Super Mario Bros. Movie Lunch Ideas: 4 Themed School Lunches
Four Mario-themed school lunches, one for each kid, built around the Super Mario Bros. Movie.
During spring break the kids and I went to see The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and it was a blast. So that week every lunchbox got the Mario treatment, with one lunch per kid, each with its own character and color scheme. They look like a lot of work, but honestly they don’t take long: most of it is store-bought food arranged with a theme, plus a sandwich stamp or a food writer pen where it counts.
The four lunches at a glance
- Mario (Griffin): SpaghettiOs with meatballs, a cheese “M”, and villain cupcakes
- Princess Peach (Lily): PB&J on peach preserves with a stamped Peach sandwich
- Toad & mushrooms (McKenzie): chicken Caesar salad with radish Toads and power stars
- Luigi (Jackson): mini tortilla pizzas and Rice Krispie question blocks
1. Classic Mario lunch: “It’s-a me, Mario!”
Griffin is the biggest Mario fan in the house, and I’ve made him a fair few Mario lunches over the years, so for this one I kept it simple and leaned on the food itself. The only Mario-branded thing I could find at the grocery store was Mario SpaghettiOs with meatballs, which have fun pasta shapes, and that became the main event.
To sell it as Mario, I cut a cheese “M” and laid it on top of the pasta like the letter on his hat. Everything around it was color-coded: green grapes for green Koopa shells, carrot coins for the coins you collect, and raspberries because red is Mario’s color.
The sweet treat was semi-homemade: store-bought cupcakes and frosting. Red frosting with a white ring and spikes makes a Spiny, and the same treatment in green gives you a Bowser. The drink was a Mario Power-Up Punch: fruit punch mixed with lemonade.
What you’ll need
- Mario SpaghettiOs with meatballs (or any canned pasta with meatballs)
- Sliced cheese, for the “M”
- Green grapes
- Carrots (sliced into coins)
- Raspberries
- Cheese-filled Ritz crackers
- Cupcakes, plus red, green and white frosting
- Fruit punch + lemonade for the Power-Up Punch
2. Princess Peach lunch: a peach PB&J
Lily isn’t a fan of meat sandwiches, so she usually gets a PB&J, but this time I swapped the strawberry jam for peach preserves, which is such a small change for how well it fits the theme. (It smells incredible, too.)
To make the sandwich actually look like Princess Peach I used the Princess Peach sandwich stamp and filled in the details with food writer pens. Whether it came out cute or creepy is still up for debate, and the kids weighed in, loudly.
Around it: peaches mixed with raspberries, a peach Greek yogurt dressed up with flower sprinkles, cucumber cut into flower petals and carrots cut into tulips, a Babybel for protein, and macarons with a little hand-drawn Peach crown piped on top. The drink was peach and strawberry water flavoring.
What you’ll need
- Bread, peanut butter and peach preserves
- Princess Peach sandwich stamp
- Food writer pens (edible markers)
- Peaches + raspberries
- Peach Greek yogurt + flower sprinkles
- Cucumber and carrots
- Babybel cheese
- Macarons
- Peach and strawberry water flavoring packets
3. Toad & mushroom lunch: cottagecore mushrooms
McKenzie loves all things mushroom and the whole cottagecore look, so her lunch went Toad-themed. It’s the only one of the four with a real salad in it: seasoned cooked chicken on the bottom, salad mix with spinach piled on top, and Caesar dressing on the side for her to toss through right before eating.
The decorating is where the theme lives: radishes carved into little Toad mushrooms, yellow bell peppers cut into power stars, and a few cucumbers for crunch. For fruit I put strawberries and green grapes on skewers with a little V cut in the strawberries so they read as piranha plants.
On the side: rosemary and olive oil Triscuits with cheese cut into mushroom shapes, and chocolate gold coins for a sweet. The drink was a rare treat in our house: a Yoo-hoo, purely because it sounds like Mario’s “woohoo”.
What you’ll need
- Cooked, seasoned chicken (rotisserie works)
- Salad mix with spinach
- Caesar dressing
- Radishes
- Yellow bell pepper
- Cucumber
- Strawberries and green grapes + small skewers
- Rosemary and olive oil Triscuits
- Cheese block for mushroom cutouts
- Chocolate gold coins
- Yoo-hoo chocolate drink
4. Luigi lunch: mini pizzas and question blocks
Jackson got Luigi, and I started his lunch with the sweet treat because it’s the most hands-on bit. The question blocks are a single-serve Rice Krispie treat: about half a tablespoon of butter and three-quarters of a cup of mini marshmallows melted in the microwave, then vanilla, a pinch of salt and yellow food coloring, stirred into half a cup of cereal. Press it into a small square container so it sets as a brick, cut into four blocks, and pipe a question mark on each with melted white chocolate.
Mario’s favorite food is spaghetti and meatballs, but Luigi’s is pizza, so his main was mini tortilla pizzas: small flour tortillas, pizza sauce and mozzarella. They’re good hot but just as good at room temperature, which is exactly what you want in a lunchbox. I cut a cheese power star for the top and added the little eyes with a food writer pen.
Around it: golden pineapple squares, checkerboard cucumbers (this one needs real knife skills, so keep the kids out of that step), cherry tomatoes arranged into a flower, and cheese balls standing in for fireballs. The Luigi punch was a kiwi-lime water flavor packet topped up with the pineapple juice I saved from the fruit.
What you’ll need
- Rice Krispies cereal, butter, mini marshmallows, vanilla and yellow food coloring
- White chocolate wafers (for the question marks)
- Small flour tortillas, pizza sauce and shredded mozzarella
- Sliced cheese for the power star
- Food writer pen
- Pineapple chunks in 100% juice
- Cucumber and cherry tomatoes
- Cheese balls
- Kiwi-lime water flavoring
Get the sandwich stamps
Every character sandwich in this video was made with our own 3D-printed cutters and stamps. Each set is $11.66 and comes as two pieces, an outline cutter and a detail stamp, so it works on bread, tortillas, cheese and cookies:
- Super Mario Sandwich Cutter and Stamp: the one on Griffin’s lunch
- Princess Peach Sandwich Cookie Cutter and Stamp Set: Lily’s PB&J
- Baby Mario & Luigi Sandwich Cutter and Stamp Set: for the Luigi lunch
- Yoshi Sandwich Cutter and Stamp Set
- Bowser Jr. Sandwich Cutter and Stamp Set
- Mario Kart Sandwich Cutter and Stamp Set
Everything ships from Florida: flat $6.95, and free over $35 if you’re picking up a few.
Tips for making these yourself
- You don’t need a stamp for every lunch. Carrot coins, radish mushrooms and pepper stars carry the theme on their own.
- Food writer pens are the cheapest way to add a face; they turn a plain cheese cutout into a character.
- Pack wet and dry separately. Dressing and yogurt go in their own little containers so nothing goes soggy by lunchtime.
- Cut the produce the morning of; everything else can be prepped the night before.
- Mini pizzas and pasta both hold up at room temperature, which makes them good candidates for a packed lunch.
- Swap the fruit for whatever’s in season; the color story matters more than the exact fruit.
If you make any of these, I’d love to see them. Tag us on Instagram @thefamilyfudge, and the full video is up on YouTube if you want to watch each lunch come together.
