We’ve collected a bunch of back to school ideas for meals, with tons of recipes to help you get into the swing of the school year hustle.
Summer may be ending, but we hope you can find some ideas—from packed lunches to busy weeknight dinners—to soften the blow!
Delicious weeknight and school lunch recipes
I think the worst thing about summer is when the back-to-school messages start rolling in in JULY. I mean, let us enjoy our summer! You won’t see us talking about back-to-school until the last possible week.
Alas, now that it’s late August, back-to-school time really is right around the corner (or perhaps has already begun).
There are busy weeknights to think about (many of our family members who are parents practically live on our Quick and Easy section!), school lunches, easy breakfasts, and energy-giving after-school snacks.
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and Snacks covered
If you have a picky kid or just want to go above and beyond on your school lunch game—or you’re an adult looking for meal prep ideas to pack for work, we hope you’ll find some inspiration.
Life’s too short to eat sandwiches all the time, and sometimes a sandwich and a yogurt cup just isn’t the most satisfying option. Who else out there has shuttled the same yogurt cup or granola bar back and forth between your backpack and the refrigerator all week?
(Only in our later high school years did we crack the code on lunch, realizing that a hot thermos was the key to having delicious lunches when you didn’t have access to a microwave.)
We’ve also got fast and easy breakfasts, dinners, and after-school snacks covered. Looking back at our childhood years, I sometimes can’t believe how much food Sarah and I ate when we were in our growing phase.
I mean, we’d have our three meals a day plus an after school snack of bacon sandwiches (if we were lucky) or a bowl of noodles. My point? We needed fuel! And variety!
Hopefully you find some new recipes to add into your rotation!
We have 7 categories of recipes to share:
- Miscellaneous busy weeknight dinners
- Rice cooker recipes
- Fast stir-fries
- School day breakfasts
- Recipes you can eat with your hands (and throw into lunch boxes)
- After school snacks
Misc. Recipes for busy weeknight dinners
5-Minute Eggs with Soy Sauce & Scallions
A weeknight warrior in our household—this can be an easy dinner with rice and veggies or round out other dishes that you might have planned to make sure everyone gets enough protein!
Five Spice Chicken
Baked chicken was one of my mom’s favorite things to cook when we were kids. She would season chicken leg quarters or thighs the night before, lay them out on a baking tray, and when she got home, pop it into the oven while she made rice and a stir-fried vegetable.
Oyster Sauce Baked Chicken Wings
Flavorful, crispy, and special enough to bring everyone back to life after a long day of work or studying and chat around the dinner table!
Rou Zao Fan: Taiwanese Braised Minced Pork over Rice (肉燥饭)
These minced meat braises are an unsung hero of weeknight dinners. They’re so easy, because there’s no meat prep! Just grab a couple packs of ground pork and you’re off!
Chinese Spaghetti Bolognese
This is a super satisfying and unique alternative to cracking open a jar of tomato sauce with your spaghetti. We absolutely love it and the mild flavors are kid approved! If you’re looking for something new to do with a packet of ground beef, this is your recipe.
15-Minute Lazy Noodles
The name of the recipe says it all!
Lemongrass Chicken Banh Mi
For when you want something different and exciting, but not an all-day kitchen project! You can prepare the chicken in advance (perhaps over the weekend), and then assemble the sandwiches later.
The Best Ham and Bean Soup
Make it on a Sunday and serve it the next day! This is also a freezer-friendly recipe, and makes a big batch, so you’ll have leftovers for future lunches and dinners.
Put it all in the rice cooker
Another weeknight go-to of Chinese households, these satisfying one-pot meals couldn’t be easier. You can go truly effortless and just throw some Chinese sausage or a can of dace fish with black beans into the rice cooker pot, or put in a little bit of extra effort by marinating ribs. Either way, you can’t go wrong!
Chinese Sausage Rice Cooker Rice (Lap Cheong Fan)
This is a classic in Cantonese households. It took us a while to even publish the “recipe” because it’s so dang easy, we weren’t even sure if it qualified as a recipe!
Rice Cooker Ribs and Rice
Marinate some pork ribs the night before, and the next day, assemble this satisfying kid-friendly dinner.
One Pot Rice Cooker Rice with Dace Fish
This is an oldie from the 90s in our family. My mom would keep cans of dace in black bean sauce in the pantry, and on a really busy night, make this recipe. It’s super tasty, and you can add a packet of frozen veggies to the rice cooker to make the meal more balanced!
Fast stir-fries
We know that there’s a number of you that haunt the Quick and Easy section of our site! These easy stir-fries are a one and done, with equal parts meat and veggies. They’re satisfying over some white rice—or quinoa rice if you want to get in a little more protein and whole grains!
from left to right, top to bottom:
- Beef Onion Stir Fry
- Chicken & Asparagus Stir Fry
- Beef and Broccoli
- Ultimate Braised Tofu
- Beef Vegetable Stir Fry
- Scallion Ginger Beef and Tofu Stir-Fry
Recipes that you can eat with your hands (for school lunches)
We’ve got a surprising number of grab-and-go foods that can be eaten with your hands, perhaps clutched in a paper towel or bundled in some foil on the way to work or school—or stashed inside of lunch bags.
Steamed Vegetable Buns
Vegetarian-friendly and easy to eat, these are a healthy option for breakfast, lunch, or a snack!
Pork Chive Dumplings (and homemade dumpling wrappers)
These dumplings can be eaten warm out of the microwave or stored hot in a lunch bag and enjoyed at room temperature by the time lunch rolls around! Pork and chive will always be our favorite, but sub in your favorite dumpling!
Hot Dog Buns
These are a treat! An easy to eat hot dog bun wrapped in fluffy milk bread! Talk about the stuff of school lunch dreams! Rest assured, this will never be traded away! You can make them the classic way or into these fun flower shapes!
Chinese BBQ Pork Buns (Baked Char Siu Bao Recipe)
If you’ve made a batch of char siu bao, these sweet and hearty treats are a thrilling substitute to your standard sandwich!
Chinese Curry Puffs with Beef
We have it on good authority that adults and kids love these! Little packets of beef wrapped in puff pastry are a welcome sight for anyone. You can lean on store-bought pastry to make them, freeze them unbaked, and then bake them off the night before, at the start of the week, or as you need them (they bake well in a toaster oven for smaller batches).
Perfect Baked Japanese Sweet Potatoes
These make for a fantastic snack—something sweet yet nutritious and filling to round out a school lunch.
Taiwanese Beef Rolls
It’s carbs wrapped around meat, but don’t do it the disservice of calling it a sandwich. Wrap them tightly in foil like you would a burrito to keep them warm and prevent them from unrolling!
Chinese Tea Eggs
If you enjoy hard-boiled eggs as a high protein snack or lunch companion, consider breaking up the monotony by making these fragrant Chinese tea eggs instead. They take a little bit of planning, as they need an overnight soak, but you can make a big batch on the weekend and reach for them all week long.
Back to School breakfast Recipes
Breakfasts look different for every household, but it shouldn’t be just a weekend indulgence. It should be something you consider all week long.
That said, a lot of these items are probably best prepared on the weekend when you’ve got a little more free time. But once they’re made, you can just grab them and head out the door!
Savory
from left to right, top to bottom:
- Bacon Scallion Milk Bread
- Shanghai Scallion Flatbread (上海羌饼)
- Homemade Artisan Sourdough Bread
- Hua Juan (Chinese Scallion Flower Rolls/Steamed Buns)
- Multigrain Bread
- Homemade English Muffins
- Pumpkin English Muffins
- Cornbread (a flexible low-sugar recipe + our original classic cornbread)
Sweet
from left to right, top to bottom:
- Mango Muffins with Oatmeal Crumb Topping
- Chocolate Nutella Rolls
- Peanut Butter and Jelly Scones
- Banana Bread
After school snacks
Something about those growing years usually means kids are ravenous when they come home. Sarah and I always needed an afternoon bowl of cold noodles, instant noodles, a hot pocket, or plate of dumplings.
15 Minute After-School Special Noodles
This was my and Sarah’s go-to. As latchkey kids, the one thing we were responsible enough to do was boil water for this after school plate of cold noodles. The other thing we were allowed to do was operate the toaster oven or microwave, but that was all! Luckily, that was really all we needed!
Bacon in a Wok & After School Sandwiches
For a brief few years, we actually had a couple of Chinese nannies! Our first nanny will always be the best one, because she tended our little backyard patch of garden like it was her own, and she was the best cook!
She would make us these wok bacon sandwiches every so often and boy oh boy were they the best treat ever when usually we would just have two pieces of bacon with breakfast on the weekends! Imagine biting into one of these as a little kid!
Sesame Scallion Waffles
These waffles can be made all in one go and frozen just like an Eggo, then re-toasted. They’re a unique alternative to a sweet frozen waffle.
Ban Fan, a Simple Chinese mixed rice bowl
This is easy and filling enough to make for kids after school. Just fry up some eggs and pop some rice in the rice cooker or heat up leftover. Mix it up and you’ve got a kid or adult friendly snack (or even an easy dinner)!
Do you have any favorite weeknight dinner or school lunch recipes to share? Let us know in the comments below!
