Dallas ISD rolls out four new lunch menu items this school year

The Dallas ISD Food and Child Nutrition Services is rolling out four new delicious food items this year!

“Menus are created with input from students taste-testing at multiple events over the school year,” said Betsy Wooldridge, Dallas ISD Menu Planning Supervisor. “We also look at the results from our Food Festivals and see what other districts around the country are serving and see what’s popular among the students. After gathering all this data, we have an overall picture of what we want to serve.”

These are four new food items that students will be able to try in their school cafeterias:

Tortellini: A 2018 Food Festival favorite. We added spinach and creamy tomato sauce.

Shredded Beef: This dish features a new un-breaded beef item serve on Tex-Mex style rice in a bowl. We look at how other districts are serving that kind of item and we saw that serving it on a bowl was very popular.

Chef Levi’s Pastalaya:  It’s a jambalaya but with pasta, featuring chicken and chicken sausage. This one is our chef's creation and a student favorite at the 2019 Food Fest competition.

Spicy Golden Chicken Quinoa Quesadilla: This one was the winner from the 2019 Cooking Up Change contest. High school culinary students competed to create a healthy school meal on a tight budget, all while meeting high standards for nutrition, taste, presentation and originality.

“For the high school menu, we are also offering daily favorites such as cheeseburger and chicken nuggets, because students want to know there will be always something available to them if they don’t like the feature entrée,” Wooldridge said.

The new menu items will be featured after Labor Day. The menus rotate every three weeks.