Vegetarian food ideas for child with ASD

[Duvet1]

I'm desperately looking for ideas for lunches, dinners and savoury snacks for a vegetarian child who has ASD so is very restricted with eating (think bland and really simple foods). My DC has about 3 different dinners they eat at the minute but is now starting to go off them and I'm running out of ideas for alternatives. DC doesn't know what they want to eat instead and needs me to help with suggestions. They are starting to go without eating if they don't fancy the usual foods so any ideas are welcome.

Are they vegetarian from their choice of yours? If it is from your choice my advice (as the mother of an autistic child with severe food restrictions) is try not to let your choices restrict theirs even more.

What do they eat now? It’s often easier to suggest alternatives when the known things are known.

Foods eaten usually/eaten in the past -

Plain pasta, sweetcorn and cheese sometimes with tomato based sauce
Packed lunch
Cereal
Very occasionally cheese and tomato pizza
Quorn nuggets, chips and sweetcorn sometimes
Macaroni cheese sometimes

@Sirzy their choice to be vegetarian. Even when they weren't a vegetarian chicken was the only meat they would eat.

Sounds like mine😖

Pasta with pesto and walnuts. Failing that pasta with cheese. Just cheese🤢

Pasta with Mozarella, cucumber spinach and olives. With olive oil. Sometimes tomatoes but not often.

Anything egg.

spag bol with quinoa
lentil shepherds pie
chinexe with cashews.

And that’s about it. Egg sandwiches on a good day.

Carrot, pumpkin and red lentil soup with bread and butter

Quiche

Roasted peppers (sweet) grilled courgette and onions

Grilled halloumi in a wrap with chopped tomatoes

Jacket potatoes and baked beans or cheese

Nachos with whole beans and melted cheese

Egg and chips

Tofu stir fry if it was made with coconut milk + rice

@HarvestThyme Mine carefully picks off and eats all the pastry on the quiche and leaves the filling in a perfect shape.🙄

Ha! Mine picks all the bun off veggie burgers and eats just the burger. Like, every tiny micro speck of flour. The whole process takes like 10 minutes.

He likes bread. But not like that. Sigh.

Yeah mine likes bread.

But not in sandwiches😖

Cheese quesadillas, flour tortilla, grated cheese on one half and fold the other half over. Heat in a dry frying pan (no oil) until the cheese is melted and the tortilla is toasted. You can try a black bean filling too but I'm going to guess your child wouldn't touch it. www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/cheesy-black-bean-quesadillas

Would he eat hummus? My limited eater will, so pitta breads and hummus works He will also eat a soft boiled egg and soldiers. Well, he'll eat the yolk bit at least. It's something. Heinz tomato soup is also acceptable, if yours likes ketchup you might be able to sell it based on marketing it as ketchup soup.

Mine would never eat a sandwich. Ever. Picnics are tricky.

Mine will eat things that consistently taste the same & also bland: pasta, broccoli, bread/pitta/wraps, cucumber, hoummous, sometimes apple, dippy egg only, crumpets, sometimes cheese, ummmm… rice.

Same here! Mine will have bread, prefer pitta or wraps, and will have cucumber and carrot sticks, but not a sandwich.

Arf no sandwich for us either, but toast and chocolate spread is a winner.

Gnocchi! Utterly bland. With butter or olive oil or cheese. Plain boiled for mushy texture or tossed in olive oil and roasted or fried to make crispy.

Yeah toast and gnocchi are good. And chocolate spread.

Mine took bagels and jam to school for 4 years😖

Pasta with butter, peas and grated cheese
Egg fried rice - could try different veg in there
Savoury muffins
Spanish omelette
Jacket potato with cheese/ beans if he’ll eat those - could always try tinned butter beans or cannellini beans if he doesn’t like the tomato sauce version. Try sweet potato too.
Veggie nuggets www.cookingwithmykids.co.uk/veggie-nuggets/ (or could buy the green cuisine veggie fingers)
Noodles - with peas/ sweetcorn/ whatever veg you think might work, could make a sauce with peanut butter or try cashews/ other nuts
Veg and lentil soup
Lentil cottage pie
Creamy leek pasta
courgette fritters

I know it sounds weird but tofu might be worth a try - it’s a fairly consistent taste and texture and pretty bland.

Some of the above might be non starters but worth a try!

Pitta with veg sticks
Rice & veg in tomato sauce
Sweet potato & sausages
Pasta with mascarpone sauce
Cheese and onion bakes

Mine likes tofu.

But it tastes like one of those erasers that’s been in the bottom of a pencil case to me.

Paneer is a good alternative. I tell mine it’s tofu. She hadn’t caught on yet.

Processed food is often a good idea as always tastes the same which can be important for many ASD kids - potato waffles, hash browns, veggie sausages.

Mine won’t eat processed food or anything from the freezer.

Because it tastes of the freezer……

Undiagnosed but also never sandwiches but bread/baguette with Nutella (although tends to go off that also), I try spag with basic tomato sauce(doesn't like bits i.e. herbs), plain pasta ,plain broccoli and sweetcorn on cob goes down ok. Those stupid plastic noodles I call them plastic but basically like.pot noodles but different versions with cucumber broccoli and potato smiles, hash browns, crispy postages those small ones. You can get the ready sliced potatoes for some reason taste so sweet he likes. All for one kid separate meals. Other kid eats everything! Oh and plain rice. Cheese on side of pasta. He used to eat babybel in lunch box now he doesn't. We Pack crackers and butter...

I've 3 kids with ASD and one of the main favourites is Tacos.... bowls of lettuce, grated cheese, tomatoes, peppers
etc as well as the main mince type filling

One has fully loaded, one just the salad and cheese, and the 3rd just the mince!

Its nice to be able to have a meal that we can all eat together.

I have to say, mine loves spicy food. Really hot curry. Chillies with the tofu. He eats a wide variety of foods. But he is super quirky about food and lots of things are just never going to happen. And everything is inspected. Carefully.

Noodles with whatever vegetables will be accepted and a tomato-based sauce.
Egg fried rice.
Would you get away with adding puréed nuts or avocado to a tomato -based sauce in order to add protein?
Smoothies.