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Eat Well
The Back-to-School Lunch Reset: Three Stainless Steel Swaps I Have Never Regretted Buying
The short hit
If you’re about to start packing lunches again, these are the three things I’d buy. All stainless, all bought once, and years later I’m still using every one of them. Two of them can be used on the go (or at home). One lives in the fridge and I did not expect to care about it as much as I do.
If you’re only doing one, start at the top.
The picks
PlanetBox stainless lunch box. My top pick, and the one still going strong years in. Compartments in different sizes, tiny stainless containers with silicone lids that nest inside and actually seal, TRULY dishwasher-safe, optional swapable magnets on the cover so the “theme” grows with the kid. Yes it’s expensive up front but it lasts forever which means it’s cheaper than everything I would otherwise have replaced over the years. It’s the Rover model — $55 new, and I caught mine on a back-to-school sale for $43. Two moves before you buy: check for a back-to-school sale, and check your local moms’ group for used ones (mine ran about $20). Shop the PlanetBox.
The stainless steel snackle box, the version with the flat ice pack. Same-size compartments in one carrying case, sized for a family spread rather than one person’s lunch. The ice pack sits flat underneath the containers and the lid still closes, which is the entire reason I bought this version after using two others previously. It’s $44 — worth it for stainless, though they also make a $24 plastic version if you’re not quite at the “no more plastic” stage yet. Shop the snackle box.
Stainless fridge containers with clear lids. Sold as cheese containers. I use them for opened deli meat, bacon, and cheese I grate myself. Slim, stackable, all one size, and you can see what’s in them without picking them up. Shop the fridge containers
The story
The lunchbox I hesitated on
I had heard about PlanetBox and I had heard it was expensive. Buying one for a preschooler felt a little insane.
My oldest was heading into preschool and camps and suddenly lunches needed packing. Around that same time, I was learning how much materials matter, what a container does to the food sitting in it. I’d already swapped everything in our kitchen from plastic to glass, so the lunch box question was going to come up eventually since I knew I didn’t love to use plastic.
Everyone I asked about the PlanetBox said the exact same thing: yes, it’s expensive, and it will last for years.
I thought about what I grew up with. Cheap character lunch boxes that either broke or that you outgrew emotionally by the following school year if not sooner. The clasps would break, or you’d just be done with the character a month after you “had to have it”. When I was starting my lunchbox search, bento-style plastic ones were popping up everywhere. I didn’t love the plastic but wasn’t sending hot food so I thought maybe I could overlook it, but they ended up being worse in a quieter way…not truly dishwasher-safe! The lids warp or sometimes even melt. Hand-washing a multi-compartment lunch box every night was NOT going to be on my bingo card.
So I caved and bought two PlanetBoxes in 2019, because I had a second son coming up right behind the first, and told myself it would pay for itself across the years. 7 years later I’m here to report it absolutely did!
One of thing things that actually sold me was the little stainless containers with silicone lids that nest inside the compartments and seal tight. That was the key to sending yogurt in a lunch box without the whole thing becoming a crime scene.
There are interchangeable magnets for the cover so it can “grow with the kid” as their interests change, which my kids could not have cared less about, but I know some kids might care more. What I used the lid for was a dry-erase marker. Love, Mom, have a great day. I could jot a note with the marker if I was feeling like my kid needed a pick me up. Or more often I would jot down whose lunch it inside, back when I was packing multiple at once (more on that later). The dry erase can be wiped off with a paper towel and any remaining comes right off in the dishwasher.
Once both kids were in school, making lunches became one of those daily to-dos I dreaded. It just felt like it took so much time and effort and made a big mess when I was cutting up fruits or veg or cheese or whatever. My efficiency brain decided I needed to batch prep and do more than one day at a time. With two kids, two or three lunches at a time meant I needed six PlanetBoxes but I barely hesitated knowing how well they worked. Buying six new would have been steep, so I bought several used from a local moms’ group and they showed up in perfect condition. That works in reverse too. When my kids age out, I can resell them because I know they will be in great shape. Not a sentence I think I could ever say about another lunch box, especially after 7+ years of use.
Something I didn’t see coming? We homeschool now and nobody in this house is packing a lunch, at least not daily. And yet, I still use all of them!
We use them for picnics. We use them at the beach, where the seal keeps out sand and the kids can open and close them without me. We use them as snack trays when we’re on a road trip like individual charcuterie boards. They stack flat for travel, so we packed food in them for a Disney trip. They fit in the backpack cooler I wrote about earlier this summer, which is exactly why I bought that particular cooler. And I usually pack one for myself now if we’re on the go, because it holds enough food for an adult. And when we are with cousins or friends, they get one too.
The snackle box, third time lucky
“Snackle boxes” (tackle boxes, for snacks) were having a moment a couple of years ago and I bought in immediately, because it’s exactly how my kids eat. A little of this, a little of that. Snack-plate style.
These do a different job than the PlanetBox: the compartments are all the same size and it’s built for a shared spread, not one person’s lunch.
Version one: The first I tried was plastic and off Amazon. I searched and searched for a non-plastic option and it didn’t exist. Plastic was the only option at the time and I made peace with it, because this thing holds cold and room-temp food and never anything hot. Plastic plus heat is where I draw the line. Nine or twelve little containers inside a bigger lidded tray you carry as one unit. It also doubles as a travel charcuterie board, which sounds ridiculous right up until you’re at a beach house arranging carrots and ranch and nuts and honey in their own cups around a board. We loved to pack it for a trip on a boat or even just to keep it in the fridge for afternoon snacktime.
Version two: about a year ago, I finally found an upgraded version where the inner containers are stainless steel and a bit bigger than the original version I had. This realy helped when I was packing for more people. One slight problem was that each inner container had its own separate lid. With small kids, individual lids disappear somehow and because I didn’t realize this was the way the world works, I didn’t do a great job keeping track of the lids. So after a year we had quite a few with missing lids and I needed to find some replacements.
Version three: is what I have now and what I’d tell you to buy. When I was looking for the replacement lids or containers I stumbled upon what I had been dreaming of. Stainless containers inside a larger carrying case, just like the last version, but the detail I had genuinely been hunting for finally existed. This one has a flat ice pack that fits exactly underneath the containers and still lets the lid sit flush. Every other setup I’d tried, you add an ice pack and the lid won’t close or the containers won’t stay flat. When you’re just having snacks at home out of the fridge the ice part doesn’t really matter, but when you’re taking snacks out on a boat or to the beach in August the ice is the key! I looked for this exact combination for a long time and was thrilled when I finally found it. I will be guarding the smaller lids with my life this time around lol.
The fridge containers, which I did not expect to care about
These are marketed as cheese containers but the first thing I put in one was deli turkey.
If you buy sliced deli meat you know what happens. The bag gets slimy, it never reseals right, and the meat doesn’t stay fresh once it’s open. Same with the Canadian bacon we get at Costco, where the package is wet and drippy the second you open it and has to go somewhere else immediately.
I used Pyrex lidded containers for this for years. Pyrex is great but it’s wrong for this job: it doesn’t fit into the shallow cheese and meat drawer, it’s heavy, and if you’re looking down at it in the drawer you can’t see what’s inside because the lids are solid. These containers are slim, all one size with interchangeable lids, and they fit in the drawer because they are shallow. The lids are clear plastic (but the plastic doesn’t touch the food) so I can see what’s in there at a glance instead of picking up an opaque Pyrex lid or squinting at it from the side.
These aren’t my leftovers containers, I have others for that. This set does one job: slim, stackable, same-size storage that makes the fridge look organized and keeps a freshly opened package fresher than the package does.
And the other thing that lives in them is any cheese I grate myself. I started grating blocks of cheese after I learned that pre-shredded bagged cheese usually has anti-caking agents in it that isn’t disclosed on the label. Grating a block takes about thirty extra seconds, plus it tastes 100x better and melts better too. I grate the whole block ahead, load these up, stack them in the cheese drawer. My own pre-shredded cheese.
Before you go
Do you have a lunch or fridge container you’d buy again without thinking twice? Hit reply and tell me. I’m always looking for ways to get more organized.
Talk soon,
Kristen ❤️
I've been using stainless steel for lunch and snack boxes for years now. I used a lot of plastic ones when my daughter was a baby because I didn't know better back then, but once I bought stainless steel, I never went back. But this year, she's been asking me for a container that keeps the food warm, too. And it turns out finding one that's all stainless steel, no plastic lids, and actually keeps food warm for a few hours is some sort of unicorn. :)) It's been a journey finding one, that's for sure. :D