Peanut Butter & Dill Pickle Sandwich

Peanut Butter, Dill Pickle, and Miracle Whip‽ Together‽ It may sound weird, but don't knock it til you've tried it! This old-fashioned sandwich may well become one of your favorite snacks!

Jump to:

• What's the Story Behind this Recipe?
• Ways You Can Fight Childhood Hunger
• What Goes into this Sandwich
• More Lunchbox Recipes
• Peanut Butter Dill Pickle Sandwich

What's the Story Behind this Recipe?

I pack Mr. B and the girls their lunches nearly every morning. Mr. B's customarily takes a cup of Tillamook yogurt, a piece of fruit, and some kind of leftovers to heat up in the microwave at work. The girls most often get a “cold lunch”: a sandwich or other hand-held high-protein item, fruit, nuts or a granola bar, maybe some yogurt, and a little treat. Nothing fancy, but nutritious and hearty enough to get them through the day. 

There are kids in their schools who go hungry though. Each of my five girls, at one time or another, have told me about kids they know who don’t have anything to eat for lunch. Kids they share their lunches with.

I don’t understand, what with free lunches being so easy to qualify for and all, how this happens, but on many occasions over the years I’ve packed a child of mine a much more substantial lunch than usual, because I know it will be shared with someone who needs it. I can’t fix the bigger problem of childhood hunger by myself, but I can help one kid for one day.

Personally, I’ve never known real hunger. I did not know, when I was a child, how precariously close our budget balanced on the line. I did not notice, back then, how my mother picked the big pieces of tuna out of our casserole and set them carefully on my plate saying she didn’t want them, or how she could make a tiny pot roast last for four or five meals.

I did not know that other people didn’t have chipped beef on rice four times a month. Still, First World problems. We always had something to eat. We weren’t rich by American standards, but we were by most of the rest of world’s – there was never a day in my childhood when I didn’t know where my next meal was coming from.

Hunger, though, was only a generation away. My father, a Depression era migrant child straight out of The Grapes of Wrath, knew hunger often. He told me with no self-indulgence of many times going to bed without anything to eat, and watching his mother scrape and scrimp and go without to feed her children. He made me understand just how lucky – how bless – our family was.

Ways You Can Fight Childhood Hunger

1. Volunteer: Spend a one day a month (or more) volunteering in your community. Local food banks and pantries offer a wide variety of volunteer opportunities, many of which are kid-friendly. 
2. Set out a donation jar at home or at work: Create a colorful collection jar for spare change, and set a group goal with your family or coworkers. Donate the proceeds to your local food bank, NoKidHungry.org, TheLunchBoxFund.org, or one of the many other organizations actively fighting childhood hunger in the US and around the world.
3. Check out Feeding America: Visit Feeding America for more ideas about how you can help, including hands-on family activities and ways to teach your kids the importance of caring for others. 

What Goes into this Sandwich

There are four ingredients in this sandwich:

• White bread
• Peanut butter (Skippy or Jif are best)
• Miracle Whip (not mayo!)
• Dill pickles

No substitutions.

I know what you are probably thinking, so I'm just asking - give this PDM sandwich a chance! (I like it best with home-canned dills - specifically spicy garlic dills!)

More Lunchbox Recipes

Thank you for visiting the Good Hearted Woman. Remember to bookmark this site, and come back soon!