Tired of fighting your toddlers on what to eat? Wanting to feed your toddlers nutritious meals that taste delicious and will have your kids screaming for more? Here are 14 easy toddler meals for picky eaters!
Let’s be real, feeding a toddler can be exhausting and by the time its dinner, we are exhausted from working all day, and we do not feel like fighting our toddlers on what they will be eating that night. Some kids embrace eating new and nutritious foods while others struggle.
October of 2020 was when I became a mom to my sweet little boy, Beckett. I was determined to be the mom that only fed her kids whole foods, and I wasn’t going to allow them to eat processed foods. I quickly realized that my toddler was way picker than I imagined and sticking to a whole food’s meal plan may not be in the cards for our family.
However, I knew I didn’t want them eating complete garbage, so it was my goal to find a happy medium. That what I am here to share with you today. I want to share with you 14 easy toddler meals for picky eaters. Something that you can make quickly for lunch or for dinner. Something that your toddler will gobble down, and you won’t feel guilty about feeding them.
First things first…getting your toddlers to eat vegetables.
When toddlers hear the word vegetables or see something green, they quickly tell you that they don’t like it. Am I right? It is easy to get discouraged by feeding your kids vegetables. Especially if you have already offered it to them several times and they refuse to eat them. Here are some quick tips on how you can get your toddlers to eat vegetables.
- Keep exposing them to vegetables. Say you tried feeding them broccoli several times, and each time they tell you no or spit it out. Try cooking it a different way and start with a small portion, like 1 or 2 bites. When the toddler sees a portion size, they easy get overwhelmed and tell you no. Start with 1 bite. Ask them to take one bit of the broccoli. If it is still a hard no, then try adding it to their favorite dish. For instance, my kids love pasta. So, if I am making alfredo, then I am going to add broccoli to the alfredo. However, I don’t want them to notice that it is in the alfredo, so I may blend it up or chop it super super tiny, so they don’t notice.
- Get them involved with shopping and preparation. For how big of a pain, it is, try bringing your kids to the grocery store and have them pick out 1 veggie. If you don’t want to bring them to the store with you, then at dinner time show them the vegetables that you bought from the store and have them pick out which vegetable you should cook for that night.
- Sneak them into the main dish. This is hands down my favorite thing to do. I sneak these vegetables into the main dish. Making spaghetti? Add some zucchini or spaghetti squash. Making a casserole? Add some peas and carrots. THEY WILL NEVER KNOW!
- Make it fun! Make eating vegetables fun. Use fun shapes, bright colors when you are serving the vegetables. Here is a link to a fun vegetable/fruit cutter that will form into shapes!
- Add them into a smoothie or into muffins. I love making my kids a fruit smoothie for an afternoon snack and adding in cauliflower. They do not even notice that it is in there. Also, I love making muffins with vegetables in them. Again, they don’t even notice! I have a recipe for spinach muffins that taste absolutely AMAZING!
14 Easy Toddler Meals for Picky Eaters
Alright, shall we get into it? Now, not all of these recipes I created myself. I will put links to the recipes so then you can quickly click on them and go straight to the recipe to test them out yourself!
Meat Loaf. What kid doesn’t like meatloaf? This is something we have once a week, I normally put an onion, some shredded carrots in there so my kids don’t even notice that they are eating them.
Chicken Noodle Soup. This is something that is so easy to make, and with the amount of flavor that is in chicken noodle soup, kids will not notice the amount of health benefits in it!
Healthy Hamburger Helper by Organically Addison. I like to add carrots, cauliflower rice, or peas and hands down, this taste AMAZING!
Chicken Pot Pie by The Clean Eating Couple. This recipe is PACKED FULL of vegetables.
Veggie packed lasagna by Picky Eater Blog. This is another meal that I make weekly because I know my kids will eat it and they will not notice that vegetables are in there.
Beef Taquito – I put cauliflower rice into these wraps and they taste oh so good!
Veggie Packed Mac and Cheese by Taste of Home is great for lunch! It is quick, delicious and HEALTHY!
Breakfast for lunch or dinner? I am a big fan of that! Yummy Toddler Foods has a killer banana spinach pancakes recipe that the kids will absolutely love and they will be getting their greens in!
Mama’s Slow Cookin’ Beef Strew from Ambitious Kitchen is one that I make once a month, maybe twice. The whole family loves it and it is packed full of nutritious foods.
These chicken nuggets from Ambitious Kitchen I have been making for YEARS! My husband and I absolutely love them!
Meatballs are another way you can sneak veggies into their diet. I don’t have it added to this recipe, however I think you could definitely sneak in some shredded carrots if you wanted too!
Slow Cookin’ Chipotle Sweet Potato Chili sounds pretty crazy, but taste absolutely AMAZING! I promise you will not regret this one and it is so quick and easy to make!
Creamy Italian Sausage & Spinach Tortellini Soup is another great one that is hands free! My toddlers didn’t even notice that they were eating spinach. They just loved to creaminess of the soup!
Once again, Ambitious Kitchen coming in hot with another killer recipe. We LOVE her sloppy joe as well. This is something we have weekly! Don’t be afraid to add your on vegetables in there. The kids will never notice!
To keep the vegetables completely hidden from kids, the goal is to then shred them up or cut them into very small pieces so that they do not notice that they are even eating vegetables.
My favorite grocery stores
I really only grocery shop at two places. Thrive Market and Aldi’s.
- Thrive Market – With being a stay-at-home mom, I really do not have time to do much research on ingredients. I was tired of going to the store, reading the nutrition label and seeing all the harmful ingredients that was in some of the sauces, canned items, and baking items. I wanted to make sure all my condiments, cereals, and baked goods were all clean and organic. That is when I discovered Thrive Market. Thrive Market is an online grocery store that delivers groceries right to your door in just a couple of days. If you are wanting 40% off your first order. Shop the link here.
- Aldi- I have tried so many different grocery stores and no one beats the price of Aldi’s .
Conclusion
Try not to get to discouraged when your kids refuse to eat healthy foods. Just continue to introduce the item to your kids. Also, try really hard to sneak the item into the foods they love and make eating the vegetables fun and light!
What type of quick recipe is your favorite?
Do you have a simple, quick, and delicious recipe you use weekly that the kids love? Let me know down below in the comments some of your favorite recipe!
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