Kid-Friendly Spinach Muffins for a Sandwich-Free Lunchbox
While my daughter may happily munch through a sandwich with a few salad leaves added in, my son loves to take every food I lovingly make for him and pull it apart into its elements. Seriously, even pizza gets eaten in parts: toppings, cheese, then crust. And if I dare to put some spinach leaves into his favourite sandwich? I know exactly what will still be in the lunchbox when it comes home.
And when the kids have wolfed down porridge and toast for breakfast, then get given toast and fruit at snack time… giving them sandwiches in their lunchbox always makes me feel a little like they are basically just eating bread all day.
So I like to have quick, easy and fun sandwich-free options up my sleeve that I know they will eat.
And if they pack in a few veg that would normally get picked out of a sandwich?
Bonus.
The best lunchbox recipes are, in my opinion, batch-bake friendly. Because if I can make a load in one session and freeze, then pop into lunchboxes to defrost when needed, then I can avoid that last-minute panicked frenzy that occurs while everyone else calmly sits eating their breakfast and wonders why mummy hasn’t touched her now-cold coffee.
Sometimes I think the question: “what’s in my lunchbox today mummy” is even more terrifying than the “what’s for dinner” evening ramblings. Meal planning takes away the dinnertime stress, but I am not always so great at planning out lunches.
Hence the cold coffee, panicked running, and unbrushed hair.
As I slowly (very very slowly) find my feet with the lunchbox issue, I have found there are some easy last-minute solutions that can often solve the problem for me:
- Leftovers (if there are any, this is my go-to) – anything that can be served cold, sometimes spooned into a wrap, with a little extra veg and fruit on the side
- Eggs – if we haven’t already had them for breakfast, I know that I can beat a couple of eggs and pour them into a pan over some frozen or leftover cooked veg and stick it under the grill (broiler) for a few mins and have a frittata cook while we have breakfast from 30 seconds of effort
- Whatever cooked protein happens to be in the fridge with a handful of raw veg and a piece of fruit – there’s often some cooked meat or chickpeas (garbanzo beans) or beans/pulses or even a boiled egg in the fridge I can throw in with some sugar snap peas, carrot sticks, green beans, cucumber or cherry tomatoes
- Muffins – quick and easy, and even simpler when batch-baked and frozen to pull out at the last second, muffins are an easy way to get more veg, wholegrains, and good things into kids in a way they love, but with minimal effort
Like these.
Cottage cheese for protein? Check. Wholegrain flour for fibre? Check. Wilted spinach they won’t eat in other forms than muffins? Check. Quick to prep? Check. Freezer-friendly? Check. So easy that kids can make them? Check (trust me, my daughter did and 90% of the mixture actually ended up in the muffin cases rather than on my counters and floor!).
I may not be able to stop your child pulling apart the lovingly prepared sandwich and carefully discarding the salad leaves, but I can offer you an easy, more kid-friendly way to feed them the same leaves and enjoy their lunch at the same time.
Stop your child from pulling the salad leaves out of the lovingly prepared sandwich by giving them a kid-friendly fun option: easy spinach muffins!
- a little olive oil
- 200 g (4 cups) fresh spinach
- a few chive stalks
- 170 g (1 1/3 cups) wholewheat or wholegrain spelt flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 3 heaped tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan
- 1 large egg
- 150 ml (2/3 cup) milk
- 60 g (1/4 cup) unsalted butter or coconut oil, melted
- 3 heaped tablespoons cottage cheese
- sea salt & freshly ground black pepper, to taste
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Preheat to 180C/350F/gas 4. Wilt the spinach in the olive oil for a couple of mins. Set aside to cool slightly and chop finely. Finely chop the chives.
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Mix the flour, baking powder and Parmesan in a mixing bowl and season. Mix egg with milk and melted butter in a separate bowl or jug. Pour into dry ingredients, mix well and stir through the spinach, chives and cottage cheese.
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Spoon into a muffin-case-lined muffin tin (it should make about 8 muffins filled 2/3 of the way). Bake for 30 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean. Allow to cool.
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