Meal ideas for picky 3yo

[galmom]

DD has always been a really good eater, she's basically ate whatever we ate from the off bar chicken which she has never liked.
The past couple of months she's been getting more and more fussy though and things that she would usually love like fish fingers, tomato and veg pasta, risotto are a huge nope. I feel like I'm constantly making food and she's refusing everything, it's a struggle. I don't make her an alternative if she doesn't eat what I have made because I didn't want to start that but surely she's hungry!
She will eat things like pizza (she'd eat this every night if she could), baked potato and beans on toast.
What do your fussy toddlers like?

Scrambled eggs on toast

Pasta with butter and cheese

a 'snack plate' with chopped up fruit and strips of cheese and a cheese straw

She's three so 'I don't like this' means 'I don't fancy this today'.
Alas she won't be old enough to understand the difference between 'don't like' and 'not my favourite' for a few years yet, so you need to set some rules.
She needs to have a degree of control so 'we're having eggs and toast for lunch today. Would you like a dippy egg and soldiers or scrambled eggs with toast triangles?'. Or ' would you like tomato pasta or cheesy pasta today' gives her an element of control and gives her an opportunity to have a preference but doesn't inconvenience you too much.
Keep her options open and keep offering the full range: just because she doesn't like it one day doesn't mean that she won't like it the next. Kids!! Good luck

One of mine really liked dip at this age, so any element, puréed, could be dip. Mushy pea dip; broccoli dip, bean dip etc, as well as the more usual houmous etc.
Every meal had a ramekin of dip for a while .

Thankyou @ODFOx I will give this a go and see how we get on! We do give choices with most things in her day to day but I'd never considered implementing it to mealtimes like this

I had a very fussy eater, with multiple food allergies.

If she eats pizza every day, I would make pizza everyday for a time being, until she understand the importance of what she eats. Just make the pizza yourself, mine loved home made pizza toast at that age, especially made it together, choosing and chopping vegs together.

My fussy eater is a teen now, he has no problem eating most of things now, since he started to learn about nutrients, like since he started school. He hates brussels sprouts, but still eats them because he knows it's full of vitamins and it's the best veg ever, since he's read it on a veg poster in reception.
Early knowledge is quite extraordinary. Imagine a teen demanding multiple vegs for his meal!

My fussy 2 year old will eat pizza, toast, crumpets, scrambled egg, fish fingers, roast chicken, spaghetti bolognaise, cous cous with chicken and tomato. She’ll also eat fruit, and the usual rubbish like biscuits and crisps if she’s allowed

We had success with this with a very fussy 3yo. When you try and put yourself in a child's shoes, it can be very difficult to get no say at all over what you'll eat on any given day. As an adult it would still bother me. That doesn't have to mean cooking a completely separate meal, but offering a degree of choice within a range is a good compromise and still allows the child to feel like they have some control over what they're eating.

Thankyou I will give some of these ideas a go, I know it's a completely normal stage for her to go through I think I'm just finding it so difficult because we've never had an issue with food up until this point. Thankfully she will also still eat most fruit and veg so I know she's getting some goodness in her diet it just doesn't seem very filling.