How do you sneak in the veg?

[Thewholebloodylot]

My 4 year old eats plenty of fruit but absolutely no veg whatsoever. I can get it into certain soups and he also loves spaghetti bolognese as long as the onions, carrots and so on are very finely chopped in the food processor. He loves pesto pasta and I mash half an avocado and mix it well in the pesto and he has no idea. Does anyone else have any other clever little ways they secret veg into meals?

Swede in mac and cheese/fish pie
Pasta sauce has lots of veg
I use my multi veg sauce for pizza sauce, chilli sauce, bolognese
Chocolate muffins with beetroot.

My baby is only 1 and currently eats veg, but I'm neurodiverse and struggle with veg, so these are some of the things I do:

You can make some nice pasta sauces out of blended pulses e.g. butterbeans

Butterbean and blueberry pancakes are lush, I'll have to find the recipe as I've not made them in yonks. Again you blend the beans

Will he eat them mixed with mash? E.g parsnip

Will he eat them roasted with some cheese on? Or kebab skewers to make them look more fun?

Butternut squash Mac and cheese

Pumpkin cookies

Pea and corn fritters

If you look online, I'm sure most things could be blended into sauces. I don't see any reason things like broccoli wouldn't blend in

How do you add the beetroot to muffins?

Oh yeah, mine used to eat it all too. Thankfully he’s still keen on all fruit and he gets enough veg in soups and pasta sauces so I’m not worried. I just like to give a boost where I can. He hates mashed potato or any potato dishes. interested in the pancake recipe

I make a smooth tomato sauce (with loads of veg blended in and sometimes lentils too). You can use that as pasta sauce, topping for pizza, sauce for lasagne/Bolognese/shepherd's pie, to cook chicken in or even as a dipping sauce for other veg! I eat it like a tomato soup too, but the kids won't go for that unfortunately.

I don't hide veg for my now 5 year old but one thing we found works for our DD is to be a bit silly at dinner times when it comes to eating veg, particularly on a roast dinner.

So for example she once told us that she heard eating carrots makes you see in the dark so I jokingly replied "glow in the dark?" Then when she ate her carrots we turned the light off and shined a phone torch on her belly, she thought it was hilarious and ate all her carrots. This evolved into peas can turn you invisible, broccoli makes you a super tickler and leeks make you super strong.

To start with (when she was 4) we pretty much played this nonsense game every time we ate a roast dinner, now she'll occasionally shout that she's turning invisible if she's feeling particularly silly but largely eats her veg without fuss.

It might not help but I think anything that makes dinner time a bit less stressful is always worth a try haha!

Puree cauliflower and add it to mac and cheese.

Thanks, I know this works for some people. We don’t do the silly stuff we just eat our dinner and he has the same veg on his plate as everyone else or there’s veg on dishes to serve yourself. He used to eat various things and gradually dropped them one by one. We don’t say anything about it and there’s fruit always available after dinner which he eats lots of and a wide variety so that’s fine. I do like to boost things here and there just to add some extra nutrition. So avocado in green pesto, chia seeds in porridge, extra veg blitzed in to his bolognese and things like that. But we don’t discuss what’s on our plates or make games out of it, we just chat about our day together or whatever he wants to chat about.

Both my girls are adverse to veg, I manage to get 7 different veg blended in a tomato sauce for bolognese and slow cooked. They haven’t a clue ! They also love “ Hulk Mash” it’s basically potato, Broccoli and cauliflower mashed together with lots of butter, cream cheese white pepper and salt .
”sunshine Mash “ potato , carrot parsnip, lots of butter ( I think you can see a pattern here 🤣) to be fair I use copious amounts of butter I console myself that butter is now practically a health food 😉it’s only got two ingredients. . I’m lucky that they like fruit so I give them a fruit salad with cereal in the morning and fruit in their lunches . 7 a day is unachievable for most kids I aim for five and often it’s three. Some times the kids have chicken dippers waffles and a banana for dinner!!

I don't need to hide veg but have always put a handful of mushrooms in the food processor and chopped them really tiny then used them to pad out mince. It's my way of getting extra veg into my own food and keeping costs down and nobody ever notices.

So many good options with mash but he hates the stuff. I love it!
We are the same with fruit, he eats lots and will happily have a bowl of various chopped fruit any time of day so I’m sure all the vitamins are being covered. I also do our bolognese in the slow cooker with a lot of veg. I think we cover his entire veg quota with that one meal!

I don’t stress about veg to be honest. I do the standard mum thing of getting loads in bolognese or whatever and mine are partial to broccoli and cheese muffins. Other than that I just offer small amounts, don’t make a big deal of it and wait for them to grow up. Suddenly they start eating one veg or another, and it snowballs. My eldest is more fussy, and went through a phase of not eating any veg. Now she will reliably eat sweetcorn, peas, cauliflower and broccoli, and sometimes others like carrots, parnsils and peppers. She’s always eaten loads of fruit so I’ve not worried about her being vitamin deficient! In my view as soon as they even sense your passion for them eating veg, they stop being willing to eat any 😅

I try not to worry about veg as long as my LO is eating lots of fruit. I’ll do the usual blending up pasta sauces and stuff, but if he eats his tea he can have an apple/strawberry afterwards with some yoghurt.

I get mine into mash (sorry!) My son won't eat just veg on its own in general. Tonight he had potato and parsnip mash with finely chopped carrot and peas mixed in.

Mash, corn on the cob, peas and olives are the only veg he'll eat on their own.

We also do a good ragu with lots added in, plus a cheese crepe with spinach (or turtle power) also goes down well!

I do the chia seeds in porridge too!

Vegetable rice. I don't like white rice so use this for preference, and I don't know is kids would notice the difference.

I just made some pea and ham soup using three types of frozen veg rice and frozen onions because I couldn't be bothered to chop carrots etc, It was delicious, dead easy and with the split peas it was not noticeable and was just hammy yumminess. I'm going to try it in other things.