The Fourth of July is just around the corner! Whether you’re headed to the lake or the neighborhood pool, one thing is sure: your family and friends will be hungry before snuggling up (or fanning off) to watch those fireworks! Especially the kids. So this year, I thought it might be fun to give you some festive and simple Fourth of July food ideas to try out with the kids that are easy for them to help while also being good for them and not loaded with sugar. And because I know my kids love to eat outside, I picked a menu that can be easily transferred from the kitchen to a blanket on the lawn!
Fourth of July Menu for Kids:
Star-Shaped Sandwiches
For the main meal, try making your favorite sandwiches into star shapes! You can easily order the star cutouts online or visit a Party City if you live in a bigger city.
And if you are comfortable with free-hand art, you could easily cut out the sandwiches into your star shapes. Hey, imperfection is the spice of life, right?!
Our favorite sandwich choice for making red and white sandwiches is 1) white bread, 2) ham or pepperoni, 3) provolone or muenster cheese (since they are white), and mayonnaise. If you aren’t one to avoid food dyes and are just “dye”ing (pun intended) to have the treat as red, white, and blue as possible, you could even put blue dye in the mayonnaise! Unless the thought of blue mayonnaise grosses you out!
Water with Red and Blue Ice Cubes
Question: What is more fun than crunching ice cubes in your mouth? Answer: Crunching ones that are red, white, and blue, of course! The kids will be so excited they have blue and red ice cubes in their drink that they won’t notice they are drinking water! You could use Sprite, too, if you wanted to give them a little more taste. Or lemonade! We just used rectangular ice cube trays to make our ice, but if you wanted to take it up a notch, you could order star-shaped ice trays on Amazon.
Fruit, Veggie, and Cracker FLAG Tray
What child doesn’t like food in the shape of a flag for the Fourth? Not one! But most of the recipes are sweets in the form of a flag. So here is a healthy and simple alternative to creating a flag for kids that is not loaded with sugar. We used blueberries for the star portion of the flag, red bell peppers for the red stripes, white cheddar Cheez-its and small pieces of provolone cheese for the white stripes. The kids will be so excited about the flag, and they may not notice they are eating their veggies.
Strawberry and Blueberry Kabobs
My friends, there is no trick to this recipe other than buying some skewers and letting the kids have fun putting on their own fruit! Because fruit is always more fun to eat on a stick!
Watermelon Basket
Nothing screams Fourth of July like watermelon! So, this easy watermelon basket allows the kids to scoop their watermelon from something more fun than a regular bowl. There are hundreds of ideas online on creatively carving and sculpting the perfect watermelon. However, since I had littles helping me, we chose to carve a basket. And essentially, we used the base of the watermelon to create a fun star!
Red, White, and Blue Trail Mix
As you know, trail mix can be made of anything you choose. But for our favorite red, white, and blue trail mix, we like granola, chocolate almonds, yogurt-covered raisins, dried cherries, and dried blueberries (and a few dark chocolate chips!) This mix is yummy, healthy, and full of the red, white, and blue theme!
