Lunchbox: So Easy, So Delicious, So Much Fun to Eat

by Marnie Hanel, Jen Stevenson

Build a better lunchbox with this little-to-no-cooking collection of 100 easy-to-make meals that are guaranteed to bring a little celebration to lunchtime, take the stress out of planning and packing, and fuel your child with nutritious and flavorful food.

Packing your kid’s lunch doesn’t need to be a chore. This irresistibly colourful and creative guide gives you all the tools to make delicious, healthy, and playful lunches guaranteed to nourish and delight your child.

* More than 100 nutritious lunches designed to please even the pickiest of eaters
* 60 easy-peasy recipes, from Dilly Good Chicken Salad to Banana Freezer Cookies
* Specially themed lunchboxes to celebrate Halloween, a Wiggly Tooth, the First Day of School, Eating the Rainbow, and more
* Weekly menus, meal prep guides, shopping lists, and cheat sheets

Genres: Cookbooks, Parenting, Nonfiction, Food, Cooking, Family

223 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 19, 2022

About the author

Marnie Hanel is the coauthor of The Snowy Cabin Cookbook; Summer: A Cookbook; The Campout Cookbook; and The Picnic, winner of the 2016 IACP Award for Best General Cookbook. Hanel is a journalist who writes about the wild, wonderful way we live. Her essays and articles have been published by The New York Times Magazine, Food & Wine, and Vanity Fair. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Reviews

[Bonnie Barrilleaux · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of fun ideas, if you can get over the crushing feeling of inferiority from knowing that I will never make lunches even 5% as fancy as what's in the book. These lunches are a 10 and I'm aiming for a 4, but at least it helped me level up my lunch-packing game from 3 to 4.

[Neils Barringer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am often intimidated by parents and friends posting elaborate Bento Boxes for their children and themselves when I am usually throwing bread and meat into brown paper bags and calling it lunch. However in Lunchbox the authors breakdown all the components of a Bento Box making all the recipes simple and the decorating/arranging so easy, even I could do it.
I was so proud of my creation using their guide. What I found so appealing about this book is the methodology that was put into each box. I can see how preparing food in this way not only makes you happy, but also exposes children to a wide variety of food that they might not otherwise try. I cannot wait to try more recipes and techniques from this book.
A fun bonus section includes themed boxes for various holidays and celebrations.
Wonderful pictures and excellent simple instructions!

[Sheila · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a free copy of, Lunchbox, by Marnie Hanet; Jen Stevenson, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I liked this book, full of colorful healthy lunch boxes for kids.

[joyce w. laudon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the perfect time for me to discover this book and let others know about it. School is just beginning. Are you a person who regularly needs to pack a lunch for a child you know? Would you like to do this with a bit more elan and flair?

Surprise someone by making their lunch tasty and fun. It will feel doable after spending time with this book and its many ideas.

The author begins with a chapter called Lunch Logistics. It provides all the information that is needed for the following chapters.

One of the many things that I enjoyed seeing was all the ways that a mini Babybel cheese could be decorated. This is just one of their whimsys.

The authors seem to like bento box style lunches. Many of these involve assembling not needing to know anything special about cooking or baking. Others do involve some cooking but the recipes feel very doable. For example, one lunch box includes peanut noodles (recipe included) along with apple slices, rice cracker mix, tangerine and raspberries, and edamame. Yes, the noodles are a bit more sophisticated than peanut butter and jelly but that may be just the thing. Others such as a suggested first day of school lunch are simple and creative. For example assemble a pencil whose base is cheddar cheese.

Recommended for those who are creative and view lunch as a fun challenge. Their lucky kids will enjoy opening thier lunch boxes.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Artisan Books for this title. All opinions are my own.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lunchbox: 100 Ingenious Ideas for Kid-Approved Meals is full of different ideas of snacks and lunch options for kids of all ages. I enjoyed seeing the wide variety of options and recipe ideas that I could try for my kids. There are some recipes that I know my son, who isn’t even that picky, won’t eat, but there are a lot that he will and I look forward to seeing what he thinks. The pictures in the book are amazing and really make the book! I don’t know how many of these lunchbox combinations I will actually use, but I love the wide variety and look forward to trying some of these out! If you’re looking for fun ways to mix up your kids lunch or even just their snacks, it’s worth checking out the ideas in this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book!

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is like if Pinterest had an instruction manual. There are lots of pictures of sample lunches, recipes, meal plans, shopping lists, and even ideas for upping the cute factor for holidays and special days.

If you're looking to take your packed lunches to the next level, this book will read like a master course. If you're looking for cute lunchbox inspiration, this is a slam dunk. But if you're just trying to survive the fact that you have to pack lunch every. single. day. this will probably just overwhelm you.

Thank you to Artisan Books and NetGalley for providing me with an advance reader copy to review!

[(a)lyss(a) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a cute book!

It breaks down the different kind of lunch boxes and storage as well as tips on how to help expand kids tastes. There are even jokes included in the back of the book you can include on a napkin! The book lists 100 recipes and ideas from easy to complicated with a variety of themes and foods. A number of these suggestions are adult-friendly as well!

There's some beautiful wraps, colorful meal combinations, and a lot of ideas for making lunch fun.

[Dione Hanke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book for creating lunch for kids, with ideas adults could use for eating lunch too.
Lunchbox is full of great ways to pack appetizing lunches.. There are so many different ways to create lunch by colors, holidays, animals, etc. These lunches are healthy and there is a plan for how to organize them in the box. The pictures are wonderful.
There is a day by day plan for a week with a shopping list. There is a quick list you can use in the grocery store if you did not plan before you hit the store. Anyone that packs lunch for kids should go out and buy this book right now.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a digital version of this book from NetGalley for review.

Brava!
I wish I had a book like this 25 years ago when my children were young. Of course, I hadn't heard of anything like bento boxes at that time... You don't NEED to be creative with your kiddo's lunch ideas because these ladies have taken care of all of that for you. If you ARE the creative type, there is certainly plenty of inspiration in these pages.

Recipes, plans, and shopping lists included AND tons of amazing photographs.

I may just be using this book to plan my own lunches and "tea" parties.

[Lisa Gisèle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although the ideas are cute and I can see using some on a semi regular basis (frittata) I do find a lot of the ideas quite time consuming. I can see using the themes once in a while but not on a regular basis.

The book is fun and I can see a child loving the ideas, but I cannot see myself making it a daily thing. Except the toddler ideas, I love those and would tell my friends with small children to check it out.

[Joni Owens · Rating 5 out of 5]

So cool. I would love to be the mom with the artistic lunches for my kiddos. My kids aren’t the kids that want the artistic lunches unfortunately. All that being said I found so many cool ideas I can incorporate into their lunches so they won’t get bored!

These recipes and ideas are not hard to do. And for little littles there’s so much great advice for getting kiddos ready for school lunches too.

[oohlalabooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

This came at the perfect time as my kids started first grade. The bento box layouts is the craze, no more brown bags! There’s so many examples of foods to pack, how to pack and follow the layouts, to be creative or not. The pages are bright and colorful, easy to read and follow. Thank you NetGalley, Artisan, and the author for a copy.

[Katie Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC! This book is chalk full of lunch ideas for littles. While the presentation of many of these lunches was too extravagant for me to obtain as a busy working mom, I did get plenty of ideas on ways to encourage my preschooler to eat more variety. I also got ideas on how to pack lunches and what is “ice pack” friendly.

[Connie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the visuals and the ideas... but I do wish it was a bit more general. I think that having the lunches in only 1 type of particular lunchbox was a bit deterring. Although, yes, i do know that it's the ideas... but still... couldn't help but think that i wanted make lunches the exact same way, but i can't! But the ideas ARE endless and this will and has been a great help already. Bravo!

[Baltina · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a mother to 3 school aged children it was a challenge to keep the kids excited about lunch. The recipe and ideas in this book we so helpful to help change up and level up lunchtime..a little efforr goes a long way and sure does make lunchboxes a lot cuter. If you are needing some fresh ideas for your kids lunches give this book a read.

[Emily Neilsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

My girls and I loved this book. Coming up with lunch ideas is a needed thing nowadays and this book makes them look wonderful and easy to do. I have a long list of things to try and we cannot wait to start having amazing lunches.

[Ingrid Gustafson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Colorful photographs were perfect for looking over with the kiddo to find some new lunch ideas. There are a lot of setups that are just unrealistic, both in the time and planning it takes for working parents and in knowing that there is no way it's going to look like that by the time the kid opens up their lunchbox at lunchtime.

[Jamie Votaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book of ideas for lunch with shopping lists. Super helpful and cute!!

[Gem · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up for lunch ideas for me (I’m getting tired of buying packaged things at Trader Joe’s). Lots of great ideas that would work for kids or adults.

[Kristen Barenthaler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Colorful, healthy, nutritious, and delicious; these lunches will keep your little one happy all week long.

[Zuleika · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is perfect for anyone who has ever packed a school lunch or snack and needs inspiration from the usual lunchbox fare. "Lunchbox" does just that--give bright, colorful examples of healthy lunches that kids will enjoy eating at school, in the car, picnics, etc. Fruits, vegetables, and other foods are presented in a fun and appealing way, in the actual lunch containers, without requiring too much prep work.

Thank you NetGalley and Artisan Books for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.