How to get kids to eat more vegetables?

[MaryQueenofPotts]

This will sound ridiculous but how do you get a daily intake of vegetables into your kids?
Do you spread it out over the day, i.e. for snack, lunch and dinner?
Also what is the easiest way of preparing/cooking veggies for weekday meals?

Problems in our household:

• not everyone likes stir fry otherwise that would be quite easy
• DC2 doesn’t like carrots, bell peppers in salad or cooked.
• DC1 doesn’t like tomatoes in salad, doesn’t like sweetcorn.
• Neither keen on peas

I mean, I make a simple salad daily with cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, red bell pepper, feta which everyone eats, but DC2 will start whinging about the bloody bell pepper.

They will eat roasted sweet potato slices for example but I do find roasting vegetables a faff for all 5 of us.

Where am I going wrong with this? Any tips appreciated pls.

Blended in a pasta sauce?

Just give them the vegetables they like?

There's only a couple that each of them won't eat, loads left to work with!

Veg on pizza, veg in pasta sauce, veg on the side of whatever you're having, crudités and dip for snack, in a smoothie...

I usually put veg sticks on a plate. Whatever is in the fridge but usually carrots, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, beetroot, radish, peppers and they pick what they want.

Deconstruct the salad and let them choose the bits they want, or do it in sticks as above.

Blend it in sauces.

I don't understand how roasting a tray of veg is a faff if you're cooking for 5?

Definitely blended in a sauce. If they don’t like certain foods then blending them is the only way for now really.

Oh and while we’re on the subject - the ‘eat them to defeat them’ advert really boils my blood! We teach kids to be honest and truthful, we be the same to them, we teach them about healthy foods, cooking from scratch, getting involved … then tell them to eat veg as they’re invading kids aren’t stupid, their answer would just be ‘why don’t we just stop growing veg?’! Whoever thought up that genius advert/teaching tool needs to be sacked pronto <<rant over>> 😁😁

Just have 3 different seasonal veg with every main meal (doesn't matter if they don't like 1, keep putting a tiny quantity of the disliked one on their plate), 5 on Sundays! Seasonal will mean they get to try everything over the course of the year.
Then a couple of veg with the smaller meal (salad) and a portion of fruit or 2 and you're all good. The odd bean and pulse a great addition too.

Give them the raw veg first as a snack while they’re hungry and waiting for dinner.

Do they like fruit? If they do, you could relax on the veg they don't like, no? Most kids I know will scoff fruit if its chopped and easy to eat, or smoothies.

Dips - any excuse to eat dip!
Whenever it's lunch or dinner, put out a plate of crunchy raw veg first, with a small pot of dip, everyone usually ends up eating it while waiting for the main food.

Prep tubs of cut up veg (remember to keep carrots in a jar of water so they're not bendy) and if they want a snack that's the first offer. Some people hate bargaining, but I have def used "eat the peppers first then you can get some biscuits out".

Hide them. Best hidden in pasta sauce (you'd be amazed how many types you can fit in one sauce, which can also be used for lasagne), smoothies, and in savoury cheese-type muffins.

Replace stuff with veg versions; cauliflower slowly introduced into the cheesy potato mash, cauliflower rice for regular rice, crispy tempura battered veg 'pancakes' instead of regular potato rosti.

edit: I also don’t think they have to all like all the veg. We have Greek salad often, but DS can’t stand tomatoes, so he just picks them out and eats the cucumber, green peppers, and red onion.
He eats most veg but that’s because I put it on the plate - he’d happily forget to if he was cooking for himself. I try to make sure I’ve put at least 2 types of veg in his school lunchbox (eg today it was raw radishes, and celery sticks with humus) because that’s half out the way.

I'd offer the salad deconstructed so each person can chose what they like. And I wouldn't overly worry if 1 kid doesn't like specific veg. We have a lot of raw veg with dips, as snacks/alongside dinner, and veg in pasta/on pizza. I don't really see how roasting veg for 5 is a hassle (I could understand it is for 1 person)? we've never framed eating veg as a negative, it's just part of meals, DH and I always ate a lot of veg pre kids anyway so just been a continuation.

The only ridiculous part is that you list things they don't want in a salad but seem to keep feeding them salads 😂 there are loads of vegetables left on the list and many you can cook.

Yesterday I made a fancy sandwich that involved roasted sweetheart cabbage. I'm trying to increase my vegetable intake too. I cannot believe I have got to the age of 35 thinking I don't like cabbage. It turns out I just hadn't tried cooking it the right way.

We spread it through the day eg toast with nut butter and a piece of fruit for breakfast, their lunch boxes always have at least one portion of both fruit and veg, and dinner always has a least one portion of veg but usually several.

It can help to distinguish between 'not my favourite', 'prefer not to eat it', and 'genuinely hate it' when it comes to meals and ingredients IME. It isn't going to be their favourite every day, and we meal plan with everyone picking at least one of the evening meals. As a result, some days will be their favourite, another it might be Daddy's etc etc, and the fairness of this seems to be accepted by them, although we do sometimes have to remind them! We never force DCs to eat something they hate and would avoid meals with those ingredients as much as possible, but the 'genuinely hate' list is very short. With foods they prefer not to eat, we expect them to make a good go at it and remind with a "I'm not particularly keen on pesto pasta any more after eating it week in, week out for months but that was your choice and I ate it yesterday without complaint".

Also don’t see the problem. Either he can pick the peppers out of the salad or you just leave them on the side. We did lots of deconstructed salads when they were little - platter or bowl with all the bits (or at least the controversial bits) separate, and vinaigrette on the side.
If one child doesn’t like carrots, just give that child no carrots (or just one to try) but extra broccoli. We have one who doesn’t like peas so he gets extra green beans or sweetcorn, and the rest of us have the peas as well as green beans, carrots etc.

Ours love any veg if it’s fried with garlic - eg lightly cook green beans, then quickly fry them around with crushed garlic.

And I agree with the pre meal crudités - ours eat tons esp if it’s before dinner and they’re peckish.

Thanks everyone

Yes I may well be overthinking this 🤣
It’s DC2 whinging about picking out the pepper that’s annoying me!
I think I will do a deconstructed salad or the crudites with dips before serving dinner. Or have it out on the table for when they get back from school. They will pick at it that way.

If I do a large tray of veg in the oven, either they dont get cooked properly, steam rather than roast. Or the quantity isn’t enough. Perhaps 2 trays worth is better. It’s more chopping than a salad or feels like it is anyway 🤣
I think I just prefer one pot type of cooking so would rather not have separate components cooking at different times. That’s why I prefer the salad!

They are fine with fruit btw.

Try using 2 trays for lots of roasted veg if you are finding they steam, they need a bit of space around them.

Yeah I think where you’re going wrong with it is still putting bloody red bell pepper in your daily salad when one doesn’t like it. If that’s the case you should have to eat a daily salad with something in it you can’t stand, there will be something, think hard!

But me being goady aside, it sounds like your kids are great and will eat plenty of things, so not too much to worry about. Also OP, I get it, it is actually annoying hearing whinging about things, red bell peppers or otherwise, but seriously, STEP AWAY FROM THE RED BELL PEPPERS! 😂

I sympathise with the peppers! The taste permeates everything else! I used to pick them off pizzas, pick them out of lasagne and the taste remains! Its the 1 thing I can't stand 😝
I can now tolerate those mini ones, baked with cream cheese. Just plain cream cheese works well, or you can add extras. ifoodreal.com/cream-cheese-stuffed-mini-peppers/

Fill celery sticks with homous or peanut butter to make celery 'boats' https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/recipes/celery-sailing-boats

This is a delicious, high fibre nutella substitute:
Ingredients (use organic where possible)
Makes 550g
100g hazelnut butter 1 400g tin of black beans, drained and rinsed 4 tablespoons of cocoa powder 2 tablespoons of butter or coconut oil 4 tablespoons of raw honey 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract A small pinch of sea salt
Method
Add all the ingredients to a food processor or high-powered blender and pulse to the desired consistency.
Transfer the spread to a sterilised jar and store in the fridge for up to three weeks.

Add veg like carrot/courgettes to pasta sauces like bolognese and lasagne sauce, then use a stick blender to hide the veg (leave the peppers out though)

These are delicious and moist:
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/courgette-brownies

www.delscookingtwist.com/beetroot-cake-with-vanilla-frosting/

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/hidden-veg-recipes

Agree with you on the roasting tin volume - for 5 people you need 2 tins worth. And yeah it can take a lot of chopping! 2 tins is handy cos you can leave out a hated ingredient in one tin, ours don’t like roasted tomatoes so we do a tray for us with them in and another tray without.

We just do a lot of boiled or steamed veg on the side of some dishes, as well as salads or roasted. Depends what we’re having. Very careful that it doesn’t go soggy - we all prefer it a bit crunchy.

Like PP says crudités and dips. Bonus points for the dip being veg based, I make salsa, guacamole, hummus, roasted red pepper and a beetroot dip. All really easy and they are dipping veg in veg, that's a great win.
If you incorporate the veg into the main part of the meal it's really easy. I'm thinking veg curry's, chilli, fritata etc.
If they won't eat the veg like that blend it into the curry or chilli sauce. If you are cooking with mince very finely chopped mushrooms and courgette are largely undetectable.

When you say some don't like stir fry, does that mean any stir fried veg or are they not keen on the stir fry veg packs? If it's that just make your own from what ever they will eat. Tinned bamboo shoots and water chestnuts stir fried with garlic, green beans, mange tout and baby corn go down well here.

In colder months soups are perfect for disguising veg.

I'd be tempted with a rule of pick out what you don't like but don't moan!

When I was little my Mum used to hide things in mashed potatoes. “Pink potatoes” with carrots and onions were a favourite. Butternut squash mixed with sweet potatoes. Puréed beetroot. Sweetcorn and peas added to pesto.

Yup, I have a fussy eater. So different veg steamed with food regularly within the context of what she will eat - carrots, corn, peas, broccoli basically.

She will eat avocado, cucumber and feta and I've convinced her to let me put a bit of some kind of lettuce/salad leaf with it - she doesn't love it, but she gets that she needs the variety.

My spaghetti bolognaise is delicious, but not authentic at all because it includes the obvious - onion, tomato - but ALWAYS lentils and then I always add others, depending on what's in the fridge but most common are leeks/ celery/mushrooms/peppers/ courgettes / carrots but I've snuck in cabbage or aubergine a few times too! :)

I don't do this any more because she's dairy intolerant but I must figure out a dairy free option - I TOTALLY hear you on the huge piles of roast veg. But I used to make a big batch of roasted mediterannean veg, always including some tomatoes, and then blitz it with some cream cheese and also nuts - usually walnuts - to turn it into "red pesto". It was brilliant as I could shove it in the freezer in portion sizes and it was a great way to get a wider variety of veg in there.

If they like risotto (mine don't anymore - texture issues) is to do risottos and do different ones - so we used to do pea or butternut. Pea was particularly popular as I'd blend most of the peas and turn the risotto green which for some reason they loved! :) Mushroom is obviously a good choice, but you could try tossing all kinds of veggie (asparagus? Broccoli? Leeks?) in (and if you use an onion/celery/carrot mix for the base you up the veggie content there as well).

Mash - I don't bother with mash often, but when I do, I usually do a mix of potato and butternut or potato and carrot or potato and sweet potato. Texture can be a problem but if they are up for it, butterbean mash is amazing - DH and I love it.

For DS, who admittedly isn't really fussy, but who would sometimes be resistant to new vegetables, I found creating pasta sauces was a good way to introduce them. So he loves aubergine now because we started putting it in a tomato based sauce, sometimes with chorizo. He hated tomatoes but we roasted them and served on spaghetti with goats cheese and/or chorizo and he'll eat them okay now. He eats courgettes now after we had fried courgettes in lemon, garlic and chilli with feta on pasta... etc. I'm toying with trying something similar with DD by adding grilled aubergine or mushrooms to burgers in v thin slices to start getting her willing to eat them.

Cauliflower cheese can have other veg added. Broccoli in particular but my dad basically takes the view that a cheese sauce works with any veg so we've been known to throw peas, carrots and even corn in there! :) Growing up, macaroni cheese was never made without thinly sliced tomatoes along the top to get crispy under the grill.

corn on the cob is often more popular than other kinds of veg/corn. Especially if you throw it on the BBQ.

Learn how to cook cuisines where veggies are the highlight and are not hidden in anything:: Indian, Sri Lankan, Thai, Chinese, Levantine, Mexican...

To add to my earlier post, with a fussy lactose intolerant DD, I don't aim for 5 a day but try hard to get as close to 30 plant based foods a week. She's not there yet, but we're working on it.

But it means if I can, for example, get two types of lettuce into that little salad she'll eat, I'm ahead. If I can add some additional dried or fresh herbs into my spaghetti bolognaise, I'm thrilled. I encourage her to eat a wider variety of fruit each week and at least once a week we have a smoothie with a pile of frozen berries to up the variety.

It’s DC2 whinging about picking out the pepper that’s annoying me!

Why are you annoyed because he doesn't like it? Just stop putting it in. Put it in a bowl separately for those that like it. Most of us have some things we don't like.