Creative Easter-themed snacks will entice kids to put down their candy baskets, at least for a moment.
Easter, like Halloween, is a day when children are on a continuous sugar high. With chocolate-filled Easter baskets, cookies, candies, and eggs filled with jelly beans, providing a few healthy snacks during the day for kids to munch on is essential to help prevent a sugar crash. In order to entice your child away from her Easter basket long enough to get in a few healthy bites, the snack must be attractive and specially Easter-themed in itself.
Carrots and Dips
Carrots and dip are a classic Easter snack food, as carrots, after all, are the food of choice for the Easter Bunny. Fresh sliced carrots or whole baby carrots are perfect for kids to dip into bowls of peanut butter, ranch dressing, hummus, bean dip, spinach dip or almond butter.
Pastel Bagels
Food dye can make almost any snack more desirable, including a regular bagel with cream cheese. Separate white cream cheese into small bowls and dye each with a pastel Easter color: pink, light blue, yellow and green. Place the bowls out along with halved bagels and allow the kids to spread their own cream cheese on each half to create Easter egg bagels.
Dyed Egg Salad
After all of the Easter eggs have been collected, use the dyed eggs to make a colorful egg salad for the kids to snack on throughout the day. Add pieces of celery, peas or zucchini to the mix. Serve the salad in bowls, on crackers or as a sandwich.
Bunny Trail Mix
Trail mix or party snack mix is a classic among favorite children's snacks. Though not the most healthy snack, nuts and seeds at least offer some protein during the candy-filled day. Mix together a variety of nuts with salty crackers, miniature pretzels, dried fruit and dried seeds such as sunflower or pumpkin. Add jelly beans or malted eggs to the mix to add a flair of Easter.
Fresh Fruit Salad
Make a salad from fresh spring fruits, such as strawberries, cherries, melons, bananas, apples and anything else that is in season in your area. Mix them together with lemon juice and nuts, such as sliced almonds or pistachios, for a light and colorful snack during any time of the day.
Snack Filled Eggs
Kids love the novelty and surprise of treat-filled plastic Easter eggs. An easy way to make an exciting yet healthy snack is to stuff the plastic eggs with non-candy items such as peanuts, cashews, roasted almonds, raisins, dried apricots or cranberries, popcorn, dry cereal, goldfish crackers, miniature pretzels, cheese cubes and virtually anything that fits inside of a plastic egg. The novelty of the egg will make even regular, everyday snacks more appealing to children.
Cookie Cutter Sandwiches
Shaped bread makes any flavored sandwich stand out among the rest. Tea sandwiches filled with deli meats, egg salad, tuna fish or peanut butter and jelly make filling healthy snacks during the day when kids are too preoccupied with their candy-filled Easter basket to sit down to lunch. Use cookie cutters shaped like eggs, bunnies or flowers to cut sandwich bread into shapes for small novelty sandwiches.
Tags: cream cheese, crackers miniature, crackers miniature pretzels, Easter basket, Easter eggs, filled with