LAUSD shakes up its menus — and they’re created by students

As students prepare to head back to class next week, the Los Angeles Unified School District has revealed a diverse line-up of new menu items for the upcoming school year.

Some of the dishes have been created with direct inputs from student chefs while using ingredients straight from farms, LA Unified said.

The new dishes include chicken pozole, butter chicken with kachumber salad, lasagna rolls, pork katsu sandwich and vegan blueberry muffin.

Students along with parents and LAUSD officials gathered at West Adams Preparatory High School for menu tasting this Saturday.

“They [students] also sampled fresh California-grown fruits and vegetables through our Farm to School Farmer’s Harvest program,” Los Angeles Unified posted on its Instagram page.

Daniel Sandoval led the amateur culinary team behind the winning dish: Butter chicken and kachumber salad. “We just want to represent everybody in our culture and make delicious food,” he said.

He told ABC News that the dish stood out because of “traditional Indian spices such as turmeric and curry spice.”

Bringing star power to the menu, celebrity chefs helped craft a range of new offerings, from a chorizo breakfast bowl and pork katsu sandwich to an LA cheesesteak and lasagna rolls.

LAUSD Superintendent Andres E. Chait said that school meals of decades ago are a distant memory thanks to the district’s work with local growers, which now brings fresh fruits and vegetables straight to students’ plates.

“Our second brain is our gut, so if we’re feeding our kids well they can learn better and they’ll be in school more often,” he said.

He was also pleasantly surprised to see some traditional dishes on the school menu. “If you had told me 30 years ago that we would have pozole on the menu, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Chait told the news outlet.

The LAUSD serves more than half a million meals every school day.

“By listening to our students and partnering with California farmers, we’re bringing fresh ingredients and nutritious meals to schools,” Los Angeles Unified said.

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