Thanksgiving Lunch for Kids

Kids love themes. OK, I love themes. Either way, themed food is a fun way to get kids excited about meal time and trying new things, but some themed meals can be a bit over the top — and many kids don’t want a cutesy meal with eyes staring back at them!

When thinking up a Thanksgiving-Inspired Lunch Idea, I wanted to do a simple, laid-back version of the “big meal” that parents could have children help prepare and would feel like a mini Thanksgiving Supper for lunch!

Corn on the cob might not seem like a lunch option, much less one that kids can help make, but my trick is to buy the corn with the hulls intact and microwave them for 3 minutes. They steam perfectly and my daughter loves finding “her age” on the buttons.

We always keep dried cranberries in our house — they are a great healthy add-in for recipes, like my Pumpkin Pepito and Cranberry Cookies, and, of course, the kids just love them! You can place the cranberries in their own pile, or incorporate them into the sandwich wrap.

I had the children all make their own sandwich wraps for this lunch, by setting up a simple sandwich station and inviting them over once at a time so that I could slowly walk them each through the process. (It is usually a good idea to start preparing for lunch early on any day that you involve the kids in the kitchen!)

For these wraps, I used luncheon turkey, but shredded, leftover turkey would work just as well — you could even use my Healthy Chicken Salad recipe to make a Healthy Turkey Salad. I set up the wrap, slices of brie cheese, and separated pieces of turkey meat on a cutting board and encouraged each child to assemble their sandwich however they’d like. After all of the ingredients were assembled, I showed each child how to roll the wrap-up and then hold it as they cut it in half.

The kids loved this Thanksgiving-inspired Lunch, and I loved that they found a completely healthy and balanced meal (with no gimmicks) to be so exciting!

What would you add or change about this Thanksgiving-inspired Lunch for Kids? Please be sure to leave a comment, and if you’d like to read more posts by me, check out my sites, Study at Home Mama and In the Kids’ Kitchen, or follow me on Pinterest.