After School Healthy Snack Ideas

Kids come home hungry and peckish and we need to be ready with healthy snack ideas. Obviously fresh fruit is the best snack and I recommend including fruit with every afternoon snack. But here are also some extra goodies that have less fat and kilojoules. Remember, they are not healthy if you eat too much of them so monitor how many of these ‘healthy snacks’ your children eat each day!

If you would like to plan your whole week or month of after school snacks as well as school lunches then please check out my friend Ruthie's Menu in a Box Meal Planner. It will cater for all health and allergic needs as well!

You could even plan a special healthy snack menu for when your children have friends over for weekend sleepovers of for a particular birthday party!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 egg white

½ cup sugar

4 Tb light margarine

¼ cup skim milk

½ tsp vanilla essence

½ choc chips roughly chopped

1 ½ cup Self Raising Flour

Cooking spray

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. In a medium bowl beat egg white and sugar for 1 min using an electric beater. Melt margarine then add to bowl. Also add milk, vanilla essence and choc chips. Stir in flour and combine well. Coat a baking tray with cooking spray and drop dessert spoons of mixture onto tray allowing room to spread. Flatten each spoonful with back of a fork that has been dipped in boiling water. Bake for 20 – 25 min and leave to cool on a tray. Not a hugely nutritious and healthy snack but low in fat and kilojoules.

Marshmellow and Fruit Bubble Bar (no baking required and a great healthy snack idea for kids)

1 Tb light margarine / butter

25 marshmellows

¼ cup desiccated coconut

1 cup mixed dried fruit

4 cups Rice Bubbles cereal

Cooking spray

Place margarine and marshmallows in a small bowl and microwave for 50 seconds on 50% power. Stir well until you have a smooth texture. If still lumpy put back in microwave for further 30 seconds on 50% power. Fold cocnut into marshmallow mix. Pour rice bubbles and dried fruit into a large mixing bowl, add marshmallow mix and combine well. Coat a slice tine with cooking spray then place mixture into tin. Use the back of a metal spoon that has been dipped in boiling water to spread mixture evenly. Refrigerate until set and cut into 20 slices.

1 cup self-raising flour

¼ cup cocoa

2 weet-bix crushed

½ cup sugar

2 Tb desiccated coconut

4 Tb light margarine

2 Tb skim milk

1 egg white

Cooking spray

Icing: ¾ cup icing sugar

1 Tb cocoa

1 tsp light margarine

2-3 tsp skim milk

1 ½ tsp desiccated coconut

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Put flour and cocoa together in large mixing bowl with weet-bix, sugar and coconut. Add melted margarine, milk and egg white and beat until combined. Add to flour mixture and fold together. Spread mixture over the base of a slice tin that has been coated with cooking spray. Use palm of your hand to flatten and spread out. Spread flour over your hand to prevent it from sticking to mixture. Bake for 35 minutes. For icing mix icing sugar and cocoa in a small bowl. Add margarine and milk blending well. Spread over slice while it is still warm out of the oven and sprinkle coconut over the top. Leave to cool. Slice into 15 slices.

Date and Apricot Loaf (another favourite healthy snack idea)

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

1 cup dates, apricots, sultanas chopped roughly

2 cup self raising flour

1 egg

1 small tsp bi-carb soda

1 Tb butter

Put in a small saucepan the sugar, water, butter and fruit and bring to boil. Then allow to cool Beat egg in a mixing bowl and then add bi-carb and flour and combine. Add fruit mixture to bowl and mix well. Place in a loaf tin that has been coated with cooking spray. Bake for 40 – 50 min at 150 degrees.


Various Healthy Snack Ideas:

- Vegetable sticks with dip. My favourites are carrot, celery, cucumber, cheese sticks thrown in too. They taste delicious with carrot!

- Celery filled with peanut butter or cream cheese

- Avocado, hommus or eggplant dip on crackers

- Frozen grapes or orange quarters. You can also stick paddle pop sticks in bananas and freeze them.

- Mixed Dried fruits

- Chop up different shaped fruit and vegetables and then create your own art pieces with them. Then eat it at the end.

- Make fruit kebabs by slicing up different fruits and placing them randomly on wooden skewers. Get kids to help you make them to add to the fun.

- Rice biscuits with salsa dip

Snacks for Kids to avoid would be chocolate bars, packets of chips, lollies, deep fried snacks from the shops and soft drinks. So many behavioural problems stem from food yet it is often the last place parents address.

I hope your family enjoy these Healthy Snack Ideas and if you havén't already, check out what the Menuinabox Meal Planner is all about!

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