Homemade Fruit Cup for School Lunch
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my Disclosure and Privacy Policy.
Make your own fruit cups for kids with this simple recipe! This recipe for a homemade fruit cup for school lunch is a great way to transport fragile fruits and give you control over the ingredients in your fruit cups. Skip the syrup and have fun creating your favorite fruit combinations with this easy fruit cup idea for kids.
My two older boys start school tomorrow. TOMORROW. I am excited about getting back into our school year routine. Late last week I was searching through my fridge and cupboards to make sure I had everything I needed to back lunches. One thing I definitely have on hand is a ton of great fruit. My kids always love fruit and they get it every day in their lunch. One of their absolute favorites is pears. Unfortunately fresh pears don’t hold up well in a school lunch. By midday they get bruised and dinged up from being in their lunchbox. If I slice them up instead they are brown. But thinking on it further I realized that pears are one of their favorite fruit cups. Why not try to make my own homemade fruit cup for school lunch?
Fruit Cup Ingredients
To make these easy fruit cups as shown, you’ll need the following ingredients:
- fresh pear
- blueberries
- lemonade
You can use a variety of your favorite fruits such as apples, grapes or peaches. I do recommend not using fruits would break down over a short period of time such as raspberries.
I rarely allow my kids to have soda and we almost never have it on hand so giving the pears a bath in lemon-lime soda isn’t a good choice for us. And using lemon juice just makes my kids not want to eat their now sour fruit. But a great alternative is lemonade. The sugar and lemon found in lemonade does a good job of keeping the fruit from going brown without adding an unwanted flavor.
How to Make a Fruit Cup
I cut up a single pear and Wesley filled up two reusable cups with pears. I happen to have frozen some fresh blueberries recently so we used those as well. (I think purchased frozen blueberries would probably stain the pears.) We love Simply Lemonade with Mango so we used that as our filler. You want to get close to covering the fruit without completely drowning them. I gave the cups a little shake so all pieces got coated.
You’ll want to keep the fruit cold until lunch time. I like using containers which have ice pack you can attach right on the lid like these Fit & Fresh Kid’s Chilled Containers.
How did these fruit cups hold up?
We tested this one 4 hours later and found it to be absolutely delicious. My kids loved that the pear picked up a bit of the lemonade flavor and it kept the pears from browning. I did try the second cup the next day after being the fridge for 24 hours. The pears picked up a lot of lemonade flavor but still held up and didn’t brown. I preferred the flavor and texture 4 hours after much better though. I would suggest making these the night before or the morning of for optimal freshness.
I love having the option to make homemade fruit cups anytime. It works great to serve with these pizza dippers! Making my own snacks for school lunch is something I can feel good about. Next I’d like to try fruit leather with fresh peaches!
Homemade Fruit Cup for School Lunch
Make your own homemade fruit cup for school lunch with this simple recipe! Choose your favorite fresh fruits and turn them into easy to eat fruit cups for your child.
Ingredients
- 1 fresh pear cut into chunks
- 1/4 cup fresh blueberries
- 1/2 cup lemonade
Instructions
-
Divide ingredients between 2 one- cup storage containers, adding lemonade so it almost covers the fruit.
-
Stir or gently shake to coat all fruit.
-
Store in fridge or keep cool with ice pack until ready to serve.
-
Best served within 24 hours.
Recipe Notes
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered estimates. Actual nutritional content will vary with brands used, measuring methods, portion sizes and more.
What have you been up to with your mini chefs this week?
I am hosting Mini Chef Mondays along with 8 fabulous bloggers!
Be sure to check out each of their Mini Chef posts as well.
- Turkey Cucumber Sandwich // Courtney’s Sweets
- Homemade Dunkaroos // Momma Lew
- Smores Waffles // We’re Parents
- Canned Tuna Sushi for Kids // Eating Richly
- Frozen Banana Yogurt Pops // Giggles, Gobbles and Gulps
- Vegetarian Quinoa Chili // Vegging at the Shore
- Top 5 Back to School Lunch Must Haves // O’Boy! Organic
- Cucumber Ants on a Log // My Mini Adventurer
This is a great lunch idea. It’s great they can have a fruit cup but fresher.
Oh this recipe is yummy and so healthy! I can get my daughter and son to help make these for back to school. Thanks for the recipe.
What a delicious idea! This would be perfect and yummy to pack in my grandson’s school lunch!
This looks a lot better than the store bought kind. So simple too!
Looks yummy. I’d like to try this recipe. Thanks for sharing!
Looks like a yummy lunch treat and a great homemade idea. Thanks for sharing with us at Merry Monday.
I really need to make my own because my boys love fruit cups. This would be healthier and more cost effective.
That’s so much better than the prepackaged fruit cups.
Did you try freezing them? I’d be interested in making more then 2 at a time