Kid-Approved Recipes with Six Ingredients or Less

At the Chef Ann Foundation, we strive to support schools in providing healthy and delicious scratch-cooked meals. By serving flavorful school meals made with whole ingredients, school food programs can nourish students so they’re fueled for the school day. Scratch cooking can positively impact children and school food professionals alike. However, we understand that it may feel challenging as many districts nationwide are short-staffed, facing ingredient shortages, and working with tight budgets.

Whether your district serves cooked-from-scratch meals daily or is just beginning to explore scratch-cooking, our hope is to support your team’s journey toward serving more tasty, nutritious and kid-friendly meals. In this blog, we’ve highlighted some of our most popular recipes from The Lunch Box that require six ingredients or less, taste delicious, and require little time and labor.

Honey BBQ Chicken Drumstick

Serving flavorful, scratch-cooked chicken is a fantastic way to phase out overly-processed products, such as chicken nuggets, from your menu. Our recipe for BBQ Baked Chicken Drumsticks only requires three ingredients and is a dish that your team will feel proud about serving!

To make this recipe, whisk the BBQ sauce and honey on high heat. Next, brush the drumsticks with the sauce mixture until evenly coated, and roast the drumsticks in the oven at 375 F. When they are done you will have tender and moist oven-baked chicken for your students to enjoy. For an added bonus, we recommend using local honey and BBQ sauce for this recipe to showcase the flavors of your community!

Caprese Sliders

If you already have pesto on-hand, another way to incorporate it into your menu is with our four-ingredient Caprese Sliders. This dish is an extremely simple and fun restaurant-style entree to add to your menu.

This recipe does not require any special equipment, and each slider can be made in an assembly line. It’s also a fantastic option to add to your menu for kids that don’t eat meat or want to try more plant-forward options. Vegetarian-friendly items are also great for the planet and your food cost budget! To build these delicious sliders, simply stack sliced tomatoes, pesto, and mozzarella cheese on a whole grain bun.

Buffalo Chicken Sliders

Another great slider recipe to add to your menu are these Buffalo Chicken Sliders. They’re packed with flavor and are a great alternative to pre-packaged sandwiches made with processed chicken patties. This trendy menu item also offers spicy flavors that are often appealing to secondary students.

This recipe requires five ingredients: chicken thigh strips, buffalo sauce, feta cheese, pepperoncini and a whole grain bun. Sliders are a great lunchtime option for teams looking to experiment with ingredients and toppings. For another simple slider recipe, check out our Korean Turkey Sliders.

Despite the challenges K-12 districts are facing, many school food professionals are finding innovative ways to integrate healthy, scratch-cooked meals into their food programs. Scratch-cooking doesn’t have to be complicated and we hope these recipes inspire you to explore cooking from scratch. Visit The Lunch Box for more simple and delicious scratch-cooked school food recipes.