Tweaking things to widen SOME PEOPLE'S palates

[drspouse]

DH and, especially, DS, I'm looking at you.
DS has a good range of foods he eats but it's still quicker to list the ones he eats rather than those he doesn't.
DH doesn't like pasta in any sauce other than pesto, red sauce or lasagne and doesn't like beans or lentils in any form.

I want to start putting lentils in the Bolognese sauce (DH has tolerated these before).
DS doesn't like cheese except grated on top of baked beans, and I tried giving him Bolognese with the plain lasagne noodles and he didn't eat the noodles.
I'd really like to move towards lasagne.

DS also only eats a small amount of rice in risotto that is mainly chorizo or bacon and I want to be able to cook stir fry also. He eats some veg (peas, broccoli, most salad veg, grated carrot, sweetcorn) but not chicken, beef strips or prawns.

Where to start? He's 12, has some SEN but is more willing to try new things recently which I want to capitalise on, and I've also taken on board advice to get him involved in cooking more.

I'm happy to do "main dish with options" e.g. wedges, veg, and nuggets or Quorn fillets with mushrooms depending on preference, but we don't cook two whole main meals.

Does ds have school lunches? May not be an option I know but it is a lifesaver for having to come up with a proper hot dinner every day that everyone likes. I have ds1, also 12 with ASD and major sensory issues and a very fussy 8 yr old. Then if we want to have something one or more doesn’t like then they can have a snack type ‘lunch’ meal instead.

one thing that helped a bit is some weekends we have had ‘new’ meals which no one has tried before. To be honest we bend the truth a bit with us never having tried some things but it brings a fun novel element to the meal and the kids are more willing to try things. They have liked picking a country to choose a dish/meal from to try. I search bbc good food for something suitable.

I also tolerate some meal variants eg fish less fingers for some and breaded fish for others, I serve quite plain deconstructed meals with separate components eg stir fry with just soy sauce and a sauce served separately for adults to mix in. I have one who won’t eat rice and if necessary I do some noodles you just soak in hot water instead.

good luck!

Great ideas thanks! DS does have school lunch and if he doesn't eat much he's allowed to make a sandwich an hour or so later but the school has very random meals and sometimes he only eats a cookie or similar.

(He recently asked to try some Chinese food for CNY so it's definitely worth thinking about themed meals).

Egg fried rice or special fried rice is one of the first things we learn as Chinese kids lol and to make it kid palatable, we use to add ketchup on top lol

Yeah I agree. Maybe just try one new dish as a kind of extra so say a little bit of risotto/ stir fry/ pasta as a kind of side to nuggets chips and peas to start with then expand it.

How about some self assembly things like tacos and fajitas, so everyone can put the combination they prefer into theirs?

He likes the meat and tomatoes in tacos which we already do but doesn't like chicken, wraps, or sauteed peppers... So not fajitas.
Rice, and noodles other than spaghetti, are also a sticking point. He might eat the peas out of fried rice though!

He tends to just take food off the plate and put it on another plate if he thinks he won't like it.
He'll eat the bits he likes in a mixture (like risotto) but if it's separate he just takes it off the plate.

My dad had it in his head that he hated garlic, but I put it in loads of things which he happily ate.

I can't get anyone in the house to eat a mushroom though, and DH and DD1 do not eat eggs.

DD1 even acknowledges that her life would be much easier as a veggie if she liked eggs and mushrooms 😅. Perhaps she will like mushrooms one day, I only started to like them when I went to university and had a mushroom balti.

I think we'd rather not hide things as then they don't know they are widening their palate! It's something to be proud of.
I'd much rather DS sees a food and helps prepare it and it gets no further than his tongue rather than eats loads but doesn't know it's there.

Have you tried him with hard, corn taco shells instead of wraps?

He sometimes eats them, but it's a bit hit and miss. At least enough for tacos to be on our regular menu anyway.

When DD was about 9 and I was tearing my hair out with her fussiness, I resorted to shameless bribery. She has significant sensory needs but the biggest barrier was she'd just look at something and say, "I don't like it, what is it?" before she'd even had it on her plate. She was very motivated by cold hard cash, so I told her that for every new food she tried, I'd give her a pound. That month she earned £23 and of the 23 things she tried, over half remained in her repertoire.

That's amazing!

That's so funny. My DS would have loved that when he was little!!!!
One other quick suggestion from a dietician I heard on the radio years ago. She said try putting out bowls of salad/ veg of different colours and saying things like 'ok, you've had some red tomatoes but now you need some green cucumber, yellow sweetcorn, orange carrot etc. etc.
I was very sceptical but tried it with DS who was probably around 10 or 11 at the time and it really worked!

Update!
We've done v well with variations on spag bol - added lentils, used a different pasta shape, and added cheese (different meals).
We're also moving into "new things with chorizo".
I'm still at a loss as to how to try noodles or rice (apart from risotto with chorizo).