What healthy meals does your toddler love?

[SomeRandomBird]

I am ashamed to admit my DD basically lives on fish fingers & chips and spag bol. She has a good appetite but is fussy about new textures and flavours.

What healthy meals do your toddlers enjoy that I can try and get her to eat?

Watching for ideas mainly as mine is similar to yours, but she likes anything with noodles, dippy eggs and raw veg, gnocchi, sausages. She prefers salad to cooked veg.

Risotto - probably not that healthy because of the salt but it feels like a decent home cooked meal at least, and it had tomatoes and peas in!

Mushroom risotto
Pitts, hummus and tazikhi
Sausage, mash & broccoli
Salmon & asparagus bake
Chicken goujons (homemade)
Cottage pie
Frittata
Mediterranean veg lasagna
Cod in parsley sauce

Tahini, honey and a spoon of raw cocoa powder. Healthy Nutella! You can also swap the tahini for avocado.

Other than that, nothing

Rice with sweet corn and peas in it. She usually has it with leftover chicken if we have had a roast the night before.

She loves a roast too though!

Nothing wrong with spag Bol or fishfingers and chips though imo. Although I tend to use potato waffles as the cook quicker.

To be honest she will eat anything if I put ketchup on it.

These are great suggestions thanks. She won't touch fish unless it's in breadcrumb and she refuses to try risotto.
I am probably too soft and let her have toast or pasta if she won't eat her supper.

My 3 year old isn't a great eater. She has fish fingers quite a lot, doesn't really like chips and won't eat mash ever. She like spag bol and meat balls. Or likes plain pasta with peas and greated cheese or rice and peas with baby sweet corn. She loves sausages as well. There is a lot she won't eat and doesn't like things with too much sauce.
Fish fingers and spag bol is ok I think, it's not easy feeding a toddler. Well I don't think it is.

Mine is properly partial to a chicken curry. We all eat together (6 and 2 year old) so our meals are slightly tailored to them (we don’t eat a lot of steak).. but any mildish chicken curry they will devour.
Like a Katsu or a korma.

What do you eat? That’s what I’d be making. You probably don’t eat fish fingers most days. Mine used to love butternut squash risotto made with pearl barley (instead of risotto rice). It has a nicer flavour and texture.

Roast chicken with Yorkshire pudding and roasted veg. Chicken or prawn stir fry with veg and noodles. Fajitas, chicken, bean or breaded fish, in flour tortillas with veg and cheese and creme fraiche (mine liked making these herself). Soups and stews (mine loves a creamy lentil and mushroom stew with bread and butter).

mindutopia we get Hello Fresh and make her up a little plate of whatever is on the menu but she rarely touches it. Another thing she will eat is chicken, plain rice and carrots as long as there's no sauce or gravy. I would love her to have soups or stews but she won't go near them.

Watching - 4.5 year old used to hoover everything, eats brilliantly at nursery and home is a constant "buuuut buuuut buuttt I no LIKE this"

Does my head in.

My daughter won't go near soup or a stew or anything like shepherds pie which is annoying as could make those for us and give her some or do a stew in the slow cooker which would save time!! She likes roast chicken and Yorkshire puddings and carrots she will have gravy with it but I have to put it in a separate bowl. Think some kids just like things mixed up or sauce on it all.

mine is similar - used to eat roast with gravy, now likes all things separate and to even hint at gravy provokes a melt-down. She'll eat spag bol and cottage pie (most days, not all), won't touch salad/raw veg (although allegedly does at nursery) and is doing a phase of licking stuff and declaring "no like" even when its something she wolfed down the day before. At the moment am letting it go, I'll keep offering it each time I eat it, but if she doesn't want it then so be it - the drama of fighting may properly put her off.

She does like chow mein style noodles with stir-fry beanspouts and mangetout, and rice with ham/peas/sweetcorn added to it. Cold chicken preferred to warm. Fish pie (not too sloppy though). Pasta with tomato sauce (can hide tuna in this). And baked beans. So many baked beans often in her hair

Argh, the bane of my life! We love lots of veg, stir fries etc but my children are soooo fussy. So we usually end up having lots of roasts, macaroni cheese, sticky chicken, chunky cod loins (done in a foil parcel), very mild chicken curry with rice, but the veg is scarce - carrot sticks and broccoli pretty much all they will eat!!

Roasts - they help themselves, which seems to make them more willing to try stuff
Pasta bakes / pasta dishes. They love tuna, sweetcorn & pea pasta.
Gnocchi with any kind of sauce. Chicken, leek and cream cheese sauce is a favourite.
Picnic tea - houmous, dips, falafels, pittas, ham, cheese, cucumber, tomatoes, olives, crackers
Traybake type stuff - they won't touch sweet potato or butternut squash if I serve it to them as is, but they'll wolf it down in a traybake. Go figure.
Salmon & pesto with wedges & sweetcorn

DD 2.9 eats:

Spaghetti Bolognese
Lasagne (I use the same sauce as I would for bolognese)
Shephards/Cottage Pie
Pesto Pasta with Sweetcorn
Pasta Bake - Tomato and chicken with Veg
Macaroni Cheese with sausages and Veg
Cowboy Pie - Sausage cheese and beans topped with mash (done in slow cooker)
Chicken and Leak Pie
Roast Dinner
Sausage Casserole
Lamb or Beef Rissotto with Veg
Omelette with chips and beans
Bangers and mash with Veg and Gravy
Toad in The Hole
Filled Yorkshires - usually with sausages or chicken, Veg, potatos and gravy

She's really not fussy, as long as it's not fish

I wish my son would eat peas and sweetcorn...

Me too cute, all the "go to"kids foods are rejected by mine.

Spanish omelette
Hidden veggie pasta (make a tomato sauce with loads of veg in it - whatever we have in, then blend it)
Pitts with hummus, cucumber and some fruit
Mushroom risotto (Rice, garlic mushroom, peas and then stir in some cream cheese) with broccoli
Pita pizzas that we make ourselves - stick lots of veg on
Pesto pasta with peas and broccoli
Jacket sweet potato with beans
Lentil bolognese - big batch then freeze

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2491647/raidthecupboard-tuna-sweetcorn-cakes

I make these regularly. They freeze well and I add peas instead of sweet corn but you could leave out the veg.

try and get her to help you.with things like sauce.our loved the act of pouring the sauces out of the jar and always wanted to stir it through.could ur dc help in some way.get them activel involved makes them want to try it more.
saying things like will you choose a yummy vegetable for tea.or I think head chef dc should help with what we have.ask her advice in some tiny way.
when cooking try a spoon "mm perfect what do you think"and get her to lick the sppon too.
just little ways of helping her get involved and feel important at helping mummy and making decisions.
wht about a chicken rice and carrot one pot.with some dumpings.you could make a thin sauce with stock or a thicker one.
if she like crumbed fish what about making a crust with bread crumbs and pesto and crisps for the salmon.could she help mix it.with a few herbs.
macornoi and cheese.sometmes on top of salmon.
chicken and bacon and broccoli pasta
sausage and bean casserole.
name the things she like and get inthusiastic saying lets try this in something new!
look through a recipe book and get her to help you pick on.
little shepherds pies.
jacket potatos with spag bol mince on
spag bol mince with sliced potatos as a topping.or pastry crust
risotto
rosti
frittata
omelettes and mini ones made in muffin tins.
pizzas made with flatbread or on the hob with wraps.
chicken and bacon pie.
pesto pasta
tortilini with those little sachets of dolmio sauce on.
little wraps with mince in or chicken
tomato hidden veg pasta with hot dog sausages
sausage and mash.
sausages and Yorkshires.
veggie stir fry
pea and bacon spaghetti

if they don't like a meal once don't think they don't like it.for a kiddie its meant to take something like four tries bfore there new taste buds get used to something new.so keep at it.just try variotions of things and once you find something they like branch out slowsly using this ingredient.and always get them involved.

He eats absolutely anything at nursery - cod, rice, pork, veg etc.

At home he eats basically nothing. He loves off porridge, hummus and cucumber, peanut butter sandwiches, and randomly almond butter, banana and chia seeds on toast 🙈 but I waste sooooo much food whenever I make him good hearty meals 😩 A couple of pieces of pasta if I’m lucky. I dispair!

My 3 year old is a mega fussy eater, but one of her favourites is egg fried rice, which I use brown rice for, and can sneak in really small chopped white fish/chicken/ham without her noticing, lots of veg (peas,sweet corn she likes, grated carrot, onion, courgette etc she doesn't notice), it's a winner and a regular meal.

She also is a big fan of mash, and will accept any mash, so can shove any root veg in as long as it's mashed, things she wouldn't eat plain. I also get away with sneaking finely chopped fish/chicken under the mash on her spoon. This also works with fish cakes, again can shove other grated veg in and get away with it.

She loves Greek yogurt with 'jam' to stir in herself which is any fruit I have just cooked down in a pan until compote consistency, no added sugar which is much better than premade fruit yogurts.

We cook and bake quite a lot together, and I try to get her involved in all cooking as much as possible, it definitely makes a difference with her trying foods she's helped make. She loves cooking together, it's lovely time to spend together.

I've got a good healthy oat and banana muffin recipe that you just shove everything in a blender and cook, she loves making it together and the muffins freeze well and defrost in 30 secs in the microwave so make a great quick breakfast with some fruit or a snack. (Happy to share a link to it if you like).

Homemade pizza is a winner too, with loads of veg blended into the tomato sauce, sweet corn and pineapple etc for toppings.

She has been fussy since about 18 months old when we had an awful time with teeth, it can be absolutely soul destroying at times. She seems to be finally accepting more things, in the last couple of months sandwiches, filled rolls, broccoli and ham have all been added to her repertoire, which seems so pathetic, but to us is a monumental step forwards! Keep trying things, you never know when they'll take a shine to them!

One thing which never fails is banana pancakes - mash 1 ripe banana, sprinkle of cinnamon, whisk in an egg, cook for a couple of minutes on each side. Bit of chopped fruit on the side.

Toddler can help do the mashing and any leftovers go in a Tupperware to take out and about for snacks.