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Dill pickles are the star of the show in this easy and one-of-a-kind bento box school lunch idea you can pack quickly with your kid’s favorite snacks!
While the name says dill, you better believe that jar of hamburger chips, bread, and butter, or homemade pickles will work just as well!
Easy School Lunch with Pickles
It’s not every day you come across a creative lunch idea like this one, but with the cheese, crackers, cherries, and crunchy dill pickle- it works!
Kids love it when their favorite snacks make it into the school lunchbox, and thanks to a compartmentalized container, it’s possible to pack this variety of ingredients and keep everything from tasting and smelling like a pickle.
I’ll usually include a yogurt parfait for extra protein, but you could swap it out with rolled deli meat, leftover grilled chicken, or a couple of hard-boiled eggs; anything goes!
What’s in a School Lunch Box with Dill Pickles
As long as it includes dill pickles, you could assemble this school lunch with any of your favorite snacks. In this box, we get:
- Crackers: any kind of cracker or crunchy snack will do.
- Pickles: use your favorite sliced or small dill pickles.
- Fruit: this lunch includes fresh cherries.
- Cheese: your favorite sliced or cubed cheese.
- Olives: an extra briny snack, but you could replace them with more pickles.
And this, my friends, is how you turn simple ingredients into a kid-approved school lunch. Want more ideas like it? You’ll find them right here:
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How to Pack a School Lunch Box with Pickles
Here’s how to pack this bento lunch without the rest of the ingredients tasting like pickles.
- Keep pickles separate
Due to their flavor, I recommend packing the pickles and olives into the same compartment, this will prevent the cheese and fruit from taking on their flavor. If you have whole pickles, you can cut them into smaller slices, so they fit. - Wet ingredients together
The fruit and cheese can go in the same compartment. If you are adding rolled deli meat or hard-boiled eggs, you can pack them here as well. - Add the dry ingredients
Place the crackers in their own compartment to prevent them from soaking up excess moisture. - 3-2-1 Take off!
Close the lunchbox and add it to a lunch bag with an ice pack.
Packing this amazing lunch for the first time watch this quick video first.
Extra tips for packing this bento box like a pro
Meal prep
This epic bento box with dill pickles can be packed ahead to save time. Assemble more than one so you can store them in the fridge, ready to go in the morning.
Keep ingredients separate
For the sake of crunchy crackers and the sweetness of fruit, be sure to place every ingredient in its own compartment. Otherwise, dill pickles and olives will make crackers soggy and make fruits taste like pickles!
Bento Box with Dill Pickles
Watch How It’s Packed:
Ingredients
- 3-4 small dill pickles
- 8 pitted olives
- 1 cup cherries or fruit of choice
- 1- ounce cheese, cut into 4 squares
- 1- ounce whole grain crackers
Instructions
- Wash the fruit and slice the cheese. Place them inside a lunch container.
- Pack the pickles and olives into the same compartment and place the crackers into a separate compartment to keep them dry.
- Close the lunchbox and place it into a lunch bag with an ice pack.
Ellen says
Adding pickles to bento boxes is a brilliantt idea! Honestly, I don’t like pickles, but my kids do!! They will love this lunch for sure.