Vegetables are healthy food items but not everyone likes them. Perhaps that’s because vegetables don’t taste too good or they have very odd flavor profiles. Children are one of the pickiest eaters and a lot of them dislike eating vegetables. They tend not to eat vegetables despite them being just side dishes or garnishes. Parents have gone through many means just to feed their children vegetables and that’s because of their nutritional facts. There are ways and dishes that can allow children to eat vegetables. You just know how to sneak vegetables inside their food without them knowing that they are there. They’ll be enjoying their meal and have the nutrition as well.
1. Potato Dishes
Potatoes are vegetables none the less and it’s a vegetable that children will eat. The thing about potato dishes is that there’s no need to trick them into eating it. Children will love to eat potato dishes and French fries are a good candidate for this. Granted that fries may be unhealthy if consumed in large consumption. The other type of potato dishes would include the typical side item of mashed potatoes.
Parents won’t have a hard time feeding their kids with mashed potatoes as they taste good especially with gravy. The other potato dishes included are hash browns, tater tots, potato chips, and many more. Just remember that some potato dishes may not be too healthy if they’re prepared in various ways.
2. Vegetable Ice Pops
Vegetable ice pops are a good way to feed your children nutritious veggies. The technique involves mixing vegetables into juices or purees then freezing them and turning them into ice pops. The ideal concept is not to let these ice pops taste like the actual vegetable but more like a cold and sweet snack. That’s because kids eat what tastes good and not what tastes bad. If your pumpkin ice pop tastes more like an ice pop then kids won’t be eating eat either way.
Make sure to mix some sweeteners like sugar, chocolate, or other additives into the mix. When the ice pop tastes sweet then kids will eat it. The point is to make a vegetable ice pop that doesn’t taste like a vegetable but has nutritional value.
3. Carrot Cake
Children love a good dessert after every meal and cake is one good dessert item. The carrot cake is a delicious veggie-based desert that a lot of people really like. It doesn’t taste like a carrot well at least some of them. Depending on how it is prepared, but carrot cakes are delicious. Children will eat it because it doesn’t look like a carrot since it is not colored orange. Several components can make up a carrot cake such as nuts or special filling.
Since it is a cake and you want to feed it to children you need to add extra ingredients that will make children want to eat it. Try to add some filling or candy toppings or better yet caramelized carrots to add to the flavor. Just make sure that children will love the flavor otherwise they won’t eat it anyway.
4. Vegetable Lasagna
Lasagna is a very delicious protein-filled dish. Children definitely love it so why not sneak in some veggies in it even up to the point with the lasagna having no meat. One way to sneak the veggie in it is through the sauce. The sauce is usually cooked separately first so this means you can mix a vegetable puree into the sauce. The sauce would still look orange or red and children wouldn’t know the difference. The other way is to actually sneak the veggies in the filling or in between the layers of the lasagna pasta.
Certain green colored veggies like mashed broccoli can be easily sneaked inside as their flavor may not affect the lasagnas taste especially if the sauce is overpowering. There are also orange-colored vegetables that easily sneaked in because they will blend into the pasta along with the sauce.
5. Veggie Burger
Burgers are indeed a good snack item as adults and children enjoy eating them. The veggie burger isn’t something new as this was introduced by a group of vegetarians back in the day. Despite the patty being made of vegetables it actually tastes like meat. The vegetable patty was truly a 100% made patty and no presence of meat. Children will definitely eat it and the lettuce or green vegetable on top is a good decoy to let the kids assume that it’s the only vegetable.
The vegetable patty may look a little different with some specs of green but children wouldn’t notice it. If they do notice it parents can always make excuses and say that it’s a sort of spice that makes the burger taste better. The last thing to consider is that veggie patties can be made up of different types of vegetables as they are condensed into a single patty.
Feeding children vegetables is never an easy task because vegetables don’t taste good or lack the flavor profile. There are many ways to sneak in the vegetables or let your children have the nutritional diet that they need.