To ask for easy gluten free meals

[Thewifipasswordis]

What are your family/toddler friendly gluten free favourite meals?

A close friend's 4yr old has been diagnosed as caeliac and she's struggling for ideas (and waiting for a dietician appointment i think) so I thought you lovely people could help 😁

Gluten free pasta with sauce (loads of jars are gluten free, you just need to read the ingredients to find which ones), or homemade bolognaise is as long as you use gluten free stock (eg knorr) and don’t add Worcestershire sauce like a heathen. Ditto creamy and tomato sauces can easily be gluten free. And pesto. And tuna mayo (some mayonnaise are gluteny but hellmans def isn’t.) Most homepride pasta bake sauce jars are gf and you can just sub in the gf pasta.

Tesco, Asda and Morrison’s all do frozen gluten free stuff including fish fingers, sausages, pizzas and chicken nuggets. McCain’s quick cook French fries are gf and so are a lot of own-brand frozen chips. Those potato waffle grid things are often gf too.

Baked potato and beans/ tuna mayo/ grated cheese.

Gf bread is a bit grim but it’s lovely toasted, so scrambled egg on toast is nice. Tesco finest sausages are mostly gluten free and so are a lot of their burgers.

In terms of fast food McDonald’s chips are gluten free (Burger King ones are not!) and so are their burger patties, so you can order eg a cheeseburger happy meal with no bun on the burger, then pop your own gf bun on, if the little one is missing out on stuff like that. Plus Pizza Hut and dominos both do gf options.

I feel so sorry for your friend - I was diagnosed at 20 and it was such a big adjustment, must be horrible for a little one, especially as they tend to have lots of opinions about what they’ll eat at that age! The coeliac uk website is good for advice.

Also (thinking about what my four year old eats) - Pom bears are gluten free!

Eggs with gluten free toast.
Meat and 2 veg type meals. Have to watch out if gravy is used
Stir fries with gluten free soy sauce and rice
Curries with rice
gluten free wraps- fajitas or whatever filling
The posh sausages at supermarkets (Tesco Finest, Taste the Difference) are usually gf and cheaper than the sausages in the gf section.

boiled carrots

M & S have a great GF range and a lot of their ordinary products are also GF - v clear labelling.

My 2 dc are coeliac. Ages 4&7. They eat gf breakfast cereals with milk or toast/eggs/m&s pancakes (or we make our own pancakes using gluten free flour).
Lunch - cheese on gluten free toast, a m&s roll with ham, you can buy wraps in supermarkets, bit of crime fraiche & ham/grated cheese on. My 2 love ham & avocado wraps.
Tea - we all eat same mostly so meat & veg (like others have said watch out for gravy containing wheat, def NO bistro!)
Favourites here would be sausage & mash (m&s do almost all sausages gluten free) sweet n sour chicken with rice, mince/beef/steak etc. Baked potatoes always a good quick option.
For a treat I do buy gluten free pizzas & ellas?? Kitchen macaroni cheese from frozen sections of supermarket. If I really want a cheat tea I'd do m&s made without wheat chicken goujons (nuggets!!) with birds eye waffles!

Treats - Pom bears, Sainsbury's/Tesco own brand crisps, dairy milk buttons, twirls, flakes, curly wurlys. We do buy the free from section biscuits too but they are bit more expensive.

Eating out - Pizza Hut, pizza express, frankie & bennys etc. We joined coeliac groups on Facebook & there's always good ideas on those as well as places to eat out around you.

Jacket potatoes

Oh and baked beans are easy to do on gluten free toast!

Don't wait on dietician appointment as we did & it was rubbish. Told us to join coeliac.co.uk
Which we did. They have an app for your phone which means you can scan barcodes of foods to check they're gluten free. MUCH more useful joining this than seeing dietician. We also went to their coeliac parties & I could talk to other parents.

Good luck, it's tricky to begin with, more the cross contamination (separate butter, jam etc) and watching that you wash your hands if you've touched gluten. We switched all our chopping boards & to silicon utensils from wooden ones. We also use toaster bags/pockets if using toaster rather than have 2.

Home made chilli, just make sure kidney beans and chilli powder are gf.

Slices of pork fillet pan fried in a cream and mustard sauce made with single cream, Maille Dijon mustard, a little black pepper and a pinch of sugar. Serve with roasted Mediterranean veg - potatoes, onions, peppers and mushrooms roasted with olive oil, garlic, rosemary and thyme. Maybe a little rice on the side.

Oven bake a batch of baked potatoes. You can leave in the fridge for a couple of days and reheat in the microwave, afterwards pop in the freezer and defrost as required. Quick and easy with grated cheese, cottage cheese, tuna mayo with gf Mayo, home made chilli as above or Heinz beans.

Chicken jardiniere - add cooked chunks of chicken breast to cooked carrots, onions, leeks and broccoli boiled in a gf stock cube and water, then add a little cream or Creme fraiche to thicken. Seve with rice or a baked potato.

Home made moussaka (thicken cheese sauce with gf flour or cornflour) with baked potatoes and salad dressed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Posh cottage pie - fry off mince and sliced onions, simmer with some water , a gf stock cube, orange juice, tomato purée , garlic, red wine and chopped rosemary. Thicken with gf flour. Top with mashed potato with added Maille Dijon mustard, slices of tomato and grated cheese on the top and oven bake till golden.

Cold meat, oven chips ( check no flour or batter on) and salad or Heinz beans.

Aldi bratwurst are gf and good for barbecues.

German potato salad - cooked potatoes, chopped peppers, onion, tomato, cucumber and German salami mixed with Hellman’s mayonnaise. Good for picnics.

My son is Gluten free. His go to fav as a mumbling 6ft plus 16year old is chilli mac.

Cook the chilli in a gluten free sauce or make your own if your kitchen skills are up to it (mine aren't). Let it simmer on low or chuck it in a slow cooker, half hour before serving add some gluten free pasta and a little water if the chilli is dry. Serve with grated cheese and some appropriate bread.

Genius bread is great for sandwiches without the need to toast. Mayo is GF (obviously check but most are fine).

Most jar sauces are GF - Sainsbury’s do a really lovely mac and cheese one that’s 40p but so nice! Easy in a pinch.

Omelettes are a good lunch plus it might be worth getting a soup maker to make soups in cold weather.

Lots of supermarket sausages are GF now, plus Linda McCartney rosemary and red onions are absolutely lovely especially in a casserole.

Slightly odd but I’d really reccomend the slimming world 5 ingredient cookbook - very few recipes have gluten in and they’re very quick, easy and wholesome (cut out the muller light crap puddings)

Aren’t some of the Bisto Best ones gluten free?

Omelettes.

If you serve baked beans make sure they are gf - Heinz are.

Be careful with potato crisps - ready salted are usually gf but flavoured ones can easily contain gluten.

Vending machine drinks can be tricky, best avoided.

Plain rice cakes are gf, Home Bargains sell them cheaply.

They will need a separate toaster. As a PP said above cross contamination is very important to avoid with jams, butter etc.

Your friend had better start getting used to self catering holidays. Spain and the Canary Islands and Portugal are particularly good for coeliacs, and you can even get a gf MacDonald’s there! ( Not everyone’s idea of a treat I appreciate, but it’s wonderful after 30 years to sink your teeth into a Big Mac!) 😂

If she’s anywhere near me in Yorkshire I’m happy to help in a lot more detail. (Diagnosed coeliac for 40 years with a coeliac daughter).

This is a really quick and easy gluten free chicken recipe. It is slightly sweet so very easy to get kids to eat. I use mini fillets which are ideal for toddler portions and can be eaten cold too with some cucumber/tomatoes/cold cooked potatoes for a toddler friendly packed lunch.

www.recipetineats.com/oven-baked-chicken-breast/

Sainsbury's have gluten free chicken dippers (that are lovely), their chicken nuggets have gone rubbish, Tesco's are better but Marks and spencers do a large pack of fresh gluten free chicken goujons that actually work out cheaper. Aldi have gluten free tempura chicken which is lovely with sweet chilli sauce. Most finest/extra special sausages are now gluten free. Potato waffles are gluten free. Nicest gluten free pasta is garofalo, the ones on prescription are rubbish. Morrisons do nice fresh gluten free pizza.

Promise rolls are SO much nicer than most gluten free bread (I also like the warburtons tiger loaf as a second choice) - anything else MUST be toasted to be edible (or at least warm)

Gluten free pasta is tempermental when you are getting used to it - it goes from not done to gloopy in approx 45 seconds so you have to time it right

Toaster pockets to put her bread in the toaster saves having to have two toasters to prevent cross contimation
I have seperate butter to the rest of the family (I take advantage of the fact that I like butter - they have marg)

I agree my dietician appointment was useless

There's very little that can't be made gluten free with a few changes/ knowing where to shop. They should be able to eat pretty much what they used to.

My DC aren't coeliac (yet- genetics aren't on their side) but we live in a mainly gluten-free household because their dad and two other close family members are and it's not worth the cross contamination risk.

They eat potato waffles, gluten free fish fingers, m&s gluten free chicken goujons, pasta in tomato sauce, gluten free lasagne, rice and meatballs, sausages and mash, lots of fruit and pombears instead of biscuits.

Schar do nice child sized gluten free cheese and tomato pizzas in the freezer section of supermarkets.