After School Healthy Snacks

Looking for After School Healthy Snacks? Here are ideas for if you eat dinner early or late, before practice snacks, car snacks, non-perishable snacks and more.

Hi friend!

A couple of years ago I rounded up some of my favorite recipes for after school snacks in this post- 10 Healthy After School Snacks For Kids. It covers everything from English muffin mini pizzas to energy balls to oatmeal. Since I know that at home, homemade snacks are not realistic for every family every day, I wanted to give you guys a few more good after-school snacks (both homemade and storebought) for specific after-school scenarios. You could also easily add these snacks to lunch boxes. For more lunch box help, check out my guide: A Month of Easy Packed Lunches For Kids.

If you’re looking for store-bought snack ideas, here are some posts that may help:

• Healthy Amazon Snacks
• Best Trader Joe’s Snacks
• Best Healthy Walmart Snacks
  Healthy Snacks At Costco For The Whole Family

Easy After School Snacks

Healthy Snacks for After School

If you eat dinner later or have a couple of hours between the kids getting home/leaving school and dinner time they may need a fairly substantial snack, especially if they ate lunch early:

• Smoothie
• Microwave Egg Sandwich (or Turkey Cheese Avocado, PBJ etc)
• Overnight oats or warm oatmeal
• English Muffin Mini Pizza + fruit
• Waffle + peanut butter
• Homemade energy balls or Made in Nature Figgypops
• Sweet Potato White Bean Bar + lifeway kefir
• Amy’s frozen burrito
• Simple Mills crackers + turkey + cheese
• Clif Nut Butter Bar or Larabar or KIND bar
• Beanitos chips + Guacamole
• Kodiak Cake pancakes + yogurt
• Barbara’s Puffins or Love Grown cereal + milk

Easy After School Snacks To Make

If you eat dinner fairly early and just want something to tide your kids over until then without ruining their dinner. Added bonus- these are simple after school snacks kids can make themselves with minimal help from you!

• Veggies with hummus or ranch + pita
• Apple slices with peanut butter
• A hard-boiled egg and some raisins
• A small bowl of Cheerios with milk
• A handful of trail mix
• Lentil Banana Muffin (or another nutrient-dense muffin/bar)
• Freeze-dried veggies like Rhythm Superfood carrot sticks with string cheese

Healthy Pre-Workout Snacks

Have kids headed to sports practice after school? Here are some ideas:

• Granola bar
• Cereal or muffin
• Half a bagel
• Apple or banana with peanut butter
• A small bowl of oatmeal
• Crackers with turkey
• Trailmix- raisins, cereal + peanuts
• Yogurt + fruit
• Clementine + hard-boiled egg

Healthy After School Snacks To Buy

I have a whole post of after school snacks to buy – 60+ Healthy Packaged Snacks For Kids so check it out for tons of ideas. I also have lists for Healthy Costco Snacks, Best Trader Joe’s Snacks and Healthy Walmart Snacks. But in general, here are a few of my favorite packaged snacks:

• Skinny Pop or Angie’s Boom Chicka Pop
• Cheerios/Barbara’s Puffins/Love Grown Foods cereal
• Lifeway Kefir or Chobani or Siggis lower sugar yogurt – For the kefir, I make a glass with half plain/half flavored to reduce the sugar, for the yogurt I would pair with fruit
• Simple Mills Almond Crackers or RW Garcia Sweet Potato Crackers
• Sabra Hummus or Wholly Guacamole with crackers/veggies
• Larabar or another from this list of  Healthy Store-bought Granola Bars For Kids
• Biena Roasted Chickpeas
• Made in Nature Figgy Pops
• Kashi Waffles
• Kodiak Cakes pancakes

Healthy Car Snacks

I wrote about Low Mess Snacks for Kids here. Here are some simple pairings that won’t make too much of a mess in the car. Keep a little trash can or bag in the car for wrappers.

• Yogurt tube + banana
• Cheese stick + That’s It fruit bar
• Chomps Meat Sticks + clementine
• Egg wrap + apple
• Smoothie made with milk/yogurt, fruit, and spinach
• Turkey, cheese, and apple or avocado rolled in a tortilla
• PBJ sandwich
• HB eggs + granola bar
• Cold pizza or quesadilla (less mess than when they’re hot!)

Healthy Non-Perishable Snacks

Ideas for non-perishable snacks if you have to pack them in the morning and need them to still be safe to eat after school:

• Granola or protein bar
• Trail mix
• Popcorn
• Healthy Muffin/Bar
• Chomps meat sticks (aff link) + fruit (try fresh fruit, fruit cups, dried fruit or fruit/veggie pouches)
• Dried fruit + Whisps cheese crisps
• Low sugar cereal + Horizon Organic shelf-stable milk boxes
• Peanut butter sandwich
• Roasted chickpeas or roasted edamame (you can add these to trail mix!)
• Squeeze pouches of nut butter + crackers /banana/celery
• My SuperCookies/bars
• Bitsys crackers
• Triscuits/Simple Mills/RW Garcia crackers
• Bare Apple chips
• That’s It Fruit bars
• Fruit & veggie pouches

After School Snacks for Teens

Have a teenager? Here are some snack ideas:

• Tuna Salad + Crackers
• Scrambled egg + toast
• Turkey Sandwich
• Smoothie with fruit, yogurt or milk and spinach or a smoothie bowl topped with cereal
• Popcorn trail mix
• Deviled eggs
• Ramen
• Chicken quesadilla
• Rotisserie Chicken wrap
• Energy balls
• Oatmeal
• Yogurt parfait
• Frozen waffles
• Frozen Fish sticks/chicken nuggets/potstickers
• Freezer breakfast sandwiches or burritos
• Avocado toast
• Nachos with guacamole
• Charcuterie snack plate

Want more? My friend Sally wrote a post of 100+ Healthy Snacks for Teens Who Are Always Hungry.

And don’t forget I have a whole list of Peanut & Tree Nut Free Packaged Snacks if you need those!

Enjoy!
–Lindsay–