Lunches are a daily dilemma in many households with school-aged kids, but here's some food for thought for the upcoming school year.

Jessica Penner, a registered dietitian, agrees that packing healthy lunches can be one of the biggest hurdles for parents.

"I often hear parents find that their kids will bring home a lunch bag full of food, they haven't eaten anything, or they come back [from school] and they're still hungry."

How much to pack, and what to pack, while still trying to encourage your children to "broaden their food horizons," as Penner says, can be a daunting task.

Here are her top tips for lunch-packing this school year.

1. Remember that lunch is just one meal of the day

Typically, we eat three square meals a day. While lunch is important, at home you have much greater control over breakfast and dinner, says Penner, as well as what your kids snack on between meals.

With this in mind, there's nothing wrong with sending things along for your child that you know they'll enjoy or have eaten in the past.

"If you're feeling guilty about only sending food that your kid likes for lunch, you can just think of that as your peace-of-mind meal and the other meals as ones that you can do a bit more strategy on for broadening their horizons."

2. Start small

If your child only likes carrots, send them with carrots, Penner encourages. But add in one snap pea.

"Don't make it overwhelming; just one," explains the dietitian. "The whole school year, that one snap pea might come home uneaten... eventually, with repeated exposures that aren't pressured... they might eventually decide to eat it."

Introducing any new foods to your children can be a stressful thing, but if you keep it at a manageable amount, you may start to see those small additions begin to disappear.

Of course, we never want to be overly wasteful with food, but do keep in mind that it is a single snap pea (or apple slice, or celery stick) and if sent with a freezer pack, can be made to last several days.

3. Think outside the sandwich

While a PB&J may be a classic lunch-time addition, many schools do not allow nuts or nut butters due to allergies. To make sure you are sending your kids with enough protein, Penner suggests alternatives to the ordinary.

Leftovers, quesadillas with black beans or chicken, hummus, eggs, and mini pizzas can all make great, tasty lunch options.

4. Involve your kids in making lunches

Your kids can sometimes give you a pretty good idea of what they'll like for lunch, and how much they'll eat, especially as they get older. Penner encourages frustrated parents especially to invite their kids to offer input on the lunch-making process.

5. Keep foods familiar

Penner recommends holding off on sending adventurous or new foods off with your children to school until they feel comfortable in their class environment.

"At the start of the school year, either they're going to school for the first time, they're going to a new school, it's probably going to be a new classroom for almost every kid... these are new situations and they can be a little frightening, and food can be a bit of that comfort throughout the day."

She explains that finding a balance between introducing new things and supplementing them with old favourites will prove to be the best way to make your kid feel at ease when the lunch bell rings, while still supporting them in expanding their palate.

"Think of the food as a friend along with them," explained the dietitian. "You don't want to send them with compeletly new food that they've never seen before because that can just be one little extra thing in the day that's overwhelming... any periods of transition is not when I recommend working on expanding a picky eater's food horizons."

Find more from Penner on healthy eating here.