veg/Vegan dishes your young children love

[CornChips]

DS is 4, and is not that fussy, but I am keen to get him out of a pasta/sandwich rut. The school feeds him really great (meat-laden) hot meals, so his appetite at night is limited. But we are only eating vegan at home now, and although he is guaranteed to eat broccoli, baked beans, potatos in any form and carrots, I personally am bored senseless with that. I cannot cook him breaded tofu every night either, no matter how tempting it is.

Any ideas for lovely meat-free small child-friendly dishes?

How about veggie chilli, and rice/jacket potato? Or a veg stir fry with aduki beans? Or I sometimes do a moroccan-ish veggie stew with chickpeas, veg, dried apricots, tinned tomatoes and stock, to go with cousin cous

My DC love most pulses and some veg - I normally end up cooking something with lots of veg and just picking out the bits they will like.

Like both those ideas. Especially if I blend the moroccan stew so it does not have bits in it... the apricots must make it lovely and sweet.

I had forgotten about rice- he will eat rice in any format too.

Dd(3) would eat vegtable rice (rice, sweetcorn, peas, carrots, kidney beans bound together with a tiny but of ketchup) all day given half the chance.

2 meals from ken pit:

So do a pan of Dahl but make it as dry as possible, then divide it in half. Add some extra water/veggie stock to one half to bring it back up to a dhal consistency.

With the other half, mix in breadcrumbs till it goes very stiff. Cool, then wet your hands and shape it into burgers and you have veggie burgers! These freeze brilliantly too. You can add some chopped cooked red peppers too if you want a bit of colour.

Ken pot? Wrf, my pots don't have names! One pot

Our GD does not eat wheat pasta bur loves the rice pasta with a white sauce and goats cheese topping. You can make it with mushroom sauce and grated goats or sheeps cheese too. serve with lettuce leaves.

Hi op, I'm vegan myself but am wary of feeding kids (particularly boys) too much soya as it is high in phytoestrogens and may interfere with routine male development. Just throwing that out there!

As for good recipes, my kids (who are still carnivores as they love sausages ) like chickpeas, beans of all types and also lentils. The BBC good food site has a lot of good and reliable recipes I think.

Lentil and carrot soup with toasted pitta bread to dip?

Pitta bread with falafel, humous and grated carrot filling.

My dd loves a mildish Thai tofu curry, adding whatever veg you can get away with.

How about: mild beany-chilli enchiladas or wraps, patatas bravas, potato curry (Bombay aloo), home made soup and bread, home made pizza, falafel with different flavourings etc?

all fab ideas, thanks. :) We 'do' tofu about once a week (although i could eat it every day.... mmmmmmmm...... Love tofu. DS will not touch soy milk sadly, so he is still on dairy milk. I think we will try enchiladas tonight. All fab ideas. :) I had forgotten about post punk kitchen..... that used to be a go to site for me. Soup ideas all good. I am struggling to remind myself that DS has had a large meal at lunch, so a soup type meal is probably perfect for him.

DD loves Jamie Oliver's felafel recipe. It has a mixture of chick peas and kidney beans.

Leek and potato soup always goes down well here - often do it with homemade bread (well from the breadmaker).

Homemade pasta sauce - lots of veggies - could add vegan pesto.

Lentil shepherds pie - not one of my faves but the boys eat it.

I have had a lot of good ideas from Rose Elliot books over the years - she is vegetarian but there is a fair bit of vegan food ideas there.

Watching with interest as my two are carnivores but DH and I are vegetarians.

I have 3 boys, we are sort of veggies (eat fish) and 2 of us are egg intolerant, I don’t like dairy much and I try and limit soya in our diet but do use some quorn/tvp products. Mine all happily eat these vegan dishes regularly and have done since they were about your dc’s age:

• Chickpea/tomato/pepper/sweet potato stew
• pressure cooker red lentil and tomato sauce for pasta
• Lentil (I use green/brown lentils and sometimes add tvp mince) Bolognese style sauce (used as base for chilli and lasagne)
• Rose Elliot’s lentil Sheppard’s pie (vegan if no milk/butter in the mash)
• Aubergine/tomato/sweet potato and coconut curry
• Ratatouille served with pasta or rice
• Butterbean stew (butterbeans, sweet potato, celery, tomatoes, smoked paprika)
• Homemade chickpea burgers/patties/falafel (see the Jack Monroe falafel recipe)
• Bean and lentil chilli
• Veggie stir fry + noodles (sometimes marinate tofu/quorn/prawns in soy sauce/seasame oil /lime juice/garlic and ginger to go in this)
• Kimchi and vegetable dumplings (from local Asian mart, cook in pan from frozen, boys LOVE these and will eat by bucket load and in lunch boxes)
• Pasta & chickpeas (Pasta e Cecci adapted from a Jamie Oliver recipe, replace the chicken stock with veg stock)
• Orange soup (red lentils, sweet potato/squash/carrot etc.)
• Rotten Veg curry….whatever veggies are looking a bit sad in the fridge currified!
• Roasted veggies and cous cous
• Nut loaf/roast