Best lazy toddler meal ideas

[Margo34]

For those can't be a@$3d evenings when the home cooked batch freezer portions have all run out?

Like tonight, need a store cupboard tea. I'm thinking along the lines of chicken nuggets, smiley faces and a bit of frozen broccoli on the side (which I'll hear up, obvs). Might stretch to opening a tin of sweetcorn too.

Would like some suggestions please!

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Hope this helps! MNHQ

*heat

I boil a handful of pasta, then add butter and feta cheese, done.
If you want to, you can throw some peas/ broccoli in there.

Ahh that sounds nice I've actually got some feta kicking around in the fridge atm too!

We do similar with soft cheese. Pasta, mix in a scoop of soft cheese and some peas or whatever else you have and that's it.

Beans are always good in a pinch!

Birdseye frozen veg bags

rice/broccoli/green beans/peas - mmmm they have a dot of garlic butter in too

you pop the bag in the microwave for 3 mins and there you go!!!

you can buy frozen pasta from Asda that only takes a few mins to cook

cold plates

grated cheese, ham, raisins, cherry toms, rice crackers, mini yoghurt, cucumber

Halve a breakfast muffin, spread with tomato purée, add some cheese, add a bit of ham/sweetcorn/whatever your child likes.

Last nights dinner for DD was pitta bread, hummus, couple of olives, a babybel and some hummus.

Sometimes I’ll do porridge with grated carrot/ courgette (keep my food processor on the side and just whack the carrots through that to grate otherwise it would be too much effort), add some cinammon and nut butter and call it carrot cake porridge. We have it for dinner sometimes when DH out and I can’t be bothered cooking, usually when she’s been at the Childminder’s and eaten a big cooked meal at lunchtime.

Eggy bread - sometimes with cheese and (frozen) spinach in the mixture.

We are also fans of pasta with a spoon of cream cheese and some peas/ sweetcorn here too.

Mine likes couscous so I sometimes make that with peas, maybe some tinned beans or chickpeas or a bit of tuna or something.

She used to go for tinned mackerel, tinned potatoes and frozen peas but can’t get away with that anymore.

Eggs/ beans/ cheese on toast with yogurt and fruit for pudding (which we usually just serve at the same time anyway).

scrambled egg on toast, avocado

fishfingers with frozen sweetcorn and peas

pitta, houmous, cucumber, tomato, bit of cheese

Pasta, cream cheese, peas

Baked beans or soup and cheese toastie

Fruit loaf with fruit (if they’ve already eaten in nursery)

Cheese & crackers and grapes and any other random bits

Pasta with a quick tomato sauce and sweetcorn or peas

pitta and hummus and veg

Waffles & egg & beans

We have two demanding under 5s and both work (albeit me PT) so we eat a lot of QUICK stuff.

A lot has been mentioned but don't think these have:

• Tesco sell a 'quick cook' pasta that boils even quicker than regular pasta. I've not continued to buy for cost reasons, but if you had the cash, I did find it helpful.
• Microwave rice as a side to meals.
• Tilda do childrens micro rice pouches.
• Frozen jacket potatoes! Microwaves quickly, we usually serve with pre-grated cheddar cheese and either spaghetti hoops or baked beans.
• Very salty and expensive, but my eldest who is 4 loves tinned refried beans, she will eat them on toast or jacket potatoes.
• Sometimes we make 'tortilla pizzas' - a tortilla wrap, warmed refried beans, stick another tortilla wrap on it, then more warmed refried beans, black beans, tomatoes and spring onion chopped up very small, grated cheese, whack in the oven for 10 mins or so.
• Soft boiled eggs and toast soldiers.
• Eldest sometimes has dairylea dunkers or the snack box things too, again salty and expensive though and I wouldn't give the baby them.
• For youngest sometimes buy baby ready meals that you do in the microwave (hes only 11).
• I often make a 'Quorn supergreen pasta salad'. Pasta, Quorn pieces, whatever random green veg I have like sugar snaps, broccoli, frozen peas, asparagus, courgette whatever, toasted pine nuts, season, and mix it all together with green pesto.
• Stir fry is super quick. We use straight-to-wok noodles and just chop up a few random veggies we may have like bell pepper, courgette, spring onion, carrot, broccoli whatever, with either Quorn pieces or tofu. Season well.
• A quick and easy spaghetti bolognaise can be made pretty quickly.

Today DS is ill and not really eating as a result, and DD will have already had like 3 meals plus two snacks by the time she comes home from nursery. So I'm planning for us to have toasted potato cakes with Quorn sausage patties and a salad of lettuce, tomato, cucumber and spring onion. Not sure DS will eat anything tbh and DD will probably just eat potato cake, cucumber and tomato if that.

Oh those fresh filled pasta. Ds loves the ricotta and spinach ones. They cook in 3-5 mins. Add butter

Handful of pasta and frozen sweetcorn, drain then mix in 1-2 slices of cut up ham and a spoon of cream cheese

A bowl of cereal. DS would live off the stuff if he had the choice and being given cereal for tea is the best thing ever!

Fruit loaf! Great idea. DC is a hot cross bun monster so that would def go down well 👍 thanks @RockAndRollerskate

We do cold 'picnic' plates or scrambled egg/beans on toast for lunch quite often, bit much to give for tea too maybe?

I love mackerel and fish (incl fish fingers) but I just cannot get the toddler interested. At nursery - of course fish pie gets devoured with gusto 🙄

I do this too after nursery sometimes but then feel guilty that it hasn't been a balanced day of eating 🙈 sometimes the toddler tells me off too "but mummy it's not breakfast time!" 😂

Dd usually eats a simplified version of what we have for tea but if its something I know she’s not keen on, my go to quick meals are:

A cheese toastie with tomato paste.
A few cherry tomatoes and cucumber slices on the side.

Pasta with cream cheese, a little bit of garlic and some peas
Broccoli on the side

Potato waffles with cheese and a spoonful of beans

A Greek mezze type tea - red peppers cut into strips, warm pitta bread, a few olives, hummus, tomatoes and a few grapes.

A small jacket potato with tuna mayo and sweetcorn, a little salad on the side with tomatoes, cucumber and peppers

Corn on the cob with cauliflower & broccoli, a couple of hash browns

Random bits of stuff out of the fridge. Always my toddlers favourite meal.

I watched a youtuber recently (who has much older boys as do I) but who did a fish finger pie. Fish fingers topped with packet made parsley sauce mixed with meas and mashed potatos on top then in the oven. If my Dcs were not such fussy little buggers I thought that would make a delicious meal and about a perfect toddler meal IMO.

The youtuber was Vicky Foulger. Just discovered her and really like her stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/c/TheFoulgerFamily?app=desktop&cbrd=1

*peas

Pasta with:

Pesto and cheese
Cheddar and butter
peanut butter loosened with a bit of oil
Garlic and olive oil (and cheese!)

then I keep a bag of mixed veg in the freezer and microwave it

Mine loves lentils (with whatever seasoning), so chuck that in a saucepan and boil. You can throw veg in the same pot towards the end, then all you need to add is a carb and maybe some meat. Pasta is probably easiest, and we usually have cooked chicken in the fridge; i sometimes add a tinned sardine instead of chicken