fruit (not for small children due to wooden skewer)
• Crispy chickpeas (see recipe card below for instructions)
• Cranberry crumble oatmeal bars
• Vegan parmesan potato chip rounds
• Banana oat blender muffins

Common Questions

More Kid Friendly Vegan Recipes

Having plenty of school lunch ideas is great, but kids need breakfast and dinner too! Keep those kids happy with any of these recipes:

Review of the PlanetBox lunchboxes:

Planetbox gave me these products to try at home back in 2015, I did not receive payment other than this to write this post. I still use these all as of the time I updated this post!

I used the PlanetBox setup for two weeks to see what I loved, didn't love, and got feedback from the boys on what they thought. First off, their water bottle, the BottleRocket, is top notch. Seriously.

Don't even get me started on most water bottles out there. This one is uber easy to clean, the boys can open and close it without a tantrum (key), and they are sturdy (made of stainless steel like the lunch box).

For the lunchbox, we used the Rover, it comes with two cute containers as well (note: the containers have been updated so see their site for the newest version with the silicone tops which I think are way better than the ones we have). It is also easy to open/close, and best part of all is that it is easy to clean! The one we were using before had deep containers and it was so hard to get in there with a dish brush (I hate sponges but that's a post for another time).

But this one has deep enough containers to hold food but shallow enough to clean easily. Perfect happy medium. Yay! An added bonus is the adorable customizable magnets the kids can use to decorate the top.

My boys really love picking theirs out each day and I feel it makes them own their lunch a little more. So overall, I would totally recommend the PlantBox. We love them and am so happy to have made the switch. I see these lasting for a very very long time, especially with the addition of customizable magnets!