75+ Best Snack Foods for Anytime of Day
Snacks are life, am I right? While meals may be the main focus of our food, snacks are certainly important (and sometimes vital!) for all of the in-between moments. I’ve rounded up a huge list of the best snack foods for nutritious, delicious, and balanced snacks that are great for both kids and adults!
What makes a good snack? There’s actually a lot to consider, in my opinion. You want a filling snack that will satisfy you until your next meal, you may want to include some nutritious components, you also want to consider effort and prep as you may not always have a lot of spare time to make something from scratch, AND you want something that your taste buds will enjoy!
From a nutrition standpoint, I tend to look at things a little differently. Instead of focusing solely on healthy vs unhealthy snacks, I like to think about snacks as mini meals, both because we actually want them to be satisfying and it’s also an opportunity to include a few nutrient-dense foods.
Sometimes we enjoy snacks just because a popsicle sounds great on a hot day or we’re at a party and your favorite snack is on the table and that’s ok too. AND, it can be a good idea to include a few components (types of foods) to create more of a mini meal as opposed to a serving of pretzels, which probably won’t hold you over very long.
Another benefit of pivoting to the mini meal is that if the snack ruins their appetite for dinner, they ate a meal instead of a snack. 🙂
You’ll find a list of more than 75 healthy snacks in different categories, plus a list of our favorite snack combinations. Scroll down to the bottom to download a list you can print out! If you like this snack list, you’ll want to also grab my lunchbox list.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Table of Contents
How to Build Nutritious and Healthy Snacks
If you’ve been here a while, you know I prefer to focus on what we can add IN for nutrition, instead of focusing on what we should remove. This is another reason why I prefer to think about snack foods (and meals) in components – it’s easy to start with something that sounds good and round it out with a few more components to help build a balanced snack and more variety in your diet. Here are the components to consider including in your healthy snacks:
- Produce – Fresh, frozen, dried – fruits and veggies are a great option no matter how they are prepared and most of us don’t eat as much of them as we should, so including them in snacks is ideal. We have a list of fruits and veggies below.
- Protein – This can be a specific protein like a cheese stick or peanut butter, and it can also be part of a “main” like a piece of leftover pizza. The protein will help make our snack more filling and satisfying.
- Fats – Some healthy fats will help keep your snack satisfying!
- Whole grains – There are so many ways you can incorporate whole grains into your snacking – crackers, oatmeal energy bites, granola, and more. It’s recommended that about half of our grains are whole, so consider including some in snacks.
- Flavor – Making a “healthier choice” isn’t going to do you much good if it doesn’t taste good, which is why I always include flavor on my nutrition-musts list!
- Satisfying and balanced – Satisfaction is such a huge part of nutrition in my opinion because you know what happens if we eat something and it’s not satisfying? We go back and eat something else and eat something else and eat something else until we are actually satisfied – and many times this means ending with the food we wanted in the first place. Listen to your body and be sure you’re snacking on foods you enjoy and find satisfying or you might end up snacking until you do so!
Fruit Snacks
Fruit is an excellent snack component that can provide vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, fiber, and sweet flavor! You can use fresh fruit, dried fruit, frozen fruit, or fruit pouches. Here is a list of fruit snacks:
- Apples
- Pears
- Blueberries
- Raspberries
- Blackberries
- Strawberries
- Kiwi
- Orange or clementines
- Grapefruit
- Grapes
- Cherries
- Plums
- Mango
- Pineapple
- Cantaloupe
- Watermelon
- Fruit leather
- Dried fruit
- Frozen fruit (great in smoothies or yogurt bowls)
- Applesauce or fruit pouches
Veggie Snacks
Veggie snacks are a great way to increase the amount of vegetables we eat and take advantage of appetites. I love offering easy raw veggies to my kids if we’re super close to dinnertime and they need a little something to hold them over but we don’t want to do a full snack. Here is a list of vegetable snacks:
- Carrots
- Celery sticks
- Cucumber slices
- Bell peppers
- Broccoli
- Cauliflower
- Snap peas
- Green beans
- Tomatoes
- Olives
- Corn salsa
- Edamame
- Pea crisps
Protein/Main Snacks
The protein or main component is going to help build a satisfying snack and there are a number of ways to make it happen:
- Cheese
- String cheese
- Hummus
- Chocolate hummus
- Black bean and corn dip
- Peanut butter, almond butter, nut butter
- Jerky, meat stick
- Slice of pizza
- Nuts like almonds, peanuts, cashews
- Seeds like pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds
- Protein bar
- Yogurt
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Cottage cheese
- Whipped cottage cheese
- Greek yogurt veggie dip
- Milk
- Guacamole
- Leftovers
Crunchy Snacks / Salty Snacks
Sometimes you need something crunchy or salty, and these will do the trick:
- Potato chips
- Tortilla chips
- Crackers
- Whole-grain crackers
- Pita crackers
- Chex Mix
- Toast
- Popcorn
- Pretzels
- Cereal
- Freeze-dried fruit or veggies
Sweet Snacks
If you’re anything like me, and have a sweet tooth at night, you might want some sweet stuff at the end of the day. Pair with a little protein to help blood sugar levels (something I had to do when I had gestational diabetes) or just don’t and fully enjoy. 🙂
- Ice cream
- Cookies
- Rice crispy treats
- Brownies
- Chocolate, dark chocolate
- Fruit popsicles
- Chocolate-covered frozen fruit
- Pudding
- Granola
- Chocolate & PB smoothie
- Fruit and nut bars (like kind bars or granola bars)
- Sweet and salty chex mix
- Oat energy bites
Snack Combination Ideas
As I mentioned above, I would urge you to consider snacks mini meals instead of snacks by combining a few of the snack components into something more filling and balanced. Here are a few ideas to get you started or come up with your own combination:
- Mini sandwiches (pb & j, deli meat, etc.)
- Hummus platter
- Simple nachos (tortilla chips + cheese + salsa)
- Greek yogurt parfait
- Dessert yogurt parfait (Greek yogurt + frozen fruit + whipped cream)
- Chia pudding
- Chocolate and nuts
- Frozen yogurt bark with pumpkin seeds
- Trail mix
- Caramel apple nachos
- Apple and spoonful of peanut butter
- Banana sushi rolls
- Ants on a log (celery + peanut butter + raisins)
- Guacamole with tortilla chips and/or veggies
- Cereal and milk
- Toast – avocado toast, hummus toast, pb toast, ricotta toast
- Tortilla pinwheels
- Olives and feta cheese
- Chicken salad and crackers
Download the Best Snack Foods List
Similar to my lunch list, I love sharing this list with my kids and having them choose something from each component list. You may not need to include every single component for a snack, but it’s a great way to get some ideas going.
