You want to prepare healthy meals for your kids, but it can be difficult to find nutritious recipes they will enjoy. If one or more of your kids happens to be a picky eater, the prospect of trying new healthy recipes can seem like it might be more trouble than it is worth.
Many parents of picky eaters resort to serving the same favorites over and over again because it is easier than struggling to get your kids to eat their dinner. While it might be the simple solution, you probably get tired of making the same thing week in and week out, and you worry about not providing your children with enough variety. To help these parents out, the following are a few kid-friendly meals that should be a hit with picky eaters.
Sandwich Wraps
If you want an easy choice that will play well to most kids’ palates, you should try sandwich wraps. There are a number of kid-friendly wrap ideas that are healthy and delicious. If you want to make this option even more attractive, you could consider preparing a range of toppings and fillers to allow your kids to build their own wraps. Children will be more likely to give the food a chance if they get to play an active role in putting their meal together.
Mini Pizzas
If your kids are like most others, they probably already like pizza. With mini pizzas made on bagels or English muffins, you have a food option that requires very little prep work and it is something that should be popular with most children.
If you want to make it even healthier, you could consider using ingredients like low fat cheese and whole-wheat English muffins. Add extra nutrition with vegetable toppings, like diced bell peppers or mushrooms. This is another meal that you can make interactive, too. Have your kids put their own toppings on their pizza and encourage them to get creative.
Cheese Tortellini with Peas
For an enjoyable pasta dish with a range of flavors your kids will love, try cheese tortellini with peas. Most kids will be open to trying a cheesy pasta dish, and with the added peas, you have some more flavor and some added nutrition.
Baked Potato Bar
The baked potato bar is another option that will allow your kids to get involved with putting their own meal together. When it comes to toppings, you have classic options like cheese, bacon, and sour cream, but there are tons of healthy baked potato toppings that can improve the quality of the meal and add to the variety.
Mac and Cheese with Veggies
Macaroni and cheese is one of the more kid-friendly meals you will find, but it can get boring after a while. By adding some vegetables, you can offer a change to the same old macaroni and cheese, and you will also be enhancing the nutritional quality of the meal. One good way to do this is to take vegetables like squash and cauliflower and puree them in the blender before adding them to the mac and cheese. This can be a good way to add some vegetables without your kids even knowing.
Chicken Tenders
Chicken tenders are a food that can go over well with fussy eaters. Along with being an easy meal, you can also offer some healthy sides to make the meal more nutritious. Instead of putting something like French fries on the side, serve the chicken tenders with some kid-friendly vegetable side dishes. Along with that, you should also consider baking your chicken tenders instead of frying them.
Chicken Fajitas
Chicken fajitas can offer another healthy option that will go over well with your picky eater. This meal is easy to prep, and you can choose an array of different ingredients to offer some variety. Just like many of the other meals on this list, this is one that offers the option of letting the kids put their own food together. Just set the prepared ingredients up on the table and let them build fajitas to their liking.
It can be a struggle to encourage picky eaters to broaden their horizons, and it can get frustrating to serve the same meals over and over again. These are just a few easy, adaptable, and relatively nutritious meals to get your kids to try. Chances are, the interactive nature and tasty contents of these meals will have them excited to try new things.