Home-cooked hot breakfast and lunch school age

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone, I’m looking for a reality check on our morning routine.

Our kids prefer a warm breakfast and a warm, home-cooked lunch (they aren't fans of the cafeteria options).

The Current Workflow
To make this happen, my morning usually looks like this:
• The Menu: Cooking hot breakfasts (pancakes, eggs, sausage) and prepping hot lunches (pasta, burgers, or tacos) to go in thermoses.
• The Cleanup: As working parents, we try to wash all the pots and pans before leaving so we don't return to a "disaster zone" in the evening.
• The Timeline: I’m waking up two hours before school starts to fit in the cooking, packing, and cleaning.

My Questions:
1. The Hot Lunch: Does anyone else cook "fresh" lunch in the morning (e.g., pasta or burgers), or are you using leftovers/easier shortcuts or cold sandwiches
2. The Timeline: Is a two-hour lead time typical for those of you providing hot meals, or have you found ways to shave off time?
3. The Cleanup: How do you handle the kitchen mess? Cook and clean as you go, or leave it for later?

[Anonymous]

No why are you doing this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi everyone, I’m looking for a reality check on our morning routine.

Our kids prefer a warm breakfast and a warm, home-cooked lunch (they aren't fans of the cafeteria options).

The Current Workflow
To make this happen, my morning usually looks like this:
• The Menu: Cooking hot breakfasts (pancakes, eggs, sausage) and prepping hot lunches (pasta, burgers, or tacos) to go in thermoses.
• The Cleanup: As working parents, we try to wash all the pots and pans before leaving so we don't return to a "disaster zone" in the evening.
• The Timeline: I’m waking up two hours before school starts to fit in the cooking, packing, and cleaning.

My Questions:
1. The Hot Lunch: Does anyone else cook "fresh" lunch in the morning (e.g., pasta or burgers), or are you using leftovers/easier shortcuts or cold sandwiches
2. The Timeline: Is a two-hour lead time typical for those of you providing hot meals, or have you found ways to shave off time?
3. The Cleanup: How do you handle the kitchen mess? Cook and clean as you go, or leave it for later?

Some of this can be made the day before and microwaved by your kids. I know its not freshly made but would your kids feel the difference?

[Anonymous]

If they have access to a microwave at school, they can warm up their lunch then.

[Anonymous]

Kid takes a hot burrito daily. I make it the night before, then in the morning heat it in the air fryer and wrap in foil in an insulated pouch.

Have also done hot pasta. Cook earlier, reheat in microwave, and place into thermos that has been heated with hot water.

Breakfast is hot oatmeal, maybe eggs (cooked fresh but eggs are fast). If you want pancakes type options I'd look at something that can be heated in the toaster.

We leave the dishes to soak in the sink. It's not a ton of dishes, just whatever we microwaved and ate from.

Basically - yes to hot food, no to cooking from scratch in the morning.

[Anonymous]

I make hot lunch and breakfast daily. Takes under 30 min. Breakfast is eggs, toast, or French toast. Not pancakes (too messy).
Lunch is fresh pasta (quick one pot cheese sauce) and leftover meatballs or chicken. Or reheating leftovers if it's burgers or pupusas or a stew. We also do rice and beans but that's always from leftovers. I am not a morning person. There's no way I'd get up 2 hrs earlier. We all get up at 7:20 and kids are out the door by 8:30. It includes me getting dressed and a quick shower when they are eating breakfast.

[Anonymous]

I make breakfast sausages and bacon in the air fryer. It takes about 5 minutes and in that time I pop the Kodiak waffles into the toaster. If anyone wants eggs it cooks in the same time. I fill up the air fryer basket with hot soapy water and rinse it out when I get a moment. Easy-peasy.
Lunch is the previous day’s dinner leftovers for everyone. Don’t needlessly complicate your life, OP.

[Anonymous]

I make hot breakfasts that usually take ~5 minutes, eg scrambled eggs, egg sandwich, toasted multi-grain bagel with fruit. They regularly have leftovers for hot lunch. I don't know anyone who would waste this much time in the morning unnecessarily. It's not like you're even making very healthy food.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi everyone, I’m looking for a reality check on our morning routine.

Our kids prefer a warm breakfast and a warm, home-cooked lunch (they aren't fans of the cafeteria options).

The Current Workflow
To make this happen, my morning usually looks like this:
• The Menu: Cooking hot breakfasts (pancakes, eggs, sausage) and prepping hot lunches (pasta, burgers, or tacos) to go in thermoses.
• The Cleanup: As working parents, we try to wash all the pots and pans before leaving so we don't return to a "disaster zone" in the evening.
• The Timeline: I’m waking up two hours before school starts to fit in the cooking, packing, and cleaning.

My Questions:
1. The Hot Lunch: Does anyone else cook "fresh" lunch in the morning (e.g., pasta or burgers), or are you using leftovers/easier shortcuts or cold sandwiches
2. The Timeline: Is a two-hour lead time typical for those of you providing hot meals, or have you found ways to shave off time?
3. The Cleanup: How do you handle the kitchen mess? Cook and clean as you go, or leave it for later?

Meal prep and leftovers.
Our meal rotation looks like this:
Sunday: we make a double batch of pancakes with bacon.
Monday: leftover pancakes with chicken sausage (takes 2 minutes in the toaster and 6 minutes in the air fryer)
Tuesday: Stovetop or baked oatmeal- apple, pumpkin, blueberry cream cheese, raspberry chocolate chip, spiced zucchini, etc. Prep the night before or my husband makes it when he wakes. If baked, I normally make it at night. If stovetop, he makes it. You can also use the crockpot for stuff like this.
Wednesday: same oatmeal
Thursday: smoothie and uncured Canadian bacon or chicken sausage
Friday: casserole style hot breakfast
Saturday: leftover casserole style hot breakfast

My daughter is (super) allergic to eggs so breakfast is a bit more difficult for us. You should be able to implement quiches, hashbrown scrambles, hashbrown egg sausage bowls, egg muffins w/ or w/o cheese, sausage, bacon, ham, etc. Prep and freeze.
I always have backup mini bagels and hashbrowns rectangles, but my kids love oatmeal. My eldest will eat overnight oats instead of the casserole breakfast because he doesnt like them.

We get up at 7 out the door by 740. I have a 20-min daycare drop off in one direction and then head back home for ES school drop off with my eldest. Toddler eats at daycare. ES eats on the drive from daycare to his school (20 min). I let him sleep as late as he can possibly sleep instead of waking him up to eat at home. He will also actually eat in the car instead of dancing around the table and then saying he is done.

I prep anything that is not hot the night prior and its already in the lunch box. 2 thermoses for the toddler- breakfast and lunch. 1 thermos for the ES kid. 5-7 of hot water to prep and in that time, I assemble all the cold stuff, reheat the hot lunch and breakfast and by then we are ready to go.

My husband leaves at 530 so I do this solo 95%.

Hot lunch is almost always leftovers. If leftovers dont work then I have beef and beef liver meatballs along with either sweet potatoes or mashed potatoes. I make mashed sweet or regular potatoes every other week for Sunday dinner and some of the leftovers go into mini souper cubes. Sort of like an ice cube tray. I can pop those out with the meatballs and add vegetables (mixed, peas, carrots, green beans, etc.). My youngest loves soup so I will freeze most soups into the souper cubes, normal or mini, and have those for back up.

Figure out how to batch cook the lunches. Burgers should be smash burgers to reheat easier, tacos should be fajitas or burritos that can be pre-constructed, etc.

[Anonymous]

How old are they?
Old enough to learn that what they "prefer" just isn't fair to OP?
Oatmeal is hot. Cereal is not but hot in summer, meh.
Lunch is leftovers.

[Anonymous]

I think the word NO would come in handy here. I prefer a lot of things but the reality is much different. They don't need a fresh hot breakfast every day.

[Anonymous]

OMG no. Don't do this to yourself.

[Anonymous]

If you like to meal prep you can do egg sandwiches and such but making all those dishes for breakfast every morning seems like a lot.

I personally do overnight oats, yogurt and various toasts (peabut butter banana and avocado). High fiber and protein, no big cleanup.

[Anonymous]

For packing hot lunch for school, I cook the night before, heat in microwave in the morning then pack to thermoses. For hot breakfast, it would only happen during weekends ( except oatmeal, I use rice cooker to cook while I’m packing lunch & water, wake up kids & feed dog). If kids insist, suggest the same to cook ahead then heat in microwave or oven in the morning.

[Anonymous]

I make hot breakfast and lunches for my kids too. Though I can get it done in an hour. I wash as I go, but I don’t stress out if I need to leave dishes or pans soaking in the sink. That cuts down on stress and save time in the morning.

I also send dinner leftovers which cuts down on cooking time, but not necessarily cleanup time.