Recipes for “hiding” vegetables/fruit in

[Zapx]

Hey everyone, hoping for ideas. Basically my 3yo is increasingly fussy at eating, so I’m looking for ideas of sneaking vegetables into his food. At the moment if he dares spot an isolated piece of sweetcorn/pea on his plate then he will normally down tools and flatly refuse to eat anything until it’s removed…

His approved list atm is raw carrots, tomatoes, bananas, grapes and olives (I know I know… I blame weird pregnancy cravings).

I spotted on another thread a recipe for a “muffin” which included banana, spinach, pepper and carrots and it’s got me thinking that maybe I just need to be a bit sneakier…

So, if you don’t mind sharing, do you have any great recipes for sneaking veg into kids?! Thank you!!

(For anyone suggesting to try and make him eat it, bribing with other food doesn’t work. He also appears to be able to exist entirely on yoghurt and Weetabix if I do try and branch out a bit on meals, and we’re meant to be upping his calories atm anyway so I can’t really have him not eating anything at all…)

Op lots of mum's do Bolognese sauce but witg extra veggies in (peppers/mushrooms/ tomato) then blitz it down so no visible veggies. Could you try that for him??

Make pancakes and add some pea protein flour. You can even eat them with jam on! You just wouldn't know it had peas in. Also buckwheat flour makes great pancakes and is a legume, which is basically like a pea.
Mash brocolli into pasta sauce.

@shellyleppard unfortunately he doesn’t eat mince either 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ but thank you

@heldinadream will look for those flours - thank you

Shepherds pie - just blitz veggies
Soup - cram in as many veggies as you can
Pasta - blitz veggies in the sauce
Tortilla - using finely chopped vegetables

Would he eat sauce and pasta? Make the sauce full of vegetables leave out the mince and blend it up.

I have a 15 yo that eats no veggies at all; am just grateful she does eat a few fruits. Doesn’t eat much junk. Has been like this since she was about 2. No sneaking worked in our house. Good luck x

Will they eat macaroni and cheese? If so wilt some spinach and add to the cheese sauce then blitz it with a hand blender. Call it hulk pasta!

Don't worry too much, he's eating a decent mix anyway.

I gave up blending and hiding veg as it never worked.

Funnily enough, just chopping up and making into teddy faces/ boats etc somehow did the trick.

Raw food might be your friend if he likes carrots and tomatoes - how are peppers and cucumbers?
Does he like mashed potatoes? You can steam some turnips/carrots too and mash them in.
Also, how many different veggies have you tried? We randomly discovered that my toddler adores steamed red cabbage (!) so that became a very common dish in our household. I would keep trying new and different things and you might gradually be able to build up his 'safe' foods.
I would also suggest always having the other food he refuses (peas, sweetcorn etc) on the table on a separate bowl, and make sure he sees you serving yourselves and enjoying it. Even if he's fussy now, it's just reinforcing that vegetables are normal and enjoyable, and hopefully he'll get curious later on.

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/vegan-courgette-cake

My kids love this courgette cake.

You can also add raw baby spinach to banana milkshakes and they don't taste it.

https://www.simplysissom.com/carrot-cake-granola-bars/
Carrot cake granola bars are a hit in our family

Any veg that you can grate can be added to Bolognese - carrots, onions, courgettes, celery.

I grate carrots, courgettes, apples, pears and marrows into cakes.

When my DS was avoiding fruit & veg, I used to cut up melon or fresh pineapple, put it in a bowl on the coffee table, have some myself and say nothing. Eventually curiosity would get the better of him. 😊