Getting Your Kids To Eat Their Greens

Parenting / 26 November, 2024 / My Baba

When it comes to getting your kids to eat their greens, it can be a real challenge. You want your kids to eat healthily, but your kids say they don’t like this fruit or that vegetable, and, at the same time, there aren’t always enough hours in the day to cook from scratch with lots of vegetables piled in.

I am lucky with my kids. My eldest son Kyle is 23 now and, apart from peppers, will eat any veg I put in front of him. My daughter Sofia’s only pet hate is courgette, and my youngest son Jorge also claims he hates courgette and avocados. As a parent I am eternally grateful that their fussiness about veg is limited. They started school in Portugal, and I have that to thank!

Tips for getting your kids to eat their greens

After 3 years living back in the UK, they get excited about their veg and here are a few things that have helped along the way:

If they don’t like it, blend it.

This is a fantastic way to avoid food waste. If they leave the broccoli you put on their dinner plate or the carrots and the cabbage, then blend it and freeze it in ice cube trays. It makes fantastic veg puree that you can then use as sauces for other food you are cooking. You can add it to soups, stews and so much more.

If they don’t like it, hide it.

Jorge says he hates courgettes, but guess what his favorite breakfast of all time is? Courgette fritters. Which, When you make it, you grate the courgette, and he can’t even tell it’s in there. You can do the same with other types of fritters (carrot fritters are my favourite).

If they love mac and cheese, make a cheese sauce

I am not talking about your classic cheese sauce with flour and butter, but a hidden veggie cheese sauce. I love to roast butternut squash in the air fryer with garlic and then transform it into a cheese sauce. It’s so easy to make and much healthier, too. You can also add other root vegetables. It’s super simple to make. Yu just need to air fry the squash until it is super soft. Remove the squash flesh from the skin and tip into a bowl. Use a hand blender to mix until you have a purée– the perfect base for a creamy sauce.

If they love pasta bakes then make a veggie sauce

This is fantastic for getting lots of veggies in their diet and saving you time. Grab the Mediterranean veg packs from the supermarket for all those recipes where you would add pasta sauce, such as a lasagne. They come with prepped courgette, tomatoes, garlic and red peppers. Air fry and then, once soft, blend with some passata. You then have a veggie-loaded sauce.

But beyond being sneaky and hiding veggies in their meals, what else can you do to get your kids to eat their greens? How can you get them excited about vegetables? The answer is simple: get them involved in making the meal.

If they love one particular vegetable, let’s say carrots for example, take carrots to the next level. Let them peel and help you prep the carrots. Seeing how they are cooked makes them even more excited about the veg. Each week buy a bag of carrots, give them some recipe ideas and have fun making different recipes together.

For instance, make carrot chips in the air fryer and let them choose the seasoning they want. Explain that a honey glaze on carrots is magical and that you would love their help making them for this Sunday’s roast.

Then ask them what their second favourite vegetable is and rinse and repeat. For instance, try broccoli chips. It’s such an unusual recipe it will grab their attention and they will genuinely want to try it. You simply need to peel the broccoli stems, then slice them into sticks the size of French fries. Put them in a bowl, spray with olive oil and sprinkle with coriander. Season generously with salt and pepper and mix well with your hands. Then, tip them into the air fryer basket/drawer and spread them out to cook evenly. Set the temperature to 180ºC/360ºF and cook for 10 minutes or until fork tender. Spray the fries again with olive oil, then increase the temperature to 200ºC/400ºF and cook for 2 minutes, or until starting to get crispy.

Then, after you have tried a few broccoli recipes, look at recipes they can make that can bring together carrots and broccoli. One great idea is for them to mush up the leftover carrot and broccoli with their hands and make veggie bites from them, with some cheese and breadcrumbs. It can also become a tradition to do this whenever you have leftovers – this helps combat food waste and means they can have a supply for snacking on in the freezer.

Before you know it, you will have a range of veg your kids love and plenty of new favourites.

Sam and Dom Milner are the co-authors of Air Fryer Easy Every Day: 140 super-simple delicious recipes (£20, White Lion Publishing) and founders of Recipethis.com