My kids love pesto more than they love me. No joke. I can throw that shit on an old sock, and they’ll happily eat it. You can always buy pesto pre-made, but making it is ridiculously easy, and doubling the amount so you can freeze or use for dinner takes ZERO extra work, and the price can’t be beat.
By the way, ever noticed how toddlers who love pesto have absolutely no complaints if you steam half a pound of spinach and blend it right into the pesto? (HINT HINT!) Not that I would ever have engaged in deceiving my kids in that way when they were toddlers … no, never …
For lunch menus, I play with the consistency and ingredients of the pesto. Using a food processor (like I have said before, my Cuisinart is a workhorse), I add more parmesan, tweak my amount of olive oil, and omit the traditional pine nuts. The kids don’t miss the nuts, it’s far less expensive, and there’s no danger of unwittingly cross-contaminating a nut-allergic friend at the lunch table (if the nuts are front and center on a granola bar and everyone can see them, it’s easier to avoid, but I get nervous when there’s no way for kids to tell). The extra parmesan makes the pesto heartier, and holds up well in the thawed wrap.
Of course, it takes the same amount of effort to double the batch and use leftovers for an easy pasta dinner when you’re done cooking on Round 1 Night (boil some pasta, throw in some cherry tomatoes and cheese cubes, and call it a day!), so feel free to add pine nuts to the extra bit you reserve for dinner.
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Flash Freeze your wraps. Flash freezing ensures that your food items won’t stick to each other once you’re ready to pack them. Lay the uncovered pan of wraps directly in your freezer for 1-2 hours (I’ve been known to forget about my last pan overnight without it getting freezer burn, so there’s that). Once the wraps are flash frozen, you can proceed to pack them in your heavy duty freezer bags.
To serve, cut in half and place in chilled lunchbox – wrap will be thawed by lunch time. Otherwise, you may heat the wrap (we do 4 minutes for 2.5 wraps in the microwave) and place in food thermos for kids to eat hot at lunch time.
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- RECIPE 1: Ridiculously-Easy Cinnamon Apple Chips
- RECIPE 2: Ridiculously-Easy-And-Totally-Worth-It Tomato Sauce
- RECIPE 3: Pesto Chicken Wraps (or Pesto-Mozzarella Wraps)
- RECIPE 4: Breakfast Burritos
- RECIPE 5: Broccoli Cheese Corndog Muffins
I LOVE your recipes and have enjoyed trying to make them my own however my children are lactose intolerant and I do not have a good substitute for parmesan cheese. Any suggestions that I could use that would hold up to freezing and still taste good? Thank you again!
Hi Bethany!
I’m so glad you’ve been having a good time customizing these for your family! Great question about the parmesan. Vegan recipes often call for nutritional yeast as a substitute – you can get that at your local health food store, or here. Personally, I would use 3 Tb nutritional yeast, 3/4 cups cashews, 1/4 tsp garlic powder, and 3/4 tsp salt, and grind well in a food processor. You can substitute that for 1 cup parmesan (as long as no nut allergies, obviously!). Let us know how it goes!
Hi Emi, I found you through PMG and just bought a TON of your recommendations on amazon. I will be trying the freezable lunch recipes and school starts in ONE week!!!! I just posted on PMG as well. I had a few questions for this one
Can I halve this recipe? Im not sure my boys will like it and don’t want to go crazy. Next, should I buy grated parmesan cheese or grate my own now that I just bought your recommended cuisinart. Last question, can I slice the bell peppers first and then broil or will that not taste the same?
Thanks, Sophy
Hi Sophy!
Yay! So excited for you! I promise it’s a total life changer when the system clicks … takes a little elbow grease for a day or two, but you have plenty of time to get ready for next week!
Okay, to your questions! You can absolutely halve the recipe, yes. You can also include less garlic, if that’s a sticking point for your family. I would, for once, buy grated Parmesan for this recipe, simply because the attachment on the food processor is not that fine, and you really want a skinnier shave on your Parmesan for this. I refuse to grate anything by hand when batch cooking, so I just buy it pre-grated (even the powdery stuff in the green container works just fine for this). I would definitely use the cuisinart for any of the other cheeses, though!
As far as the bell peppers go, you can slice them first, but that just means (a) you’ll have to peel them one by one instead of just skipping the skin off the entire pepper all at once, and (b) your pepper will be a little dryer than it would have been, since you’re not containing any moisture from the inside of the pepper (as opposed to when it’s whole and you’re only charring the outside skin). That being said, you do whatever is easiest for you! You can even use jarred roasted peppers if you’d rather (though that tends to get pricier when doing in bulk).
Good luck! Let me know if you have any questions as you go. Can’t wait to hear how it goes!
Emi.