Ideas for nutritious toddler meals

[flossie72]

My 3 year old can be a fussy eater and I’m running out of ideas for evening meals for her. She has a lot of homemade pasta dishes (spaghetti bolognaise and macaroni cheese) and a Sunday lunch every Sunday. But after that I’m struggling and often resort to beige freezer food because I know she will eat it and it’s quick.

She eats earlier than the rest of us so I need some ideas on quick, simple but nutritious meals to cook during the week. Help!

I’d make larger volumes of the things you know she will eat and freeze them into portions. Bolognaise sauce is easy to scale up and she can then have it over a jacket potato or mash as a change from pasta. If she’ll eat a roast dinner would she eat a meat and vegetable stew? Ideal for doing in the slow cooker and making extras of. Omelettes if she’ll eat eggs, cheesy fish pie baked in the oven (again, makes freezable portions), meatballs are really quick and easy to make and can be put into all kinds of sauces.

For freezer stuff I really like the Birds' Eye Steam Fresh veg - they are so much quicker than chopping, peeling and boiling tiny portions of vegetables and that means you can do all sorts with that as a side - sausages, chicken, fish, rice/mashed potatoes etc.

Fajitas - provide wraps and fillings and she can make her own
Quesadillas - melty cheese hides hidden veggies
Fish cakes - use cookie cutters to make into shapes and then air fry
Pizzas - she can add her own toppings
Cheat's sweet and sour - I blend cooked veg with pineapple and honey, then heat up to make a sort of dipping sauce. Serve with prawns/chicken and rice
Sausage and mash - mash cooked veg into the mash
Soup - needs to be made ahead but easy to do on a Sunday while roast is in!

Thank you some good ideas. She is pretty good with veg so as long as I pair the fishfingers with broccoli then I try not to get too worked up about it. That said, I do want to expand her tastes a bit. It’s just got to be quick and simple things.

My fussiest eater was obsessed with fishcakes at that age. They have the "beige appeal", but if you make them yourself, you can cram them full of all sorts.
They also enjoyed little omelette things. I used to make them in a muffin tin and freeze them.
Randomly, both of mine enjoyed soup and buttered bread a lot at that age!

Feed her what you eat and move meals times accordingly. So important to eat as a family to model good eating. On days this is impossible, save food from day before or batch cook

Not possible unfortunately. Older dc have activities that go on til gone 8pm some nights. Way too late for her to be eating. Sunday lunch is the only meal we get to all sit down and eat together at the moment.

Mine had smoked salmon, cheese, asparagus and grapes for a 7:30pm dinner. 🤷‍♀️

Can you cook extra of what your having and save it for the next day instead

I was going to suggest this too.

It must be a faff to cook meals just for the little one and then cook again for everyone else. She may not like it immediately but it takes a long time and regular exposure to different foods to get toddlers eating them. They do develop a more varied palate though.