Snacks on the beach for children: ideas for healthy snacks to prepare at home

Snacks are an essential part of a child’s diet, especially in the summer. Here are the healthy, fresh and light snacks to take to the beach and quick to prepare!

On the beach, children are always in “ON” mode. They are super active and would never stop playing but thanks to the sun, the heat and the effort of playing with water, sooner or later the time comes when they have to “refuel”.
In fact, the purpose of a  snack on the beach is to keep children full, hydrated and to provide them with the energy they need to do all the activities that a beautiful day at the beach requires: swimming, running and playing freely on the sand.

On the beach it is not difficult to find bars or small stands that serve snacks, but unfortunately they are almost always unhealthy. In fact, most of the time they are processed snacks or pre-packaged snacks rich in fat and sugar. Which, for heaven’s sake, sometimes you can even buy them as long as it doesn’t become a rule or a daily thing.

Good and healthy snacks to take to the beach

As with the two main meals, even on holiday you need to keep a close eye on snacks for children and it’s always worth making the effort and preparing a healthy snack at home, including natural drinks.

Ideas for snacks to take to the beach

So here are some quick ideas for preparing healthy snacks to take to the beach that children will love

Fruit at will!

What am I telling you, fruit is the ideal summer snack because it is healthy, fresh, simple and quick to prepare. All types of fruit are fine even if children are often reluctant to eat fruit as it is. In these it is possible to take fruit presented in other, more captivating ways to the beach.

For example you can prepare:

1. fruit skewers that they can enjoy eating in small bites (depending on the fruit used, the compositions to create are endless). Prepare the skewers with the fruit appreciated by the children and if you want to make them richer, insert small pieces of biscuits, cheese, cooked or raw ham together with the fruit.
2. fruit salads and creative fruit salads for children , where the small pieces of fruit will be cut into the shape of stars, teddy bears, hearts (you can help yourself with cookie cutters to get the most curious shapes);
3. fruit wedges with a stick (here an example with watermelon). Children will feel like eating a nice lollipop!
4. cones with chunks of fruit  (just use an ice cream cone as a container and eating the fruit will be a whole other story!)

Fresh and dried fruit smoothies

If you have children who really don’t want to eat fruit even under torture, what better summer snack than a rich and nutritious smoothie or milkshake ?

To prepare a fresh drink you can blend together different types of ripe fruit, ice and milk (sugar is better not) dosing the ingredients in different proportions depending on how much you want to obtain a more or less nutritious drink.

To sweeten the smoothie, you can possibly add a touch of honey or fructose.

However, remember that the smoothie must be consumed almost immediately, so prepare it just before going to the beach and keep it in a thermos.

Homemade ice cream or popsicles

Another snack to take to the beach (always with the help of a good cooler and some ice) are the homemade fresh fruit popsicles . Very welcome to children, they are quick and easy to prepare.

Whether it’s cut into chunks with apple or grape juice, blended with yoghurt or milk, molds and wooden sticks will suffice to get a healthy and tasty snack that the children won’t be able to resist (and maybe you won’t either). . You can find the recipes here:

1. chunks of fruit popsicle with apple or grape juice
2. rainbow fruit popsicles
3. banana and blueberry milk popsicle
4. yogurt popsicles with strawberries and raspberries

Yogurt-based snacks

Yogurt is a healthy and versatile food and is a fresh and tasty snack, ideal for summer and days on the beach. It can be eaten by children alone or with the addition of other ingredients. Or the yogurt itself can in turn be an excellent ingredient for preparing other types of snacks such as sweets, biscuits, muffins and plum cakes.
To take yogurt to the beach, as well as the classic cooler bag, you can use special yogurt containers that can keep it fresh for many hours.

For the snack to take to the beach you can prepare:

1. Yogurt with honey and puffed rice
2. yogurt with fresh fruit
3. yogurt with dried fruit or granola
4. yoghurt and chocolate mousse
5. yogurt muffins and plumcakes 
6. homemade yoghurt sweets or biscuits
7. greek yogurt and honey

Summer snacks based on bread, cheese and vegetables

A snack based on bread stuffed in a light and natural way is certainly the snack that most of all, after a day at the beach, manages to satiate hungry children. The most suitable is fresh bread which can be alternated some afternoons with crushed or sliced ​​bread or with wholemeal, oatmeal, mixed seeds.
In any case, home-made slices of bread can be an excellent snack for any member of the family.

Usually a slice of fresh bread, a pinch of olive oil (optional) and a healthy filling are more than enough to prepare a good summer snack for children . Thanks to the infinite possibilities of filling and the ingredients with which you can make them, children will never get tired of them. But be careful, not all foods are suitable for filling slices of bread. For example, it is advisable to avoid too fatty meats and cheeses (but you already know this, right?)

However, here are some suggestions for snacks to prepare at home and take to the beach

1. homemade bread and jam
2. bread and cheese, both fresh and seasoned
3. slices of bread with ricotta cheese and a splash of oil
4. slices of bread with finely chopped tomatoes and mozzarella
5. bread and grilled vegetables (better to choose the ones the child likes) with the addition of a drizzle of oil
6. toasted ham and cheese
7. bread with extra virgin olive oil and unsalted turkey ham
8. bread with turkey ham and tomato
9. sandwiches with lettuce and boiled egg
10. sandwiches with homemade tuna mousse
11. toast with avocado
12. piadina with chickpea flour stuffed to taste

Snacks on the beach: practical suggestions

Finally some small suggestions. To make snack time pleasant and easy (for both you and the children), try to:

• limit the handling of food : better raw fruit and vegetables, sandwiches already cut into pieces and adapted to small hands and children’s mouths. Ideal for children is that they can eat by themselves and with their hands (or at least with the help of a spoon).
• Use yoghurt holder kits and airtight boxes so as not to crush fruit or fragile foods, which are easy to open even by children.
• Bring the fridge bag , very useful for keeping everything cool. A trick to not weigh it down too much and keep the temperature inside low is to freeze bottles of water overnight and put them inside the bag just before going to the beach. In this way, drinks and food are kept fresh and ice lollies are avoided in the cooler
• Remember to bring a bag to collect all rubbish.

---

With all these tips, your children’s snack will be rich and healthy and you can use these ideas for any member of your family, including you!