Best 39 Healthy College Snacks For Students

Studying for a long time, reading, taking notes, revising, or preparing for an upcoming exam could put huge stress on your brain. And just like you need to fuel up your body by eating healthy food to work out and do your daily activities, your brain also needs fuel to study.

Having healthy meals would not be enough to do that. So students can keep some healthy college snacks in their dorm rooms.

39 Healthy College Snacks For Students 

Snack On-The-Go 

Students also have a busy lifestyle; they have to manage things like academics, social life, and a part-time job. When you are stuck between classes, group studies, review sessions, and going to class after waking up late without a proper meal- having a healthy snack on the way is the smartest choice.

You should be able to carry these types of snacks in your backpack and snack them anywhere on the way to class, in class.

01. DIY Trail Mix 

Grab a lot of almonds, peanuts, pistachios, pecans, pumpkin seeds, raisins, cashews, and dried cranberries, and mix them. Then find an airtight container to put them in. You will be able to snack on this DIY Trail mix for up to a month depending on the amount you picked.

Nuts and seeds hold a lot of nutrition like proteins, fiber, vitamins, and good fats. And a DIY trail mix would give you the energy you need and make you feel full.

02. Nuts 

You don’t have to make a trail mix if you don’t want to. You could snack on almonds, peanuts, pistachios, cashews, pecans, hazelnuts, or walnuts without mixing them up at your dorm, in class, on the way to class, or literally anywhere you want.

Tree nuts possess many health benefits since they are filled with nutrients such as protein, carbs, fiber, and vitamin E. Also, they are loaded with flavonoids, which help your brain health, and studies have suggested that they also help weight loss.

03. Seeds 

There are people who can’t snack on tree nuts since they have severe allergic reactions to them. If you are one of them, edible seeds would be the best substitute snack. The best seeds to snack on would be chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, flaxseeds, and sunflower seeds.

The best thing about seeds is no prep is needed to be able to snack on them. However, you could eat them with your salads, soups, or with hummus if you want to.

Seeds are a great source of fiber, healthy fats, many vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. And snacking seeds can help reduce bad cholesterol, high blood pressure, and even heart disease.

04. Dried Fruits

Just like seeds and nuts, you don’t need to prep dried fruits, and you can always carry a dried fruit pack on your college backpack. Some of the best-dried fruits to keep as dorm snacks would be raisins, apricots, dates, mixed dried fruits, mango, banana, apple, strawberries, cranberries, peaches blueberries.

The Health benefits of dried fruits are somewhat shady because most people say that dried fruits are just candies. However, that is not true. Dried fruit also contains a lot of nutrition and has more fiber and antioxidants than fresh fruit.

05. Vegetable Chips 

It’s time to throw away the Doritos and Cheetos you have in your dorm room and use the alternative veggie chips. You would hardly notice the difference when snacking veggie chips made out of parsnips, sweet potato, beets, tomato, spinach. Instead of buying, you could make your own veggie chips if you are packed with a dorm room microwave.

Veggie chips contain many vitamin A and C. Snacking a small amount can help you get 10-50% of your daily dose of vitamins.

06. Granola Bars/Protein Bars 

Want to snack oats, nuts with a natural sweetener like honey instead of sugar? Then granola bars are the best college snacks you could snack while going to the class. They are pretty inexpensive since one only costs like 20 cents.

When it comes down to granola bars’ nutrition, they are packed with antioxidants, protein, and high levels of fiber. However, when choosing granola bars, it’s better to choose ones that have natural sweeteners instead of sugar.

07. Roasted Chickpeas

Chickpeas are one of the best inexpensive plant-based snacks, especially for a college student. Making roasted chickpeas could take 20-30 minutes, but it’s pretty much easy. Make sure to grab the ingredients you need. Check out this roasted chickpeas recipe in theKitchn with easy steps to follow.

Chickpeas are rich in plant-based protein, carbs, fiber, iron, copper, and manganese. Snacking roasted chickpeas can help you control your appetite, lower blood sugar, and protect you from chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and even cancer.

08. Larabar 

Larabar is a tasty, nutritious energy bar made from raw and natural fruits, nuts, and spices. They also come in many flavors, such as apple pie, cashew cookie, cinnamon roll, pecan pie, lemon bar, and a ginger snap.

Larabars have a high amount of protein, carbohydrates, and vitamins. Since this is a high-carb energy bar with a high calory amount, it’s the perfect snack to keep in the dorm room for an athlete, hikers, and distance walkers.

09. Dark Chocolate 

Chocolate is a snack that everybody loves, and it is a great dorm room snack. No-prep is needed. You have to buy some dark chocolate bars and keep them in a dry, cool space, but do not keep them in a refrigerator.

Dark chocolates are rich in antioxidants, vitamins, fiber, protein, and fiber. Compared to other snacks, dark chocolate has many health benefits for your brain, body, and skin. And dark chocolate also seems to support weight loss.

10. Popcorn 

Are we at the movies? Popcorn is not only a movie time snack. It also makes a good dorm room snack, and they are pretty cheap, which is good for college students. You could make popcorn in just 4 minutes using a microwave.

Popcorns have rich levels of vitamins, iron, magnesium, copper, and manganese. Since it has high fiber levels and relatively low calory levels, popcorns make a good inexpensive snack that supports weight loss.

11. Applesauce 

Applesauce is one healthy college snack that you could eat with vegetables, fruit, and baked goods. This snack has a lot of nutrition, including fiber, protein, carbs, iron. And if you have a bad stomach, applesauce is the best snack you could ever eat.

However, some applesauce brands have high sugar levels, which may take out all the health benefits of applesauce. So always buy applesauce with low levels of added sugar.

12. Chocolate Covered Almonds

Need a sweet and salty snack to have in between classes? Chocolate covered almonds are the best ones you could ever find. You only need like 3 ingredients, and they are pretty much inexpensive. It’ll only take about 15 minutes to make them, and they will last 2-3 weeks if you could keep them in an airtight container.

13. Edamame 

Although it takes about 3 minutes to prep edamame, it’s one tasty snack you could carry around in a bag. Edamame has high protein levels, vitamins, and minerals, so snacking edamame can lower the risk of diseases such as cholesterol and cancer. You can use a microwave for cooking edamame and adding salt and black pepper to make it tastier.

14. Oreos 

Hunger is the worst enemy of a student who has more than enough classes per day. When you are stuck in between classes you might not have time to even 5 minutes to prep a snack to take with you. If so, Oreos is a good choice; they are rich in carbs, so your hunger will go away after snacking a few Oreos. However, since they have high sugar and fat content levels, you should never snack too much Oreos.

15. Oatmeal Cookies 

For those who eat oatmeal and loves oatmeal, rather than eating Oreos or something similar, snacking oatmeal cookies is the best healthy choice. Oats are filled with fiber, protein, minerals, and even antioxidants. It also is a naturally gluten-free snack, and it’s an inexpensive no-prep snack that you can snack anywhere you want.

16. Hard-Boiled Eggs 

Hard-boiled eggs are the perfect daytime snack for someone who needs a lot of nutrition and helps with weight loss. As you know, eggs are a powerful source of nutrition such as protein, vitamin B, zinc, calcium, and antioxidants. You could easily make hard-boiled eggs using a microwave in just 3 minutes. It’s also easy to make an inexpensive college meal, and you could eat two to three hard-boiled eggs per day.

17. Grapes 

If you want to snack on a healthy organic fruity snack between classes but are worried about gaining weight, Grapes is the best fruit you could ever choose. They are filled with vitamin C, vitamin K, dietary fiber, carbs, and protein. Since they have a low calory level, they help with weight loss and weight management. According to the federal guidelines, you could snack one or two cups of green, red, or purple grapes per day.

18. Yogurt 

Yogurt is a great way to increase your daily fruit intake. Whether you like plant-based, greek, or any other type of yogurt once you mix them up with some blueberries, cherries, banana slices, or cereal to make it even tastier. Yogurt has rich levels of almost every nutrient your body needs, and it’s a high-protein snack that won’t make you gain weight.

19. Clementines 

This is a great source of nutrition such as antioxidants, folate, thiamine, fiber, and an ultimate source of vitamin C. Clementines are also the best way of increasing daily fruit consumption for people who do not like to snack fruits. These easy-to-peel seedless fruits are so small. So you can carry them around in a small container in your backpack and snack in between classes.

Best Healthy Dorm Snacks 

There are some college snacks that you may need to prepare before snacking. You can’t do that when you are busy going to a class. Keeping these healthy college snacks in your dorm room, and when you need a snack while studying, you could sneak it out of your mini-fridge.

You could use these snacks while studying, taking notes, preparing for exams, or when you have your friends over at your dorm.

20. Beans

Beans are the best inexpensive and common snack with a lot of nutrition, like vitamin B, fiber, protein, and much more. You could get many health benefits from snacking beans like kidney beans, soybeans, black beans, pinto beans, and navy beans. And they also make a great alternative for tree nuts, especially if you have a nut allergy.

21. Hummus and Veggies 

Hummus is a popular dip with high fiber levels, high carbs, protein, fat, and vitamins across many nutrition. With a vegetable like carrots, celery, and broccoli, you could make it tastier and get much more health benefits out of it. Eating hummus may help your digestion system, fight inflammation, and even control your blood sugar levels. However, since it has a high level of fat and calory content, it’s not recommended to eat hummus every day.

22. Crackers with Almond Butter 

Some crackers have a lot of fiber content, and to make them tastier, you could add almond butter to them. Almond butter is a dip with high-fat content. However, the latest studies have shown almond butter can help you lose weight, disregarding that. It also contains nutrients such as protein, fiber, vitamin E, vitamin B2. You could also eat veggies, fruit, or cereal.

23. Cheese and Fruit

24. Cereal

Cereal is one of the best healthy breakfast meal that is really inexpensive, and it could also be a great snack when you are studying at the dorm. Usually, cereals are loaded with high sugar levels and refined carbs.

So if you are snacking them and taking them as a breakfast meal, you should choose a healthier type of cereal. The easiest way to do that is to pay attention to the sugar levels, pick the ones with high fiber content, and pay attention to your consuming caloric levels.

25. Rice Cakes

Most rice cakes are gluten-free and whole-grain, which may lower the risk of getting chronic diseases. Also, they have low calory levels so that they won’t help the weight gain. However, eating a few rice cakes daily could raise your blood sugar since they have a high level of carbs and low protein and fiber levels.

Studies say if you could eat them with protein-rich sources such as cheese, nut butter, and hummus while adding more fiber by eating veggies and fruits, it could lower the effect on your blood sugar levels.

26. Blueberry Popsicles 

Who doesn’t love to eat popsicles, but what if you could make one in just ten minutes using only three ingredients? Yes, you could make your own protein-packed simple popsicles using just blueberries, greek yogurt, and honey.

If it is not your choice to go with blueberries, you could pick another fruit like cherries, strawberries, peaches, and blackberries to make this simple yet tasty popsicle.

27. Frozen Grapes

Everybody loves to eat ice cream, but it is not the best choice to go with when it comes to studying. But no worries, there is a small solution for that, and that is frozen grapes.

Grapes are a good source of antioxidants, vitamins C and K, and snacking grapes can improve your eye health, improve your memory and your mood, and lower your blood sugar levels. The best way to make frozen grapes in your dorm room is by putting seedless grapes inside a zip lock bag and freeze them in your mini-fridge for a day.

28. Sweet Potato 

Chips are a go-to snack for everyone, especially potato chips from snack branks like Lays, Cape Cod, Kettle. Eating sweet potatoes has many health benefits, such as improving your eyesight, improving your brain functions, and gut health.

The great thing about sweet potatoes is that you could make a lot of chips in your dorm using your microwave and if you don’t want to go with chips, check out this microwave sweet potato snack recipe by delish.

29. Fruit Salad

More of a dessert, but you could also make it a snack if you make a bowl full of fruit salad, which literally takes less than ten minutes to make. Mix up some sliced apples, peaches, grapes, kiwis, pineapples, banana, mango, strawberries, or any fruit that you like to snack on. Since fruits are packed with many vitamins, minerals, and fiber, it would give you the energy you need to study.

30. Avocado Toast

Avocado is an incredibly nutritious and delicious fruit rich in carbohydrates, vitamins, fiber, and healthy fats. Eating them could help your eye health, bad lower cholesterol levels, and even help you lose weight. You could easily make an avocado toast as a snack in your dorm room in under five minutes using this recipe from cookieandkate.

Keep Yourself Hydrated

If you are not drinking enough healthy liquids, you won’t be able to keep yourself hydrated enough to study. To stay healthy average person needs to drink about 30-50 ounces of healthy liquids per day. Studies have also suggested that keeping yourself hydrated helps you focus better, so you should take healthy drinks when studying.

31. Water 

As you know, dehydration can cause some serious health issues like constipation, kidney stones, and it could affect your thinking and distract you from your studies. The best healthiest thing you could do to avoid dehydration is to drink plenty of water every day. When going to classes, you should carry a water bottle, especially if you have more than one lecture to attend in a day.

32. Fruit Smoothies

If you are not much of a fan of eating fruit, the best way to increase your fruit consumption is to drink smoothies made out of them. Buying a smoothie from a store has a few pros, but they lack nutrition compared to homemade smoothies. Some great choices for smoothies would be banana, berries, mangoes, pineapple, lemon, papaya, or you could also make a mixed fruit smoothie.

33. Green Tea

You already know that caffeine helps boost our brain function, and most people drink coffee for this reason. However, too much caffeine can also be unhealthy for your body. Green tea has a much lower caffeine amount than coffee and helps boost your brain just as coffee.

Apart from that, drinking green tea can help you lose weight, protect your brain from aging, and protect you from diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. You could drink green tea between meals while having a snack.

34. Coffee 

Coffee is a famous drink around everyone across the earth, even when compared to tea. Drinking coffee can help you focus better on studies, burn fat, and lower the risk of diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and even Parkinson’s.

But just like we said before, coffee has a lot of caffeine that comes with some downsides. It would help if you stuck to the daily limit, which is 8 ounces of coffee per day. Studies show that if you drink coffee every day, you will get fewer health benefits out of it.

35. Coconut Water  

How about if you could use something tasty and healthy rather than water to stay hydrated throughout the day by drinking coconut water? Coconut water is filled with antioxidants, fiber, protein, vitamin C, and more nutrition content. It also contains many health benefits such as preventing diseases such as kidney stones, diabetes, and more. . However, do not get confused coconut water with coconut milk, which has lower water content.

36. Chocolate Smoothies

Dark chocolate is a healthy snack with many health benefits, as we’ve mentioned before. You could get all that health benefits from a dark chocolate smoothie, and if you add more to it, such as banana slices, oats, chia seeds, honey, and Greek yogurt, you could make an ultimate healthy drink in just 10 minutes.

37. Milk

38. LaCroix

Probably you are already obsessed with this flavored sparkling water brand by now. It contains no carbs, no fat, no sugar, and zero calories; well, then that means it’s a healthy drink, right?

Just because it doesn’t help weight gain does not mean it doesn’t have any health risk. However, it still helps you stay hydrated. So if you are drinking LaCroix, you should limit your intake, and if you could stick to plain old water.

39. Energy Drinks

Energy drinks are filled with vitamins, water, sugar, caffeine, minerals, and antioxidants. But it is not the healthiest choice of drink, but if you are an active person such as an athlete, someone who workout every day, you may need to drink energy drinks. But if you could go for a healthier alternative such as fruit smoothie or chocolate smoothie.