Simple and Healthy: Sandwich Wraps

Sandwiches are a classic lunch choice in most households. Many kids love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, while there are many kids out there that actually like sandwich meat as well. If you have become a pro at making sandwiches for your kids, then there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to enjoy some of those foods that go into their sandwiches.

For those who don’t struggle to keep their weight under control, then having a sandwich just like your child is totally fine. One reason that sandwiches are often unhealthier than they could be is because of how many calories you have in the bread that you put on the sandwich. Bread usually averages between 80 - 120 calories per slice of bread. If you’re trying to cut your calories, then removing one of those slices of bread can cut out a lot of calories from your sandwich.

Of course, some people simply don’t like to have a single slice of bread, or sometimes they just want to mix up what they’re eating. If you’re in such a scenario, you can take any sandwich that you normally eat and turn it into a sandwich wrap by replacing the bread with a tortilla or sandwich wrap. If you don’t normally do this, it can really make your sandwich game feel like it’s gone to another level.

However, if you are counting calories then be careful with what tortillas you buy for your sandwich wraps. Many standard tortillas have over 120 calories in them - if you’ve never looked at calorie numbers before for tortillas, you might be surprised. We highly recommend these Ole Wellness wraps which only contain 50 calories per wrap. They work well for sandwich wraps as well as any other recipe that you use tortillas in.

While making a wrap out of a sandwich is basically just replacing the bread with a wrap/tortilla, there are a few tricks we’ve learned over the years of doing this. First, don’t put your sauces right on the wrap. Rather, put them on the fillings that are inside the wrap. If you have lettuce or spinach, then put the toppings on there. You can also put it directly on the meat as well. Sauces will cause the tortilla or wrap to more easily tear apart.

The other big tip is to use lots of vegetables inside of a wrap. It’s much easier to put extra vegetables on a wrap vs a sandwich since you end up rolling it up. By adding additional vegetables, you make the wrap more filling without adding a bunch of extra calories. One of our favorites is spinach - 2 cups of spinach is 25 calories. You basically can cover your entire wrap with a few layers of spinach and barely have added any calories.

Even if your kids don’t like sandwich wraps, you can do a wrap for yourself and a regular sandwich for your kids. Simply having a wrap on hand is all that is really required to make yourself a slightly different lunch than your kids. If your kids want a wrap as well, there’s no harm in letting them have one.

One other recommendation when having a wrap or sandwich is to avoid the high calorie toppings that generally go on them. Mayonnaise is one of the biggest offenders - it runs at 90 calories for a single tablespoon of the delicious white stuff. That’s more than a slice of bread in many cases. The other high calorie item is usually the cheese. Choose low calorie alternatives of both items if you must have them on your sandwich.

Enjoy lunch or dinner time with a sandwich wrap. You can easily eat a huge sandwich wrap for under 300 calories that will hold you over until dinner time. Upgrade your lunch time with the simple change.