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.
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–
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