Beach Snacks Parents Love

Heading to the beach with the kids for a day of summer fun? Parents will love these trouble-free beach snack ideas. Forget the fatty chips and orange cheesy puffs. Load the cooler with cookie cutter shaped watermelon, frozen Twinkies® and yogurt and fresh berries for dipping. Make your own trail mix with all those almost-empty cereal and cracker packages, too.

Cookie Cutter Watermelon Beach Snack

The night before your outing to the beach, cut pieces of fresh watermelon using beach-themed cookie cutters. Make sure to slice the watermelon thick enough to produce a stable cut-out. Kids can have fun preparing this snack with parents.

Pack into a large lock box container and refrigerate overnight so it is extra cold when transferring to the cooler in the morning. You can freeze grapes overnight to add to the watermelon before packing in the cooler. Frozen grapes will keep the watermelon nice and chilled.

Yogurt & Fresh Berry Dipping Beach Snack

Purchase everyone's favorite yogurt in the small containers at the grocery or health-food store. These are very packable in a cooler. Scour out fresh strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries for adding to the yogurt or for dipping. Use dried fruit such as cranberries and pineapple or veggie sticks like carrot or celery as well. Spoons will be needed for small berries.

Frozen Twinkie® Beach Snack

Toss Twinkie's® in the freezer the night before the beach bash. When frozen, these little cakes are absolutely heavenly beach snacks. Before putting in the cooler, place the frozen cupcakes in a gallon zip loc bag to help stay frozen as long as possible. Kids love these and they are practically mess-free!

Making Trail Mix - Easy Beach Snack

Another get-ready-for-the-beach project the kids can help out with. The beauty of trail mix is that anything goes. Round up those boxes and packages containing snippets of cereal, fish and oyster crackers, pretzel sticks, sunflower or pumpkin seeds, nuts, raisins, any dried fruit really and whatever else you need to use up.

Making your own trail mix opens up endless possibilities. I do not however, recommend adding chocolate chips to the trail mix you prepare as a beach snack. It is generally hot at the beach and melting chocolate in a bag of trail mix would make a big mess.

Grab a couple gallon bags and simply add whatever you find in the cabinet. Let the kids make their own bag of trail mix. They can add some sugar-free Gummy Bears or Jelly Belly beans to their mix instead of the messy chocolate. Fun beach-inspired Jelly Belly flavors include coconut, Island punch and mango.

Keep beach snacks on the light side. Avoid fat-saturated snacks that hamper energy levels, especially if the weather is very hot. Beach snacks should be easy to prepare and cooler packable. Don't forget to keep your snacks stashed so the seagulls cannot get them!

Sources:

*Personal Experience

*JellyBelly.com