Dinner ideas for a toddler

[jinglebells123]

I'm a bit stuck in a rut! My 3 year old dd can be so fussy and I do get fed up cooking from scratch only for her to refuse it.

She loves the usual crap - pizza, sausages, chicken nuggets. She does love peas and sweetcorn so I bulk up her plate with this.

Sometimes I can get her to pick at pasta, spat Bol, lasagne etc but it's a battle. She does often tend to eat more at nursery but not always.

I've tried feeding her what we eat I.e. Fajitas, carbonara, stir fry but she's not interested.

What else can I try that wil give her a decent meal that she'll actually eat?

She does eat lots of fruit, yogurt, cheese and milk and is tall and healthy but I wish she'd eat more nutritious meals!

My 3 year old is a bad eater too.
Tonight I did her a salmon fillet and mixed together soy sauce and honey before baking it and she ate it all. Probably the sweetness but I thought well at least it’s proper food!

Served it with pasta and broccoli which she also ate

Could you try cartoon pasta shapes? I make a pasta sauce most weeks from red onion, red lentils, carrots, spinach or courgette and sweet potato. All softened in stock and then blended with basil passata. Served with peppa pig pasta shapes and topped with cheese and she loves it.

If she likes pizza could you make your own together? I've made a pizza using gram flour which is quite popular now. It's made from chickpeas and yellow split peas. You can get it from the world food sections in most supermarkets (I know Sainsburys sell it). You mix it with water and then fry like a pancake. Top with tom puree, veg + cheese etc. and bake! Loads of veg and taste so good!

I sneak in cauliflower with mash potato.

And a super easy meal. I heat a mini 50/50 wrap in a pan. Add grated cheese and fold over. Cut into triangles, serve with veg and fruit crudites. Now she knows she likes it I add finely chopped spinach too and she's fine with it.

It's so difficult but maybe for now just work with what she likes and try to improve it where you can.

Like the sweet salmon idea.

A good one for us to add fish to the diet is homemade roasted red pepper sauce with tinned tuna and/or salmon served with pasta or rice. And cheese of course! It doesn't taste fishy. Using jarred peppers makes it a speedy meal too.

I'd just pack pasta with whatever veg and meat she likes - maybe pasta twists with peas and sweetcorn with chopped sausage and she how she gets on with something like that?
Make your own chicken nuggets from chicken breast and breadcrumbs.
Maybe try a plate that divides up so each food is alone and not touching anything?

My 2 year old is hard work but I just made 3 veg and ham Mac cheese and apparently he found it acceptable and I am having it too! Butternut squash, pasta, peas, leeks,ham and cheese. Was easy and will at least get some food into the obstinate thing.

BBC good food hidden three veg mac cheese - can't seem to link!

He helped me mix and pour and measure - this helps a lot. His job was also to listen for the buzzer and tell me to take it out the oven - this involvement helps. Good luck