The Lunch Drawer

School lunches have always been a challenge for our family, and I know I am not alone in this! Cue the frazzled mom memes. I am proud to say that it only took me 14 years of school-lunch headaches to find a great solution. For those who don’t have kids, this also applies to healthy snacks / lunches for adults too. Ta Da! The lunch drawer!

How to create a lunch drawer of your own….

We recently got a new refrigerator and the drawers were different than our old one. This made me really evaluate how I use the space in the fridge and which areas needed improvement. I have always associated stress with school lunches. These are a few of the difficult questions that plague me every week -

• what to buy?

• what to make?

• will the girls eat what I make them?

• how can I keep up with what’s being eaten?

• how can I organize the fridge in such a way that it’s super simple to find what’s for lunch?

Here’s the hack: dedicate a drawer in your fridge for grab-n-go items. When the drawer gets low on contents, it’s time to prep some more. It’s easy to glance and see what’s running low and which items are the clear winners. I make sandwiches twice a week at the same time that I prep food for myself for the week - usually Sunday and Wednesdays. I make a big mess of my kitchen twice, and then the food is ready to go!