Healthy Snack Ideas For a Boost on Harried Days

I think even the most devout homesteaders among us fall prey sometimes to the harried pace of modern life.  Despite our attempts to appreciate the good life and eat slow food, there are times when there just isn’t much time.  Thankfully with some forethought those busy times can just be seasons of our life.  Goat kidding, fairs, summer harvest or canning can throw a kink in home cooked meals sometimes.  Here are some healthy snack ideas that we can grab to keep us running, even when the chickens are running loose through the garden!

Healthy Snack Ideas For When You’re In a Hurry

Over the past couple of years I’ve started being mindful of how much sugar and wheat I’ve been eating and trying to reduce it.  It seems that all the quick and easy foods tend to have one or both of those ingredients, so it’s nice when I can think of healthy snack ideas that don’t.  Here are some of my favorites!

Apple Slices and Peanut Butter

Apple slices and nut butter is super yummy, and super fast.  If you don’t want peanut butter, this is good with almond or cashew butter too.  If you cut the apple slices ahead of time sprinkle a little bit of lemon juice on them to slow down the oxidation process that turns the apples brown. 

Mixed Nuts

When we lived in Oregon, I would sometimes keep a stash of granola bars in my car for the kids.  Living in Texas makes that impractical, as the bars get super hot and sticky.  Thankfully nuts don’t melt!  Nuts are also fairly easy to pack in a diaper bag or purse if you need to run errands all day or just like to have a backup plan on hand at all times. 

Veggies and Dip

Carrot sticks, cucumber slices, grape tomatoes, or similar vegetables are not necessarily my favorite food, but they do make good dipping medium!  My favorite dips are ranch, hummus, or sour cream mixed with a bit of salsa.  (Here’s how to make your own sour cream). What are some of your favorite dips?

Cheese

So many delicious options for cheese!  I’m a huge cheese fan!  You can cut it into sticks, cubes, or slices.  You can mix and match flavors or go with your all time favorite again and again.  (Havarti, anyone?).  I just skip the cracker and spread some butter and jam right onto cheddar slices.  Click here for an easy raspberry jam recipe.

Built Bars

Like I mentioned before, I used to be a fan of granola bars because they are quick and easy.  Once I started cutting back on carbs that quickly became unrealistic.  Almost all prepackaged bars have a lot of sugar in them, even if they are high in protein.  So I was super excited to try Built Bars when the company sent me a box to sample because they only have 5 carbs per bar. Click here to read more about them.

Cottage Cheese 

Cottage cheese is a super quick snack that is very filling.  It also goes well with fresh fruit.  When I was a kid, one of my favorite foods was applesauce and cottage cheese.  Now I tend to eat it with some sugar free jam on top.

Cream Cheese Egg

This next snack is a bit unusual, but I eat it quite frequently.  Soften about a tablespoon of cream cheese in the microwave, scramble an egg in it, and microwave until the egg is cooked (about one minute for me).  Next top it with whatever sounds good.  I like butter and cinnamon.  It can be sweet or savory!

Tuna Salad

Canned tuna and mayonnaise don’t HAVE to make a sandwich.  You can eat it on spinach as a salad, wrapped in lettuce, on top of cheese, or even with a spoon.   Canned chicken is also good.

Zucchini Pizzas

Now this is less of a healthy snack idea, and more of a healthy lunch idea, but it’s pretty cool so I’ll include it anyway.  Because honestly, we NEED ways to eat up all the zucchini!  Here’s the official recipe, but the gist of it is fry the sliced zucchini, top with pizza toppings, melt the cheese, and eat.  

Avocado 

I often think to grab a piece of fruit and eat it, but I don’t usually do the same with avocados.  It’s a shame, really, because with some salt and a spoon, avocado makes a pretty good snack.

Carrot Fries

Roasted vegetables go great with meals (here are some recipes for you!), but they also can make good snacks.  When we have extra carrots, I like to chop them into french fry shape, drizzle some oil on them, and bake them until they are soft.  Eat them like french fries!  This also works with sweet potatoes!

Green Smoothie

Spinach, yogurt or kefir, and frozen fruit.  Bam!  Best snack ever. 

Yogurt

You don’t have to put that yogurt in a smoothie for a good snack.  Yogurt is high protein and of course has all those beneficial bacteria for good gut health.  If you want to make your own, there are even varieties available that don’t need a yogurt maker to set up.

Hard Boiled Eggs

Did you ever read the children’s book, Bread and Jam for Frances?  It’s a cute story about kid’s tendency to want to eat the same thing over and over, but at the end, Frances ends up enjoying a spectacular lunch packed by her mother.  I think we all need Frances’s mother to pack lunches for us.  And include the hardboiled egg with a little cardboard shaker of salt please!

Ice Cream

Whaaaaaat?  Ice cream as a snack?  OH YEAH!  If there is one food in the world that qualifies as my favorite all time food it would be ice cream.  Get yourself an ice cream maker, try out some low sugar homemade ice cream recipes, and you too can enjoy a healthy snack disguised as a dessert!

Ham Roll Ups

I like to buy a bunch of Christmas hams when they come on sale, toss them in the freezer, and then we have really good ham for lunches throughout the year.  Just like the tuna, you don’t even need bread.  Just spread some mayonnaise right onto your ham, add cheese and spinach and eat!

Glass of Milk

Milk is super fast and super filling.  It’s the original protein drink!  And if you’re drinking your own homegrown goat milk, even better!  It’s a like a meal in a cup.

Leftovers

Totally not cool or awesome (unless it’s pizza…) but leftovers are a great way to reduce waste, skip cooking, and if you made healthy food the first time, are a good healthy snack.

Beef Sticks

Kind of like jerky, but less chewy, I recently discovered beef sticks.  The funny thing about these is that my 11 month old goes crazy for them.  

Dark Chocolate

Dark chocolate isn’t really going to fill you up as a snack, but it IS healthy!  It is delicious though.  Unless you are weird, like my husband and third daughter.  In that case, can I eat yours?

Built Bar Review

I was pleasantly surprised when Built Bar offered to send me a sample box.  I hadn’t heard of them before, but after emailing back and forth figured it was worth trying out.  Turns out they’re pretty good.  The box arrived quickly, and came with an ice pack in it and everything shipped safely.   

I threw the ice pack and some bars into a lunch box on our way out to the park, because I figured the kids would love to help me taste them once they came around scrounging for food after running around like hooligans. 

The bars didn’t melt in the lunch box, but the chocolate coating got super messy in the hot Texas summer day.  (They probably would have been fine in Oregon!  Texas is craaaaaazy hot).

Other than that, the kids all scarfed theirs down and asked for more.  Even though the appearance and ingredient lists are similar for all the bars, there are lots of different flavors, which is fun.  Even my chocolate hating seven year old liked the fruity flavors.  I especially enjoyed the raspberry. 

The nutritional details on these is pretty amazing, because they are some of the lowest carb protein bars I’ve ever seen, yet they manage to taste like a candy bar.  Even my picky husband enjoyed the couple of tastes he managed to snag before the kids scarfed down each flavor.  And even better, they have no GMO or soy, which are both products that I prefer not to spend my money on.

I’m definitely a fan of these, and if you buy in bulk, the price does go down a bit, which is helpful for those of us with not-so-tiny armies that keep wanting to be fed.  If you want to give them a try, you can use the code “farmingmybackyard” to get a 10 percent discount on your first order.  Click here to see all the different flavors available.

New Mango Flavor

A few weeks after I originally posted this, Built Bar sent me this nifty little cooler, plus a new flavor.  The tiny ice packs are super cute, plus they are perfect for keeping the bars from melting when it’s insane outside. (Feels like 106?  Weather app are you kidding me?!)?!

What’s Your Favorite Healthy Snack?

Here’s a list of my favorite snacks, do you have any you’d like to add? 

There are so many great snack ideas out there, but I know sometimes I don’t always think of them when I’m running around and scurrying from thing to thing (much like this foster kitten that is currently rampaging my living room as I write this). 

How do you plan ahead for those harried days?  Share in the comments below!