School Lunches Are Back — Do We Really Need All That Lunch Meat?

School is starting again, and for a lot of families that means something else is starting again too:

Packing lunches. Every. Single. Day.

And if sandwiches are part of your rotation, you may have noticed just how expensive lunch meat has gotten.

It has been a long time since I bought much of it. I’m home now, so leftovers are usually my lunch, but there’s another reason:

The price!

When you’re packing one sandwich, a package of turkey or ham may not seem like an enormous expense. But start packing sandwiches five days a week for one or two kids and suddenly you’re buying that little package over and over again.

And that’s when I start asking one of my favorite questions:

Is there another way to do this?

There usually is.

Start With What You Already Cook

This is probably my favorite option.

A little roast chicken, pork, meatloaf, steak or even last night’s hamburger can become tomorrow’s sandwich or wrap.

If I’m cooking chicken for dinner anyway, cooking an extra chicken breast doesn’t require much additional work. Slice it after it’s cold and you’ve got sandwich meat.

Same thing with a ham or roast.

The meat has already done double duty: dinner tonight and lunches tomorrow.

That’s exactly the kind of grocery stretching I like.

Buy the Meat, Not Necessarily the Lunch Meat

Compare prices per pound.

A small ham, turkey breast or chicken on sale may cost considerably less per pound than its sliced deli-counter counterpart.

Cook it, chill it, slice it yourself and portion some into the freezer if you won’t use it all within a few days.

You don’t need a deli slicer. We’re making school lunch, not opening a sandwich shop.

And Every Lunch Doesn’t Need Lunch Meat

This is where having a rotation can really help.

Egg salad. Egg prices fluctuate, so do the math where you live, but it’s filling and easy.

Tuna or chicken salad. Add celery, onion or whatever your family likes and one can can stretch farther than you might expect.

Peanut butter. There’s a reason PB&J has survived generations. Obviously, check your school’s allergy rules first.

Cheese and pickle. Take a page from the British and try a cheese and pickle sandwich. A good cheddar with pickle or chutney on bread makes a surprisingly satisfying sandwich—no lunch meat required. Add lettuce if you like, and you’re done.

Cheese and crackers. Add fruit, vegetables and perhaps a boiled egg and suddenly you’ve got a perfectly respectable little lunch without a sandwich at all.

Leftover dinner. If your child has a thermos, your options expand enormously. Soup, pasta, rice dishes, macaroni and cheese and all kinds of leftovers can become lunch.

Wraps and roll-ups. A tortilla with a little meat, cheese and vegetables can use considerably less lunch meat than a heavily stuffed sandwich.

Stretch the Expensive Part

A sandwich doesn’t need a half-pound of turkey.

Use a little meat and bulk up the sandwich or wrap with cheese, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, peppers or whatever your child actually likes.

And that’s important:

Pack what they’ll eat.

The cheapest school lunch in the world isn’t frugal if half of it comes home squashed in the bottom of the lunchbox—or gets thrown away.

Or Forget the Sandwich Altogether

Make a bento.

Kids love them, and they’re basically a really good homemade Lunchable.

A few cubes or slices of cheese, some pepperoni, crackers, grapes and whatever fruit or vegetable your child likes. Done.

And you can change it constantly depending on what’s already in the refrigerator and pantry: cheese, boiled eggs, leftover chicken, crackers, pita wedges, cucumbers, berries, apple slices, grapes, pretzels—or whatever odds and ends need to be used.

It doesn’t need to be Pinterest-perfect.

It needs to be food your kid will actually eat.

And because everything is in little portions, a bento can be a great way to use up those small amounts of food that aren’t quite enough to make another meal.

Basically, you’re making a Lunchable with better food, more variety and whatever you already have in the house.

Look at the Cost Per Lunch

This is the number that matters more to me than the price on the package.

A $7 package of lunch meat might not sound terrible until you realize you’re getting four sandwiches from it.

That’s $1.75 per sandwich just for the meat, before you’ve added bread, cheese, fruit, snacks or a drink.

Meanwhile, a chicken you were already cooking for dinner might provide tomorrow’s sandwich essentially from leftovers.

That’s why I don’t automatically put “lunch meat” on the grocery list just because we’re making sandwiches.

I look at what I already have.

I look at what’s on sale.

And I think about what else can go in that lunchbox.

Because the question isn’t:

“Can I afford to buy lunch meat?”

It’s:

“Is lunch meat the best use of my grocery dollars when I have all these other ways to pack a good lunch?”

Especially when you’re doing it five days a week, week after week.

Those little differences add up.

What do you put in school lunches when you don’t want to spend a fortune on lunch meat?