Rainbow Lunch Ideas: 4 Colorful School Lunches
Four rainbow lunches, one for each kid, built on color instead of a character theme.
Rainbow lunches are some of my favorite lunches to make, because the theme comes from the food itself rather than a licence or a toy. No characters, no props, just color. Everything here is bright and colorful but still easy to throw together, and most of it uses things you probably already have in the pantry.
The four lunches at a glance
- Rainbow mac and cheese (Griffin): four colors of mac layered in a thermos
- Rainbow waffles (McKenzie): nine colors of mini waffles with a rainbow fruit salad
- PB and cheesecake unicorn sandwich (Lily): pastel stripes inside a unicorn cutter
- Rainbow flatbread pizza (Jackson): dyed cheese in five colors on an alfredo base
1. Rainbow mac and cheese
Griffin’s lunch is the one that takes the most pans but the least skill. I used two boxes of Annie’s deluxe white cheddar, and the trick is to divide the cheese sauce before you color it, not after. I split the sauce into four bowls, tinted each one, then cooked the pasta, split that into four as well, and mixed a color into each batch.
Then came the fiddly bit: layering the four colors into the thermos so he opens it and sees an actual rainbow. It is not a perfect science, and the layers do not need to be even. It tastes exactly like regular mac and cheese, which is the whole point.
Around it went cherry tomatoes for red, baby corn instead of regular corn for yellow because the little ears are cuter, green grapes, white cheddar popcorn for a snack, and rainbow rods for a sweet treat. Those are just Froot Loops or Tutti Frutti cereal threaded onto a stick with mini marshmallows, and they take about two minutes.
His drink was a fruit and veggie juice blend so the color theme carried all the way to the bottle.
What you’ll need
- Two boxes Annie’s deluxe white cheddar mac and cheese
- Food coloring in four colors
- Cherry tomatoes
- Baby corn
- Green grapes
- White cheddar popcorn
- Froot Loops or Tutti Frutti cereal + mini marshmallows + skewers
- Fruit and veggie juice blend
2. Rainbow waffles for breakfast, at lunch
McKenzie got rainbow waffles. The Dash mini waffle maker makes nine tiny waffles at a time, which is exactly what you want for this, and I mixed up nine different colors of waffle batter and put each one in its own ziploc bag so I could pipe them cleanly.
Honest moment: the first batch stuck to the iron because I forgot to spray it. They still tasted fine, and the third batch came out much nicer once I got the spray right. If you try this, spray the plates every single time.
The waffles went into the box in rainbow order, with a fruity cereal syrup on the side. That syrup is dark purple with silver glitter in it, which is not the healthy end of the spectrum, but it is very fun for a special occasion.
For fruit I built a proper rainbow salad: strawberries for red, pineapple for yellow, grapes for green, blueberries for blue, all piled into one section and topped with coconut yogurt and rainbow sprinkles. Cucumber and a square hard-boiled egg from an egg mold went in next to it, with rainbow Goldfish for crunch and water in a cute bottle.
What you’ll need
- Waffle mix + nine colors of food coloring
- Ziploc bags for piping
- Cooking spray (do not skip it)
- Fruity cereal syrup
- Strawberries, pineapple, green grapes, blueberries
- Coconut yogurt + rainbow sprinkles
- Cucumber
- Hard-boiled eggs + an egg mold
- Rainbow Goldfish crackers
3. A PB and cheesecake unicorn sandwich
Lily does not eat much meat or eggs, so a dessert sandwich is the right answer for her. This is a PB and C: peanut butter, and the C stands for cheesecake. The filling is a block of cream cheese whipped with sugar and vanilla until it is light and airy, then divided into four and tinted pastel rather than full rainbow strength.
The bread matters here. Use a plain square white bread, because a chunky or seeded loaf will not press flat enough and the colors muddle. Build it, press it, and then cut the unicorn shape for the top. The pastel layers show through as stripes when you cut into it, which is the whole payoff.
Her veg was a rainbow in itself: rainbow carrots, which include yellow and purple ones, raspberries for the red, cucumbers cut with a crinkle cutter for green, and blueberries for blue.
For a snack I found colorful cheese puffs at Target, and I assumed they would be fruit flavored because of the colors. They are not, they are just cheese. Her sweet treat was a unicorn themed cookie from Aldi, and her drink was water.
What you’ll need
- Square white sandwich bread
- Cream cheese, sugar and vanilla extract
- Peanut butter
- Pastel food coloring
- A unicorn shaped cutter
- Rainbow carrots
- Raspberries
- Cucumber + a crinkle cutter
- Blueberries
- Colorful cheese puffs
- Unicorn cookies
4. Rainbow flatbread pizza
Jackson’s lunch started as a joke about rainbow ramen and turned into rainbow flatbread pizza, which is a format I have done before with rainbow bread and works just as well here.
I dyed shredded cheese in five colors rather than the full seven. Red and purple are the two hardest to get right with cheese, so I skipped them, and I still think five colors reads as a rainbow. If you disagree, the comments are open.
Instead of marinara I used alfredo sauce, because a white base lets the colored cheese stay bright, plus a little garlic powder and dried Italian seasoning. Wear gloves when you handle the dyed cheese, otherwise your hands are rainbow for the rest of the day. Start with the middle color and work outward.
It gets messy before it goes in the oven, so I moved it onto a clean baking sheet and baked it for about ten minutes. For the drink, Jackson picked a rainbow Skittles drink mix, and he chose mango out of the flavors. Baby carrots, rainbow Goldfish, and a cosmic brownie with rainbow sprinkles finished it off.
What you’ll need
- Flatbread or naan
- Alfredo sauce, garlic powder and dried Italian seasoning
- Shredded mozzarella + food coloring in five colors
- Food safe gloves
- Rainbow Skittles drink mix
- Baby carrots
- Rainbow Goldfish crackers
- Cosmic brownies + rainbow sprinkles
Shop the supplies
These are the things we actually use for rainbow lunches, linked from Amazon. Some of them are the exact brands in the video, and some are the closest equivalent you can buy online.
Mac and cheese
Rainbow waffles
Unicorn sandwich
Flatbread pizza
Snacks and extras
- Goldfish Colors crackers
- Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies
- Naked Juice Rainbow Machine
- Square hard boiled egg mold
- Harvest Snaps green pea crisps
- Kellogg’s Froot Loops
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Prices change constantly on Amazon, so I have left them off. The lunchbox sizes and flavours are worth double checking against the video before you order, since a couple of these come in several versions.
Make your own rainbows
None of the sandwiches in this video used a shaped cutter, because rainbow food does its own talking. If you do want to add a shape, our cutters and stamps work on bread, tortillas, cheese and cookies, and they are $11.66 each:
- Browse all sandwich cutters and stamps
- Heart Hands Sandwich Cookie Cutter and Stamp Set
- Butterfly Sandwich Cutter and Stamp Set
Everything ships from Florida. Shipping is a flat $6.95, and free over $35.
Tips for rainbow lunches
- Color the sauce or the filling before it goes into the food, not after. It mixes far more evenly.
- Layer from the middle color outward when you are building anything striped. The edges are where it gets messy.
- Spray the waffle iron every single batch. The one time you skip it is the batch that sticks.
- Use gloves for anything dyed. Cheese and frosting dye your hands faster than you would think.
- Rainbow fruit salad is the easiest win in any lunchbox: strawberries, pineapple, grapes, blueberries, done.
- You do not need all seven colors to read as a rainbow. Five is plenty, and pastel works just as well as bright.
If you make any of these, tag us on Instagram @thefamilyfudge so we can see them, and the full video is above if you want to watch each lunch come together.
![[FREE download] Lunch Planning Sheet](https://i0.wp.com/thefamilyfudge.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Lunch-Planner.jpg?fit=768%2C994&ssl=1)
