Yogurt Bar

I have done this once before and it seemed to go over pretty well. Last time I bought 4 quarts of yogurt, but only used 3. This time I bought 3 but only 2 got used. I purchased two vanilla and a plain since they only had 2 vanilla left at the store. I prefer plain but the kids prefer the vanilla (probably because of the added sugar!).
Toppings I had included:
Teddy grahams
Peaches
Granola
Crushed up oreos
Gum drops

Some of the kids are lactose-intolerant so I also bought a loaf of manager's special raisin bread. The kids were not interested in that ha!

Total cost was about $15 (the yogurt was on sale for .99 a quart)

Veggie, Meat, & Cheese Trays

Tonight I pulled a "manager's special" and lucked out when I saw that Kroger had veggie trays for about half-off because they were close to expiration date. They had carrots, celery, tomatoes, broccoli, cheese cubes, salami, and ranch dressing. The kids really seemed to love this and they ate every last bite! I also picked up a few chicken wings on discount and some doughnuts - these items went fast too. The best deal was the price. Total was just about $13 - I love saving food from the dumpster!

Junky Trail Mix

This was a re-work of another week when I brought regular healthy trail mix. I totally broke the healthy rule and had a make your own trail-mix, or essentially a make your own junk food conglomeration bar! Things I included were:
Cheez-its
Gummy worms
Teddy Grahams
Marshmellows
Mini peanut-butter crackers
Pretzels

The kids liked it but were definitely ragging on me for bringing junk food - how awesome is that!

Total cost $15

Chili

This week one of our awesome leaders agreed to make chili. He brought a meat and meatless version and the version I tasted was delicious! He even let me take home some leftovers! :D

Brownies & Popcorn

The brownies were thanks to one of my kids complaining about the "boring" food I brought last week. I told her that she could make the snack if she didn't like what I brought. I have to admit I was pretty astonished when she told me Wed. morning that she had the snacks ready to go. I also brought microwaveable popcorn as additional nourishment.

Total cost $3 (since I didn't have to pay for the brownies!)

Leftovers & Bagels!

This night was an easy recycled night. I used up leftover meat and cheese and bread from the previous week when I purchased too much and then also picked up some bagels and cream cheese.
I get very defensive when people complain about food, so when one of the girls said she was tired of boring old sandwiches I said "Ok! Then you can make the snack next week." To my shock she actually came through!
Total cost was around $10

Meat & Cheese Sandwiches

Deli sandwiches were on the menu tonight and these seemed to go fast although I didn't hear a lot of 'ooohing and aahing' like I sometimes do. I bought the bread on "manager's special" from Kroger, which these days I always peruse when I'm in there. Four loaves of about 14" for a grand total of like $2.19. The unfortunate part was I overestimated how much meat and cheese I would need to complete the sandwiches and purchased a package of cheese and a package of meat too much. I also served them with cheez-its and some cheap sandwich cookies from Kroger.

Items I purchased:
4 loaves of bread
3 packages of cheese, 8 oz. each
3 packages of meat, 16 oz. each
1 box of cheez-its
1 package of 40 sandwich cookies

Everything was gone! We also have a few more big eaters attending our youth group (i.e. boys ha!) so I feel like it's getting harder to have enough food on my budget. I did exceed my budget ($10-$15) by about $3 today, but it would have been about $4 cheaper if I hadn't purchased that last package of cheese and meat. I plan on buying a little more bread and making some more sandwiches next week.

Pudding!

Tonight I made chocolate and vanilla instant pudding = yum! This wasn't the healthiest snack, but it was fairly cheap (total cost of about $12) and fairly easy to make. I also bought cool whip, animal crackers, crushed oreos, and gummy bears as toppings. Kids seemed to love this snack!

Items I purchased:
1 gallon milk
1 box of oreos
1 package of animal crackers
1 tub cool whip
2 small packages gummy bears (kids especially loved these!!)
2 6 oz. packages chocolate pudding
1 6 oz. package vanilla pudding

Baked Oatmeal Casserole

Tonight I made Baked Oatmeal Casserole, recipe featured here: Baked Oatmeal Casserole 

The youth leader commented tonight, "You always bring healthy stuff and I'm continually surprised that it actually tastes good too!" It's always good to hear this kind of feedback :)

Items I purchased:

-Oats
-Walnuts
-Blueberries
-Strawberries
-Bananas
-Milk
-Chocolate chips

The rest of the ingredients I consider baking staples and had on hand. Total cost of bought ingredients for me was $12, but it would run a little bit more with the additional cost of butter, sugar, and other extraneous items (salt, baking powder, etc.)

The prep time for this recipe was my biggest "whoops" moment. It took me about forty-five minutes to prep this, but largely because I got confused about combining milk, egg, and melted butter and ended up starting over several times on this and in the end still wasn't sure I mixed those things properly (it created this buttery film on the top which did not look good and ended up being hard to distribute evenly on top of the oats).

I thought it tasted delicious but a few of the kids avoided this I think because it looks like a strange and is not something a lot of kids are used to. Although it was all gone at the end!

Jello

Tonight I made jello.

Items I purchased:
-Two 6 oz. packets raspberry jello
-One package frozen raspberries
-One 3 oz. package lime jello
-One 3 oz. package strawberry jello
-One package frozen strawberries

I had just a few scoopfuls of jello leftover. Kids seemed to really like this snack! The lime was very popular and was gone the quickest.
Total cost was $12, the prep time was about 15 minutes (I made this the night before). The biggest challenge with this recipe was finding enough space in the fridge to store all the jello pans for a day ahead of time!

Milk & Cereal

Tonight I went the simple route (no prep time!) and bought cereal!
This seemed to go over pretty well.
Items I purchased:
-2 gallons of milk
-2 boxes Cocoa Puffs cereal
-1 box Golden Grahams cereal
-1 box Honey Nut cheerios cereal

I had about 1 box of cereal leftover
Total cost was $14 (I received one gallon of milk free thanks to a sale).
Prep time = 0 min (literally showed up with milk and cereal)
Kids liked it - all of the the cocoa puffs were gone. They asked for Lucky Charms next time :)

Welcome!

Welcome to youthgroupsnacks.blogspot.com!
I am a youth leader for a church youth group that serves about 15-25 kids weekly. I am in charge of bringing the snacks each week. I looked around for a blog/site that detailed someone's progress with making snacks for a youth group but only found suggestions of snacks to bring.

The purpose of this site is to set up a slightly more in-depth look at suggestions of snacks that serve about 20 middle and high school aged kids.

Qualifications that I generally use while trying to come up with snack ideas are as follows (ranked by order of importance for me):

1. Serves approximately 20 kids
2. Fit within my budget of $10-$15
3. Fairly short prep time (0-15 minutes)
4. Tasty
5. Are relatively healthy and not super processed
6. Will not be extremely messy to serve or clean-up

I do not always end up with a snack that meets all of these guidelines, but they are things I keep in mind when looking for snack ideas.

Hope this blog might help you if you have also been put in charge of supplying the snacks for a group of teenagers!