Back-to-school season is upon us with school starting in just about a month for us. That means that once again, I’ll be tasked with creating school lunches that my daughter will actually eat. Sure, she’ll eat PB & J a couple of times, but I definitely need a good collection of school lunch ideas to get me through this next school year.
You see, my daughter is a very picky eater and though she’s slowly getting better about expanding her palette, it’s still very hard to get her to eat more and different foods. One major issue for her is meat – there’s very few she’ll truly eat. Recently though, I’ve convinced her to try ground turkey, building on the fact that she already loves turkey bacon. She’s also a fan of ranch dressing, so we used that to sell her on a new school lunch idea!
Bunny Garden School Lunch Idea with a Ranch Turkey Burger Slider
This is our first time trying a cute lunch design following the bento lunch style, but we thought it would be fun to dress up her ranch turkey burger slider as a bunny! Combined with a some fruits and veggies, we were able to create a bunny garden to fit in a bento-style container – the best part is my girl helped with the creation and actually ate it!
Ingredients:
- Ground turkey
- Ranch dressing
- Slider buns or small rolls
- Cheese
- Deli meat
- Seaweed sheets
- Shredded carrots
- Fruit of your choosing – I used cantaloupe and honeydew melons since my girl likes them and they added pretty colors to our bunny garden.
Materials Needed:
- Small cookie or vegetable cutters with fun designs
- Small knife
- Kitchen scissors
- Divided lunch container – I’m loving this Cool Gear Collapsible Bento Box that was provided to us by Walmart!
- Lunch bag large enough to hold your bento lunch container – I plan to use the Arctic Zone Hi-Top Power Pack Walmart sent us, which perfectly fits our new bento box!
Directions:
- Season defrosted ground turkey to your liking – I kept it simple for my daughter using only adobo and black pepper.
- Add ranch dressing to the ground turkey and mix in well.
- Shape ground turkey into mini hamburger patties that will fit your slider buns and cook on the grill or stovetop.
- Using the small knife, cut bunny ears from the cheese. We used a cheddar cheese block so the ears would be thicker and stand better. You can also create bunny cheeks by cutting out small cheese circles.
- Using the scissors or a small circle cutter, cut out the eyes and bunny nose from the deli meat.
- With the scissors, cut thin strands from the seaweed sheets to create bunny whiskers. You can also cut out really small dots to add pupils to your bunny eyes.
- Assemble your bunny burger slider by placing your cooked turkey burger patty on the slider bun and adding toppings your child likes, such as lettuce and cheese. I cut out small cheese flowers with a cookie cutter to add another element of fun.
- Arrange your bunny face on the top of your slider bun, making small indentations on the bun to help the bunny ears stand. We let our girl create her own bunny after providing her with the various pre-cut elements!
- Layer a bed of shredded carrots under the bunny burger slider and use either cupcake liners or small containers to hold side items. I used small vegetable cutters to cut out flowers and stars from the fruit and cheese as sides for this bunny garden.
I am so excited to see what other fun combinations we can come up with for my daughter’s school lunches! They won’t all be this fancy, but I can continue to add some fun in simple ways, such as cutting fruit into fun shapes. Hopefully, with enough variety, plus the whimsical factor, we’ll both love packing school lunches this school year!
How do you add some fun when packing school lunches?
Disclosure: As a participant in the Walmart Moms Program, I received samples and compensation for my time and efforts in creating this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
All photos © Melanie Edwards/modernmami™
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