10 Quick & Easy Snack Ideas for Students

I love snacks, and I honestly don’t think I’d make it through the day without them. Over the last year, too, I’ve found some of my best snack ideas yet!

I like to lift, so I usually start my day at 7:30 with a workout, and I find that when I do I’m hungry the rest of the day! Last year, I’d often just go to the convenience store and just pick up a little bag of popcorn (it’s my kryptonite) or some M&Ms but I realized (a) how much money I was wasting and (b) that it was very counter-productive to do a great workout and then shove processed crap into my body.

So I started making my own snacks at home, and ones I could make in bulk! I am the laziest cook you will ever meet–I love meals that I can make triple the batch of and freeze in individual containers for lunches for the next two weeks, and so if I’m going to put the time and energy into making snacks it better be quick, easy, and able to be made in bulk. This isn’t going to be a recipe for any of these ideas, because there are so many wonderful ones already, so I’ll just link to some of my favourites!
So here are my best ideas that have worked for me!

1. Trail mix

This may seem pretty intuitive to some of you who had trail mix growing up. I never did–my family believed that trail mix was just an M&M obstacle course. However, although M&Ms taste great, they don’t do well for giving you energy for more than 10 minutes at a time (the struggle with sugar crashes is way too real). So here’s my favourite trail mix combination:

– Salted, roasted peanuts
– Popcorn (unseasoned)
– Raisins
– Chocolate chips
– Salted & roasted pumpkin seeds/sunflower seeds (whichever is on sale to be honest!)
– Banana chips

This can be made in HUGE bulk once every other week and it works great! In Canada, we have the Bulk Barn which is a huge bulk food store, so I just kind of buy whatever is on sale and throw it in as something extra, like dried apricots, or pretzels. Even though processed sugar isn’t great for energy levels, I like to throw a few chocolate chips in there because they make me happy and are cheaper than M&Ms. ;)
If you use popcorn, make sure to store it in an air-tight container as it loses its crispiness quite easily.

2. Veggies/Pitas & Hummus

Now, there are two ways of doing this. The easy way and the pro way.
Pro way: make it yourself. An entire batch of hummus only takes 10 minutes to make if you’ve got it down to a science. Here’s the recipe I use: Smooth Hummus Recipe . I won’t write out the recipe here, because it is done excellently on the other site.
Easy way: just buy the hummus from the store. It’s relatively cheap, and you can get tons of different flavours. Up to you!
Then all you have to do is chop up the veggies or pitas and you’re good to go! In total, veggie prep takes about 10 minutes with clean-up time for me, and I just do it all in one day while I turn on some Netflix so I have veggies for the rest of the week all chopped up and ready to go!

3. Fruit salad

I love making fruit-salads, because they’re great pick-me-ups for the rest of the day! I’m so sad whenever summer ends, because it takes all of the cheap fruit with it! But whenever any fruit is on same, I grab a bunch of it and chop it up to make delicious combinations.

4. Loaves

I have become absolutely obsessed with baking loaves recently. Lemon-poppyseed, pumpkin spice, cinnamon-raisin–they’re all amazing, and all make wonderful snacks. This one takes longer, yes, but makes up for it in the amount of happiness it brings. PLUS, you can triple the recipe and then freeze the batter for two loaves, so you can just let them thaw and then throw it in the oven later!

5. Granola bars

Same as the hummus—make it, or just buy it in bulk! I like to make seed and fruit bars, I recently tried this recipe and it turned out great! (NB: just substitute nuts of if you’re allergic (like me!) for raisins or chopped up dried apricots!

6. Protein balls

These are even quicker to make than granola bars! Just make these in bulk using one of these recipes and freeze them in individual servings for a quick snack on the go!

7. Fruit leather

I really like fruit, guys. It’s a problem, living in Canada, and all, where it’s always super expensive.
A quick and easy fruit fix, though, is fruit leather! You can buy fruit leather strips in bulk at a grocery store or, if you’re more patient, you can make your own! I personally love this recipe from Blogilates:

8. Hard-boiled eggs

Hear me out on this one. Eggs are great. They’re little nutrient-packed presents. And you can hard-boil 12 eggs all at once and then eat them throughout the week! How great is that! This averages out to like 45 seconds an egg since it only takes a few minutes to hard-boil them, so this is easily the fastest snack I have on here, and they’re super cheap, too! Sure, it may not be the tastiest, but this is a great snack if you need a bit of an energy boost to keep you going throughout the day!

9. Fruit & Yogurt

I did this every day last semester! I loved it! Chop up some peaches or blueberries and throw them on top of some vanilla yogurt for the next day! If you can’t afford fresh fruit, leave some frozen fruit in the yogurt overnight in the fridge to let it thaw so it’s all ready for you the next day!
Also, if you throw some granola on top it’s to die for.

10. Crackers with peanut butter and/or jelly!

Take back this elementary school classic as a snack. You know you love your PB&J! We all do!

So those are my ideas! What are some of your favourite snacks?