The Summer Meal Plan Every Parent Needs

I started planning the summer in February, and actually felt like the kids’ activities were squared away: camps, outings, kits, books, devices, scooters, travel plans—check! What else do I need to sustain this precarious summer dynamic where two elementary kids need plenty of entertainment, sunshine, and rest while I need to work from home and just generally TCB?

Oh, I need to feed them.

This is not going to be a list of new recipes to try with your kids this summer or a suggestion that you subscribe to a fun box and teach them how to cook. This advice is about getting food into your children all day, every day so you can spend less time worrying about it and get back to work (or a nap, a book, or whatever you are doing to make summer dreams come true for you too.)

I’ve come up with ideas to make kid meals and snacks easier so they don’t become speed bumps all summer. Potential food speed bumps: being interrupted by snack requests 37 times a day, staring into the fridge at noon with no plan for what to feed the kids, or asking what they want and trying to satisfy everyone’s wildest fantasies at once. Here’s how to avoid those speed bumps.

Create a cafeteria lunch menu

School cafeteria programs are kind of genius for providing both choice and predictability. I started by asking my kids what were their favorite things to eat in the school cafeteria and turned that into a weekly menu. Where their favorites overlap, we have one main option for the day. When they differ, I pair two easy options and give them the “choice.”

Our summer home cafeteria menu looks like this:

Each day they get a side (whatever’s convenient) and a fruit/veg choice, just like at school. Depending on the activities of the day and my bandwidth, I can choose to pick up something premade or make it at home.

Set up self-serve breakfast

At ages 6 and 9, my kids are finally sleeping late(ish). That means that I can actually sleep late(ish)! Or if I wake up earlier than they do, I can get started on work. Grab-your-own breakfast makes this morning flexibility easier for all of us. Good grabbable options: cereal, oatmeal cups, yogurt, muffins, frozen waffles and pancakes, pre-made breakfast sandwiches (for the microwave savvy kid), and prepped fruit.

I confess that, so far this summer, I’ve been prepping the kids’ breakfast when they wake up because it’s a nice chance to check in and set up our day together. But I still like knowing I could yell from another room to, “get your own breakfast,” and they would be fine.

Give in to snacks instead of meals?

Controversial opinion, but snacks are food just like meals are food. Kids eat a lot or a little, often or infrequently, depending on the day. I’ve done a lot of personal work to deprogram myself from diet culture and food moralizing so that my kids can eat according to what their bodies tell them. That means if my daughter spends the morning eating Cheez-its, pecans, and pickles so she isn’t hungry for lunch, it’s cool. I’m not stressing about snacks this summer or stressing my kids about when they’re allowed to be hungry.

Purge the backlog with a snack tray

That said, constantly snacking kids tend to leave half-empty and improperly-closed packages of food shoved haphazardly in the pantry (if you are lucky enough to get them to put things away). And then they open a new package of something rather than reaching for the one that’s almost empty.

We all have a collection of fun little compartmentalized trays, and this is their time to shine. Once or twice a week, treat the kids and yourself to a cutely curated snack tray that cleans up the odds and ends in the pantry and fridge. The last three strawberries, a random cheese stick, a handful of pretzels and crackers, a tiny box of raisins, and the last two Oreos? What a thoughtful little snack tray to amuse the kids while they play Mario all afternoon! Whatever’s left over, you can confidently trash.

Declare it a popsicle summer

I’m talking about those colorful plastic tubes you buy in a pack of 100 or anything on a stick. Keep a box on hand at all times. How does this make life easier for you?

Packing lunches for camp

Were you lucky enough to book a few day camps this summer so your kids are occupied from like 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.? Well done! You will probably have to send them with a packed lunch, though. My advice is to focus on what your kids will actually eat in the middle of a scorching camp day instead of how other adults in the vicinity might judge your lunchbox aesthetic.

I decided what elements my kids should take every day to keep them energized and hydrated: a water bottle, other beverage, protein, salty snack, sweet snack, fruit/veg option. I’m going for convenient pre-bagged options whenever possible, and nothing that has to be cooked or kept warm. For us a camp lunch bag might look like: almonds, popcorn, chocolate chip cookies, carrot sticks, juice pouch, and a small freezer pack.

Here’s how you can tell if your summer food plan is going well: At the end of the day, the kids are fed and in bed. Then the next morning, you and the kids get up with the motivation to do it all again.

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