21 Healthy “Grab And Go” Snacks Your Kids Will LOVE
Ready, Set, PLAY!
Are your kids chomping at the bit to stretch their legs this spring? Here are some healthy packable snacks that will keep you on-the-go and out of the drive through.
Sweet Coconut Curry Granola Bars
If your little ones are sensitive to strong flavors you might use a bit less curry, but this is definitely a must try if you love chewy granola goodness! Check out The Urban Poser’s recipe here.
Sesame-Honey Candy
“A traditional Greek confection, sesame honey candy combines the simplest of ingredients – gently toasted sesame seeds, unrefined sea salt and honey – for natural treat.”
And ohhh, it’s so easy to make! Mix, heat, mold in to shape and voila!
Find the recipe here
Cherry Pie “Larabars”
When tons of folks started popping over from Glamour Magazine last week I figured I was being featured on “What NOT To Wear.” Ha! Turns out someone just mentioned these sweet little morsels. Ready in 5 minutes!
Recipe here :)
Crispy Nuts
Magnesium is needed for over 300 biochemical reactions in the body, but most of us are deficient in it. Good news, though! Nuts are a great source of magnesium IF they have been properly prepared to reduce phytates.
Find out more about soaking and/or fermenting nuts here.
Homemade Beef Jerky
This protein-packed snack is uber portable and easy peasy to make! The photo above is a ground beef version from my book Nourished Baby, but you can find a similar recipe here.
Beef Jerky Made From a Roast
If you’d like to use a roast instead, this recipe from Cara at Health Home & Happiness is a simple blend of honey, garlic, spices and such. Mmmm mmmm!
Find the recipe here.
Salmon Jerky
Wild caught salmon offers brain building omega 3 fatty acids, vitamin D and astaxanthin, a powerful anti-inflammatory.
Note: Depending on which dehydrator you have 24 hours may yield and overly dry end product, so check on it every once in awhile.
Recipe here: Salmon Jerky
Raw Cheese
“Cheese from 100% grass-fed cows has a perfect omega 6:3 ratio of 2:1. It also contains 5x the amount of Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA), which is an extraordinarily powerful cancer fighting nutrient.
CLA is known to boost metabolism and fat burning while enhancing natural immunity. This form of cheese is also a great source of highly bioavailable calcium & magnesium, amino acids and vitamin A, D3, & K2.”¹
Fruit Leather
A delicious and cost effective way to use up extra fruit before it goes bad! Check out the instructions here.
*Pssst! Have you noticed by now that dehydrators are reaaaally handy when it comes to making snacks? Wondering if you should get one? I used a garage sale Nesco for years until I burned out the motor , then upgraded to the excalibur dehydrator. I LOVE my excalibur because it allows me to do huge batches of nuts and make coconut flour/jerky/fruit rolls ups all at the same time, but if you’re not sure you’ll use one all the time I recommend getting a cheap one to start with.
Sour Gummy Stars
A fantastic alternative to congealed red #40, high-fructose corn syrup and modified corn starch-laden snacks, these sour gummy stars are yummy and simple to make! They’re also rich in high quality protein, skin nourishing collagen and amino acids.
Sesame and Sunflower Crackers
These crispy crackers go great with tuna or chicken salad . . . or even something simple like cheese.
Of course, you **could** add bacon, too. It’s slightly less “grab and go” friendly, but yum!
Recipe here :)
Coconut Macaroons
Aren’t these just gorgeous? They’re as good as they look, too, just read the comments after the recipe!
Also, here’s another recipe that uses up your leftover egg whites after making mayo.
Kale Chips
I recommend baking over dehydrating because kale “contains goitgrogens that suppress the thyroid gland. The good news is that a gentle cooking will reduce the goitrogens by about 2/3, so you can enjoy your kale with little downside risk.”²
Find the recipe here
Carrot Dilly Sticks
This is one of my absolute favorite lacto-ferments because they’re so easy and cheap to make. The crunchy texture is a nice change from other fermented foods and the littles love them.
Recipe at The Nourishing Gourmet
Bubbies Pickles
As I wrote about here, Bubbies pickles are truly fermented with artisanal well water (no fluoride) and mineral rich salts.
They’re a great thing to have around when you’re too busy to make your own. 
Seaweed
A great alternative to chips, toasted and seasoned seaweed is rich in minerals such as iodine, calcium, sodium, magnesium, potassium, iron, zinc, copper and selenium.
Unfortunately seaweed snacks are made with canola or safflower oil. Safflower I don’t have a big problem with, but companies often switch between the two depending on what’s cheapest so you never know what you’re going to get. Fortunately, I recently discovered these mineral rich from Sea Snax that use olive oil instead.
Dried Anchovies
Ranked in the “Best” category of the Weston A. Price 2011 shopping guide, dried anchovies are a great source of omega 3′s, calcium, selenium, and niacin.
We buy ours from Radiant Life, which is listed on my resources page here.
Boiled Eggs
They’re an excellent source of choline, selenium, iodine, and vitamin B2 and a good source of protein, molybdenum, phosphorus, vitamin B5, vitamin B12 and vitamin D.
Banana Walnut Muffins
Though I’ve made double and triple batches in an effort to freeze the extras, somehow these always disappear off my countertops! I’ve been assured, though, that they freeze very well, so feel free to grab one as you and the kids head out the door. It’ll thaw just in time for your mid-morning snack!
Recipe here
Pecan Sandies
These buttery pecan cookies are perfect for a quiet tea with your littles, a rowdy BBQ, or even skydiving (okay not that last one, but you could eat one in celebration once you hit the ground!).
Marshmallows
No discussion of on-the-go snacks is complete without these fabulous marshmallows Jenni from The Urban Poser shared with us here. We store ours in wax paper bags and they hold up really well!
Ideas For Packing:
We use class storage at home, which is not usually welcome in places like the zoo, beach, etc., so on those days we use wax paper bags or Wexy bags, which is a biodegradable, washable bag decorated with colorful characters. For water we use the Berkey Sport Bottle, a portable water purifier which eliminates or reduces up to 99.9% of:
- Unpleasant taste and odors, cloudiness, silt, sediment and chlorine.
- Toxic chemicals: Trihalomethanes, VOCs, detergents, pesticides, etc.
- Harmful microscopic pathogens: Cryptosporidium, Giardia, E-coli 99.99999% and other pathogenic bacteria.
- Heavy metals: Aluminum, Cadmium, Chromium, Copper, Lead, and Mercury.
- Radiologicals: Radon 222
If it filtered fluoride it would be just about perfect, but it’s awesome as it is (and BPA free, too, of course!).
Do you have a favorite container for on-the-go-snacks? I’m shopping around right now so please let me know!
Questions about baby nutrition?
Check out my new ebook, Nourished Baby!
Photo credits: All photos belonging to The Urban Poser, Nourished Kitchen, and Health Home & Happiness were published with permission. The salmon jerky, fruit leather, cheese, and boiled egg are from Flickr.
Elise Genta Sprenger via FB
These are amazing! Thank you!!!
Mommypotamus via FB
You’re welcome, Elise Genta Sprenger! These are my fave portable “discoveries” for the past few years. It was hard to leave out some of our fave snacks that do better with proper utensils, though, so I’ll probably follow up with another post on that!
Mommypotamus via FB
Kathleen Pelton – We love these all throughout spring and summer – they’re great for trips to the beach or pool!
Kendal
Thank you SO MUCH for this! Pinning on Pinterest right. this. minute!
Caroline Boles via FB
*clap clap clap* Thanks Heather!
Kristin Fisher Lawler via FB
I love this list! My kids devour the kale chips. They can never get enough of those.
Kristina @From City Corporate to Suburb Mama
These are so great!! And I love that we can eat most of them (On GAPS)
Thanks so much!
Kristina @From City Corporate to Suburb Mama´s last [type] ..Please share this!
Heather
Yay, I’m so glad you found this list helpful Kristina!
Lindsey H
Thank you! These sound like some great options for snack foods for an upcoming camping trip!
caroline
Hey Heather,
Just a note on the Seaweed Snacks. One can totally make their own at home and it’s very easy.
At the Oriental Grocery Store they sell the sheets of seaweed in packs.
INGREDIENTS
- a little bowl of Oil (I like to use olive oil)
- a little bowl of salt
EQUIPMENT
- brush
- 2 plates
- newspaper (or any other type of clean paper)
- kitchen scissors
Setting Up
On the counter my mother would layout newspaper, the bowl of oil , the bowl of salt, the brush and the plate. The second plate is just stationed next to the stove.
Next take one sheet of seaweed place it on the newspaper, take the brush, dip it in oil and brush the sheet of seaweed, sprinkle on the salt, place that on the dish and then repeat.
Here’s the part that I had a lot of fun with. Bring the plate of prepared plate to the stove, heat up a pan but DO NOT OIL the pan. Take one of the sheets of prepped seaweed, be sure to hold the seaweed with your fingers in a pinching position. Then just sweep the back and front of the seaweed on the pan, keep doing this for say 10 seconds (be sure to check a bit though as temperatures of the pan definitely varies) Another way to check if it’s ready is to hold it up to the light and if it’s green it’s ready, then switch ends and toast the side that didn’t get swept. Transfer the prepared seaweed to a plate and then repeat. When all done just cut into squares.
On another note, I find it funny that these are now advertised as snacks. I’m korean so we always had this on our dinner table, we’d take a little square fill it with rice and other veg and a bit of meat and then just pop it in our mouths…mmmm…hungry.
Since you’re amazing at cooking things up and identified the problem with the type of oil I thought you might like to know about this. In Korea it’s called Gim, so if your nearby oriental grocery store owners are Korean you can always tell them you’d like to make your own and are looking for the seaweed to make this. Thought I’d mention this because for some reason at my nearby grocery store they only sell the premade one now and I have to get my mom to mail me some
They also sell ones made with olive oil too.
Heather
Whoa, THANK YOU Caroline! I can’t believe I’ve never thought of making my own before! You are a sweetheart for taking the time to write all this down for us!
Brittany
Love this! And I love that you got a Nesco from a garage sale…I JUST found one last weekend and it already has made me so happy. It’s the bottom of the line with no temp controls, but it’s still awesome! At this moment it’s making banana chips and apple chips. =)
Heather
That’s the one I had!
Amanda Nordstrom via FB
Thank you so much for these. Going to make some jerky and those seed cakes for our trip when we moved…from Texas to Maryland!
Mommypotamus via FB
Amanda Nordstrom – Whoa! That is awesome! You know, it was our trip up to Baltimore last year that really kicked us into gear about finding our “place” in the world. It was so beautiful there!
Amanda Nordstrom via FB
Oh? Are you planning on moving or is it more of a philosophical journey?
It is very beautiful, but I’m annoyed at some of the laws. Like the homeschooling laws and raw milk laws. I have to go to Virginia just to get raw milk because it’s illegal to sell it in MD. :-/
Mommypotamus via FB
We are moving to a little town just outside of Nashville
Mommypotamus via FB
And yes, those laws are frustrating, especially coming from a place like Texas
Amanda Nordstrom via FB
Tell me about it!
Nashville? I’m originally from GA, Southern neighbor.
Actually, Nashville is one of the possible cities where we might stop on the drive up there.
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Kandace
This is such a great list! Thanks for putting this together Heather
Heather
But of course!
Megan
Love these! Question – I don’t have a dehydrator yet. Would the convection setting on my oven work if I turn the temp down to, say, 125?
Heather
I haven’t tested them so I can’t really say. Sorry, Megan!
Dawn
AWESOME list! Definitely saving on my Delicious.com! As for containers, we love the Foogo and Funtainers from Thermos. Foogo are plain, while Funtainers have characters, which we don’t need, but sometimes that’s just what’s the right size or cheapest. We use the 10oz. stainless Foogo bottle to pack milk, and it keeps it cold very well. Leaks are rare, and stem from mommy hurrying and not getting the silicone piece in just right, but we use them for both kids daily, and we rarely have leaks. The milk is still cold when they get home from school if there is any milk left, so they do a great job! The same types of insulated stainless bowls for soups and casseroles are also great. Otherwise I use Tupperware. It is still plastic, but Tupperware is BPA free and they have never used phthalates, and since my foods are placed in there at room temp, I don’t worry too much. They are modular and easy to clean, and TW puts materials info for all products on their website, as opposed to cheaper brands, so I at least know what I am using.
Leslie @ Real Food Freaks
What a fantastic list– and great pictures, too! Looking forward to trying out a few of these recipes… thanks!
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jada
What do you use the dried anchovies for?
Heather
My 18 month old eats them plain . . . he loves them!
Andrea Merrigan
I just started juicing so you comment on Kale caught my attention. Where could I learn more about how it affects the Thyroid? Eating it raw is not good I would guess?
Andrea Merrigan´s last [type] ..Weekend Wanderings 3.24.12
Heather
Yay for juicing, Andrea! I love fresh juices, but I personally don’t include kale because of it’s effects on the thyroid. There is a lot of info out there on the subject but I don’t know of a definitive article that will answer all your questions. Sarah at the Healthy Home Economist has a pretty good post on the subject though http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/kale-chips-to-protect-your-thyroid/
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Lauren
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Heather
Kelsey
I see you mentioned a need for some good portable containers. I found these yesterday and can’t stop imagining possibilities for them! I know they’re BPA free, but I don’t know if they completely fit your desires. Nontheless, http://easylunchboxes.smugmug.com/
Heather
Thanks, Kelsey! I’ll check them out!
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SaraA
Hi, Heather,
I have this list posted to my “favorites” bar and reference it often. Today I clicked the link for the macaroons, but the recipe linked says “egg-free”… I was just wondering if maybe you meant to link to a different macaroon recipe, since you said “A perfect way to use up egg whites”? Just checking, thank you!
SaraA
Heather
Ha, yes I did! I will put the old one back in and add the new one at the bottom. Thanks for letting me know!
SaraA
Perfect, thank you! I was hoping for the egg-whites one! Cool.
And just so you know, I love your blog! I am learning so much!
Blessings,
SaraA
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Vikkie Smith
I was searching for recipes for ice cream made without dairy.. , and your site was one of the links to click.. I clicked.. and am now entered to win a Berkey Filter system..
.. you have a great blog and your pintrest is easy to follow..
Heather
Awww, thanks Vikkie! Good luck on the giveaway!
Cynthia
Oh Mommypotamus, please help me. Another week of school lunches looms before me and between my 3 children I need healthy lunch boxes that contain no eggs, dairy or nuts (the nuts is a school thing, all of my kids can eat nuts). I also have been told by a certain 6 year old that if I send her anything made of coconut she’s flinging herself in front of a school bus. We’ve just come off almost 2 years of GAPS and currently can only tollerate small quantities of fresh ground Einkorn. Do you have any suggestions? (They love gummy stars and jerky but they only go so far…).
Heather
How about some baked goods that use sunflower seeds instead of nuts? “Sun flour” makes a great almond flour substitute. You can find the “how to” here
Could make them these gingerbread cookies or these GAPS chocolate chip cookies
Other things they might enjoy: SeaSnax or Honest potato chips!
Cynthia
I finally managed to get my paws on some raw sunflower seeds that weren’t rancid and both of these cookie recipes turned out beautifully. I think they are better with almond flour but my girls were just so excited to have anything different that they were a huge hit. Thank you very much. I’m going to try to make potato chips this weekend…
kaela
nice! i love the list of snacks! they’re great alternatives to most junk foods out there.
Nikia
Just in time! I am going to be busy preparing these for vacation coming up shortly. Thanks so much!