High calorie savoury snacks for a toddler

[Merrow]

DS2 (15 months) has just been put on a high calorie diet. He's a fantastic eater, but has some underlying health issues that means he's burning through things. The dietician suggestions were more on the sweet end (chocolate milkshakes, puddings etc.) but he really doesn't have a sweet tooth - he prefers vegetables to fruit, bread and butter to biscuits.

I know the general advice to add to oils / butter/ cheese to everything, but does anyone have specific recipes? The problem I'm having is that most things I've found online seem to be aiming to be healthier! I can up the fat content of his main meals easily enough, but it's adding snacks / puddings that I'm running into issues with. He loves toast so I can certainly smother that in more butter, and croissants he'll always devour so they can become a daily thing.

I think muffins are probably a good place to start as when I've made them before he's liked them, but I've tended to do "healthy" ones. I think I need ones that are high in fat rather than high on sugar, and I'm not sure if there's any keywords or anything to look into for that. I suspect nut butter ones could be good? He does like peanut butter.

scones, pastry twists with veg in, make porridge bars with nut butters, full fat yoghurt with ground nuts on it, make fortified porridge with full fat milk, nut butter, fruit and seeds, cream cheese, avocado, hummus on toast, crackers etc

Avocado? Cubes of cheddar? Cooked chicken? Eggs?
Anything with nut butter will be good. Much better to have high protein than anything filled with sugar.

Cheese on toast

Cheese scones. Mini pizzas. Cocktail sausages. Sausage rolls

My daughter has to have a high calorie diet due to lack of growth we do a lot of raisin toast smothered in butter, avocado, and feta on toast ( with butter) , rice crackers with Hommus , Hommus with carrot and celery and , peanut butter on apple.

I have to have lots of fruit in there to for fibre or she was getting highly constipated with the extra food

Cashew nut butter is high calorie I use it for my son who doesn't eat much. On toast or an oat cake

Cheese scones. Pizza rolls (can use dough or ready rolled puff pastry). Celery with peanut butter or cream cheese (though the effort to eat the celery may negate the extra calories!). Sliced apple with peanut butter. These savoury flapjacks are good too (add extra cheese!) https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/seeded-cheese-chive-flapjacks

Cheese or peanut butter on buttered toast

Porridge with cream and a bit of jam, honey or sugar?

Butter is your friend - butter his pasta before saucing it, butter his sandwiches, etc. Full fat Greek yogurt. Do you think he would like a mild Hollandaise on his vegetables?

I am sorry for DS’ health condition but a bit jealous that he needs butter

scones with cream and jam - sweet but not crazily so?

Avocado on toast. Add feta to up the calorie content.

cheese straws

What about smoothies? Or are those too sweet for you - you can add plenty of fruit but also oats, spinach, avocado, yoghurt, nuts/nut butters which up the calories and improve the nutritional value.

Overnight oats? Or oat bars that don't necessarily have to be super sweet but filled with oats, nuts and dried fruit.

Sushi? Sounds odd but DS went through a phase of loving small portions of sushi as a snack and it's surprisingly high calorie.

Does it have to be cold/portable? I'd be inclined to offer him a few chicken nuggets with some dipping sauces - they only take 10 minutes in the air fryer.

Less fat but biltong is a great snack and high in protein and steak is generally not a low calorie protein.

Also what about loaded potato wedges? Do them with some cheese or chopped bacon?

Or nachos of some sort?

Admitetdly, not necessarily particularly healthy options.

Which made me think of a new idea - arancini or croquettes? If you make them yourself I think you can freeze and cook as you go and it's a great way to increase calories but also increase nutrition with additional veg?

If he likes fruit and veg, pair them with a dip to get some extra calories in – peanut butter, greek yoghurt, soft cheese, and houmous are all easy options. Breadsticks are also good to dip, or strips of pitta, and that's an easy snack, also very portable if you get some little pots for the dip.

Olives are good with cheese.
Pizza.
Jacket potato.

Thank you so much! I hadn't thought of a lot of these ideas - particularly interested to see how he responds to sushi, which would never have occurred to me. I also hadn't realised that different nut butters have different calories (doh) - I'm pretty sure we have cashew butter left from when I was going through all the allergens. The flapjack recipe looks great, the sweet ones I made today (in the hope that his love of oats would counteract the sweetness) were thoroughly rejected.

I'll need to try him on smoothies - he's only had water or milk. He was utterly disgusted by the milkshake I gave him today, but drinks must be an easy way to build in calories.

@poetryandwine I really can't believe it. I had such a nightmare with DS1 and food, and I was so pleased that I had cracked weaning with DS2 and how I had a child that devoured green beans. Feels like the universe is laughing at me!

DS has a fast metabolism and is very active I have to make sure he has plenty of calories, anything that has milk in it add cream, he loves overnight oats - a mashed banana, a tablespoon of nut butter, couple of handfuls of oats, full fat milk mixed together , his favourite topping is sliced strawberries and blueberries with the extra thick double cream, leave in a kilner jar overnight. The nut butter means it's not sweet and you can use his favourite fruit on top

Does he like curries? (They don't have to be spicy) You can add cashew/almond/peanut butter to these too, as well as the nuts in chopped form for texture. Coconut milk and/or creamy curries are also great options if you are looking to get calories in.

I have an overly-skinny but sporty DD (she's 10yo now, but has always been extremely thin). She is fed a lot of avocado, cheese, cream, butter, nut butters and sushi, getting a larger share, proportionally to the rest of her meal, of these elements than the rest of us. I also dish her up much larger portions of whatever carb we're having with dinner than her also-sporty-but-average-build sister. She doesn't like many sweet foods, so we've had to look at savory options.
A PP mentioned nachos - these are a huge fave with DD. The tortilla chips aren't the healthiest, but the rest is ideal for a skinny DC: avocado, sour cream, and cheese plus we also top with salsa and black beans (both veg portions, but also extra protein in the beans).
I will often butter the bread then add mayo to her lunchbox sandwiches.
Jacket potatoes offer a great opportunity to load in butter, cheese, mayo and salad cream (depending on the main filling).
DD loves tinned mackerel or sardines with noodles or rice as a weekend lunch, which is very oily.
If they like veg, experiment with different salad dressings. DD loves blue cheese dressing, but there are loads of calorific options. You can also buy alternative oils to make the dressings eg walnut or avocado.

Creamed cabbage and spinach, cauliflower cheese made with cream and cheese, braised buttered leeks or cabbage, curries with coconut milk and nut butters as part of the sauce, chicken thigh rather than chicken breast, tomato sauces with marscapone/cream, soups made with cream, cheese, butter, oils

Yes as others have said use oily fish rather than white fish, crisp up the skin and he can eat that too

Smoothie-wise, does he like chocolate and bananas? (It might seem obvious that all DCs like these, but skinny DD sadly isn't keen on either) A very tasty recipe is bananas, dates, cocoa powder, and peanut butter, topped up with milk (we don't like cow's milk, so would use oat barista) to get the right consistency. It's super rich, chocolatey, and full of calories.

Soreen / malt loaf
Flapjacks
Granola
Full fat cheesecake, Eton mess, high calorie ice cream
Pancakes with maple syrup and cream / ice cream
Mashed potato with cream and butter and cheese
Bread and butter pudding, assorted pies, crumbles and custard, trifle, steamed puddings and custard.

OP has said he doesnt have a particularly sweet tooth

Ah my two love sushi!

Fish fingers dipped in mayo
Homemade chips or wedges
Rice medley with cheese grated carrot chopped tomato and natural yogurt mixed through with olive oil.
Babybel, cheese string
Bread sticks dipped in hummus or cream cheese.
Ham rolled up in a slice of Gouda.

Nuts

Cocktail sausages. Vegetables with peanut butter/garlic butter/hummus/mayo dips. Ritz crackers topped with butter/cheese. Chicken satay peanut skewers. Fruit and nuts dolly mixture. Pepperoni/ham/bacon wrapped cheese.

Pine nuts are handy as they're tiny so not a choking hazard in the same way bigger nuts are. We make pesto for pasta by blending nuts, olive oil and choice of veg. We put nut butter on lots of things. We still Linwoods Flaxseed, Sunflower, Pumpkin & Chia Seeds & Goji Berries (surprisingly bland tasting) into things like porridge, or just plain flaxseed works well too. We always add a generous glug of olive oil to pasta. Add a spoon of sesame seeds to things like rice.

Basically we're all about the nuts, seeds and oils.

This is all great, thank you very much! It sounds like seeds are a good option generally, and I'll try to get him into dips. I've a couple of curry recipes he likes and I can see how that's a good way to up the fatty content.

I tried giving him ice cream yesterday and he rejected it. He also doesn't like pancakes, which definitely moves him into bizarre child territory. DS1 would have been in heaven with this edict, but DS2 is proving a trickier customer. He does love pizza, but I just want to keep some of his good eating habits rather than abandoning them all in the pursuit of weight gain.