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If you pack school lunch for your child daily, that’s about 180 lunches per child per year. You’d be hard-pressed to find a parent who isn’t interested in school lunch recipes that go easy on the budget. Luckily, pantry staples like rice, canned beans, and ramen noodles cook up quickly in big batches that you can prep ahead of time and turn into an endless number of satisfying lunches. These are some of our favorite cheap lunch ideas for kids that will give you a week — and more! — of easy options.
Rice
Rice is the most eaten food in the world with good reason: no ingredient gives you better bang for your buck. We cook a big batch of rice on Sunday — or double what we’re cooking for dinner to ensure leftovers — and turn it into a week of lunches.
Quickie Rice and Beans
An affordable way to turn rice into a nutritious lunch is to combine it with drained and rinsed canned beans. The classic combination satisfies with nothing more than a sprinkle of salt and squeeze of lemon or lime, but you can pack any fixings you have on hand. Our favorite combos are rice and black beans with a side of canned corn and shredded cheese; or rice and chickpeas with crumbled feta tossed with olive oil and lemon juice.
Leftovers Protein Bowls
Use up leftovers and your favorite on-hand condiments to build a rice bowl with our easy formula: rice + protein + veg + sauce. From there, get creative! Craving Korean flavors? Add leftover ground beef, shredded carrots, sliced cuke, scallion, and dress with a gochujang vinaigrette. For a barbecue chicken bowl, top your rice with canned corn, frozen peas, a drizzle of barbecue sauce and shredded cheese.
Cheesy Rice Patties
Cheesy rice patties turn leftover plain leftover rice into a crispy, golden brown treat with nothing more than an egg, shredded cheese, salt and pepper. Level up your patties by adding any combination of garlic powder, onion powder, scallions, and/or leftover veg (broccoli is our favorite!). Fry them up in a pan and pack with a tasty dipping sauce.
Fried Rice
Fried rice is the ultimate use of leftover rice and doesn’t have to be packed with tons of expensive ingredients or sauces. We make a school lunch version using nothing more than egg and frozen peas or canned corn (both if you have them). The flavor comes from frying the rice in butter and finishing with soy sauce. A squeeze of Sriracha goes a long way too.
Japanese Rice Balls
Inspired by traditional Japanese rice balls called onigiri, we make a super simple version with warm rice rolled up with frozen peas. Sprinkle yours with furikake or pack the rice balls alongside seaweed snacks. When there’s room in the budget, make a canned tuna or salmon salad to stuff into your rice balls or — if that sounds tricky — pack alongside the rice balls and seaweed snacks. It’s such a tasty combination.
Beans
Affordable, varied, and long-lasting, canned beans are another life-saving pantry staple. And the best part is that they are ready to use as soon as you open the can. In addition to rice and beans, here are four ideas to pack a week of lunches with two cans.
Cheaper-Than-Tuna Sandwich
A great cold lunch idea that you can prepare in advance is chickpea “tuna” salad. Mashed chickpeas mixed with all the same ingredients you’d use to make a tuna or chicken salad sandwich makes for a remarkably satisfying dupe that’s just as protein-packed and way more affordable.
Protein-Packed Quesadilla
You may default to using black beans for a quesadilla, but nearly any kind of bean works great when you sandwich it between two tortillas with delicious melty cheese. If you have leftover veg that work, add them too.
Cheaters Falafel
If you’re working with a can of chickpeas — or even cannellini beans — you can throw them into a food processor with water, parsley, some spices, and a little bit of flour to make a mixture that fries up into falafel balls. These are delicious served with a dipping sauce or tucked into pita pockets with lettuce, tomato, and some garlicky yogurt.
Pasta e Fagioli Salad
Instead of making a soup, we often toss beans with cooked elbow pasta to make a hearty make-ahead pasta salad. A classic Italian vinaigrette is all you need to pull the two ingredients together, but if you have any combination of salami, mini mozzarella balls, jarred roasted red peppers or pepperoncini, you can add them too.
Ramen
You’ll never find our pantries without ramen, perhaps the most affordable (and tastiest?!) carb in the entire supermarket. We’re always happy to prepare it as directed for lunch day, but here are four other ways you can turn five packages of ramen into five lunches for the entire week.
Peanut Noodles
You’ll find lots of recipes for ramen peanut noodles that ditch the seasoning packet, but you paid for it, so we say put it to good use! We make peanut sauce by whisking together peanut butter, the seasoning packet, and just enough noodle cooking water to achieve the right consistency. If you want a little spice, add a squirt of Sriracha too. Just make sure you’re only packing this if your child’s school isn’t nut-free!
Ramen Salad
The ramen noodles in this salad soften over time, so this lunch idea needs to be made ahead. Make the dressing by microwaving a neutral oil, cider vinegar, the seasoning packet and sugar; whisk to ensure that everything is well incorporated. Combine crushed noodles with chopped fresh broccoli, frozen peas, and/or canned corn and toss with the dressing. Then let the magic happen!
Noodle Stir Fry
You’ll want to start with cooked noodles for this — so quickly microwave them while you prep other ingredients like chopped veggies or shredded protein. Keep this budget-friendly by using veg you already have leftover, in your freezer, or in the pantry (canned). If you have a favorite stir-fry sauce, use it. Otherwise, soy sauce, a dash of sesame oil, the flavor packet and a little water make a great base.
Mac-and-Cheese
Yes, you can turn ramen noodles into mac and cheese. Cook the noodles according to the package, drain most of the water, and skip the seasoning packet. Add some shredded cheese and a few splashes of milk to make a creamy sauce. You can build serious flavor by adding a dash of hot sauce and a pinch of dried mustard.
PHOTO CREDIT: courtesy of the authors
