Cold weather or not, soups are always a great idea to pack for lunch! They can be made ahead of time, served for dinner, and the leftovers packed for lunch later in the week. Plus, soup is always better the second day.
In this post, I am going to share with you my family’s favorite soups to bring to school and the office; and therefore, they are my best soups to pack inside a thermos for lunch!
Thermos Soup Recipes
On cold winter days, there is no better lunch to pack for school than a delicious warm soup! For older kids, I use one of these classic thermoses and with younger kids I use these bright Funtainer thermoses.
Be sure to fill your child’s thermos with one of these delicious soups for lunch this week! If you are new to packing thermos lunches, I’ll walk you through everything you need to know below!
How to Pack Soup in a Thermos
When packing soup for lunch, it’s important that you keep everything hot! Make sure that the soup is piping hot before placing it in the thermos. While the soup is heating up, you can preheat the thermos as well.
I’ll walk you through the process step-by-step so you can pack hot soup lunches all winter long:
- Boil water
In a kettle or pot, boil some water. - Preheat the thermos
Pour the boiling water inside of the thermos container. Close it with the lid and let it heat up for about 5 minutes. - Heat up the soup
Grab the soup container from the fridge, open the lid a little to let the steam escape, and place the container in the microwave for one minute. Stir and heat up again for an additional minute. The soup must be pipping hot, meaning you would burn your lips if you do a taste test -don’t do it! - Pack the soup
Drain the water out of the thermos and immediately pour the heated soup inside. Close with the lid and pack it in a lunch bag.
Check out this video to see the process:
What is the Best Thermos Container for Hot Soup?
If you want your soup to stay warm, you will NEED a durable thermos container to pack any of these delicious soups or hot lunch. Check out my top thermos picks to see which one is the right fit for your family.
At the end of the day, the best soups to pack in a thermos for lunch, in my book, are simple recipes that incorporate ingredients that I keep a stock of in my fridge or pantry.
That’s another reason I love using the Weekly Meal Plan for my family. The recipes always help me incorporate ingredients we love and leftovers make terrific thermos lunches!
How to Freeze Soup for Future Lunches
Go for it! These recipes are 100% freezer-friendly. Place the chilled soup into a large freezer bag and freeze for up to 2 months for a family-sized meal.
For a thermos serving, transfer 1 cup to 1 ½ cups of chilled soup into a quart freezer bag. This will vary by thermos but a 1 cup is a decent lunch serving.
To use, thaw in the fridge before heating and enjoying.
Which one of the soups above will you make first?
Still wondering what to pack?
Download my Printable Lunchbox Builder to turn the ingredients you already have into lunch ideas in minutes, or browse hundreds more kid-approved lunch recipes here.
Christy says
If making soup, my son likes lipton chicken noodle from box, I make the soup in am and then add to thermos how do u do it so the noodles r not mushy?
MOMables-Laura says
Hi Christy, I can’t really provide any tips to prevent the Lipton noodles from getting mushy. Soup mix pasta has a different, softer texture than dried noodles used in homemade soup.