Gluten free options for your Oahu vacation

One of our favorite parts about visiting Hawaii was the food!

We were honestly a bit discouraged and nervous about visiting Oahu with our new diet restrictions. I am very happy to report, as we continue the How to enjoy your Oahu vacation with a toddler series, that even though we are not able to eat the way we used to we still had plenty of delicious food options.Not being able to eat out everywhere forced us to plan ahead. This also helped us to save money on eating out. Here are a few a helpful resources and tips that helped us to eat well on Oahu even with diet restrictions. I will also list some of the foods that we enjoyed having on hand and where to get them. 

Bring food from home.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links which means if you buy something through my link, I may get a small share of the sale. I appreciate it! There were a few staples I decided to bring from home. When it comes to breakfast I am a creature of habit. We have gluten free over night steel cut oats every morning. So naturally I had to bring a bag of Bob’s Red Mill steel cut oats with us. Having these oats ready to go saved a lot of time in the morning meaning more time for fun.We also brought these travel tamari sauce packets. I always kept a few in my purse. These were life savers!Bring plenty of snacks. I was sure to have some for the plane ride as well as snacks to have on hand during the trip. I brought protein bars, Annies fruit snacks, some food pouches, and dried fruit.It could be helpful to bring or buy a soft cooler. You will be very happy to have a cooler on hand for the beach.

Where to shop

Costco has plenty of gluten free food options. The trick with Costco is trying not to get too much food!Whole Foods is full of allergy friendly food options. They also have a food bar that we utilized for our flight home.Down to Earth is another great store with a wide array of allergy friendly food options! We had fun walking the isles and seeing all of their interesting products.Safeway and Longs are perfect for the staples such as rice, paper goods, zip lock bags, napkins all those little things that come in handy when eating on the go.

Meal and snack ideas

Breakfast

Over night oats mixed with fresh fruit, honey and yogurt along with Portegese sausage, rice and eggs is a great breakfast option. Left over sausage can be placed in a zip lock bag and brought to the beach for a snack.Watermelon and clementines. We had both of these fruits often. Both are great for the beach. You can cut up your watermelon before hand and use your left over food containers to transport it. Oahu has many delicious fruits to try. Papaya and mango are two of my favorites.

Lunch and dinner options

Whole chickens from Costco are a great meal option. Left overs can be used as another meal or snack.Costco carries kalua pork that only has to be heated through. You can pair the pork with rice.A nice variety of gluten free sausage and brats can be found at Costco. They are easy to cook and can be paired with rice and veggies. Leftover sausage can be cut and placed in zip lock bags for beach snacks.Lomi Lomi salmon is a delicious side dish for any meal. We ate ours with chips or crackers. It was also a delicious beach snack.Lunch meat is a really great snack for the beach. We bought gluten and dairy free salami from Costco. It came in a resealable pouch. It was perfect to toss in the cooler and have handy on the go.If your lodging has a grill you can use it to cook your sausages or meat of choice. We made grilled bbq chicken for one of our dinners. We were able to use the left overs for lunch the next day.

The Sashimi tray and poke bowls from Costco are amazing!

They are high quality and a great value! All you need to do is use your own gluten free tamari sauce. Chose the poke bowl that has no sauces added. We had this multiple times as both a meal and as a side. After enjoying your meal wash the containers and reuse them to store food, like watermelon.

Beverages

Costco is a great place to get bottled water or Aloha juices. We also bought Bai brand juices at Costco. Drinks are a must have when playing on the beach. It is a good idea to always keep bottled water stored in the car so you never run out.

If you do not have a Costco membership.

If you live in an area with a Costco I highly recommend having a Costco membership. But if you do not live in an area with a Costco near by ask a friend that does have a Costco membership to purchase you a Costco cash card. With a Costco cash card you will be able to enter and shop at Costco during your trip without the need of a membership.

Eating out

You are on vacation after all and don’t want to spend all of your time cooking. I recommend the Find Me gluten free app. It can be really helpful when searching for a place with gluten free options. Many restaurants also have their menu on their website.There is a Facebook group called Gluten free Oahu. This is a group consists mainly of people that live on the island. I was able to receive some great tips from this group.Whole foods and Down to Earth have a nice selection of allergy friendly food options made to order or from their cafeteria style prepared food section. The cafeteria foods are well labeled you would just have to be aware of the chance of cross contamination.We love Thai food and Champa Thai did not disappoint. During our visit the waiter was very knowledgeable and was able to tell us what foods could be made gluten free. There were a lot of delicious options. We will definitely be returning here on our next trip.There are many restaurants with gluten free options. This time around we did a lot of our own cooking which can sometimes be easier with a munchkin. We have quite a few places that we want to check out on our next trip!

How do you like to feed your family when on vacation? What are your favorite beach snacks? Coming up we share our favorite kid friendly beaches and hikes on Oahu.

If you found this post helpful then be sure to check out:

How to Pack for Your Beach Vacation with a Toddler,  includes a printable packing list and money saving travel hack11 Helpful tips to Flying with a Toddler, Challenge Accepted Waimea Valley, don’t miss out on this family fun3 of the Best Kid Friendly Hikes on Oahu3 of the Most Amazing Kid Friendly Beaches