After months in the house, our kids are more than ready to head back to school. Need some dependable, tasty, and nourishing food options that are easy to prepare and will excite the people of your household? Here are some of our surefire successful school lunch and snack ideas.

Pancake Lunches and Other Fun Stuff

Ooh, we have such a fun time with lunch! Monday is usually waffles or pancakes — we serve a big brunch on Sunday, and there’s always leftovers. That becomes Monday lunch; I think of it as our IHOP lunch. We send pancakes or waffles with a small container of maple syrup and a container of cut-up melon or fruit. It’s one of my kids’ favorite lunches!

Another good one is a hollowed-out bell pepper with either mac ’n cheese or tuna inside. My friend once told me that her husband, a rebbi in the school, always gets a kick out of my son’s lunch when he sees him across the lunchroom biting into a whole pepper. I had to clarify that there’s food in there too, and he’s not just eating a bell pepper!

The day after we serve tacos for dinner is always tacos for lunch — it tastes fine even if it isn’t heated up, so I send a container of crumbled taco meat, with containers of corn, shredded lettuce, and some other cut-up vegetables they like, and the best part of all — a taco shell. —Rachel Bachrach, associate editor

After-school Snack Hack

Two slices banana, sandwiched with nut butter, then frozen. —Rivki Rabinowitz, copy editor

Healthy Brownies

I make the Brownie Cake from The Kosher Palate. I healthify it by using kamut flour, vanilla almond milk, ¹⁄₂ cup less sugar, no vanilla extract, and coconut oil. I slice it and put it into ziplock bags in the freezer. The kids grab one each day. —Toby Vogel, writer

Homemade Granola

Great for a quick breakfast with yogurt or a smoothie or as an anytime, energyboosting snack. Mix 1¹⁄₂ cup oats, 4 tablespoons (or squirts) of maple syrup, 1 cup brown sugar, ¹⁄₄ cup any ground or crushed nuts, and ¹⁄₄ cup oil. Spread onto a baking pan and bake for 15 minutes. Mix after 8 minutes. Freezes and doubles well. —Daniela Thaler, editor, TeenPages

Fluffer-Nutter Sandwiches and Healthy Muffins

When I was a kid, if we didn’t want to bring bread to school for lunch, we stuffed peppers with tuna salad, wrapped it in foil, and brought that along instead. I remember loving it, although it was messy to eat. We also treated ourselves to real “FlufferNutter” sandwiches — not healthy at all, but every once in a while... It was Marshmallow Fluff, peanut butter, and banana slices! (Never had it? It’s yum — try it!) These days, I keep a constant batch of healthy oatmeal muffins for those who can’t stomach an early breakfast and need to grab and go. I end up baking a double batch monthly, since I take them to work too! —Faigy Grossman, recipe contributor