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    Home Inspiration Recipes Kids Dinner Ideas For Picky Eaters

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    Kids Dinner Ideas For Picky Eaters

    Kid-friendly meals for picky eaters can be tough to come up with ideas for - you’ve either got to find a fun way of convincing them to give new things a go or try to smuggle more exotic morsels in alongside more familiar favourites. It’s even trickier to do when you’re trying to make sure they eat healthily.

    One of the best ways you can help them be a little more adventurous is to make dinners that are fun to look at and fun to eat. With that in mind, here are two simple kids’ dinner ideas for picky eaters that make it easy to add a bit of colourful creativity to weeknight dinner times.

    Both of the recipes below offer quirky enough presentations to get the kids interested, and both are quick and cheap to make. Better yet, they’ll give you plenty of scope for swapping around and experimenting with ingredients however you see fit.

    Lower Fat Vegetable Fondue

    Lower Fat Vegetable Fondue

    This one ticks various boxes for kids who tend to turn their noses up at plain old boiled veg, being both healthier than standard fondue and good fun to eat. It’s also really flexible - you can use almost any vegetables you’d like them to try. It’s much easier to convince young ones to give a new taste a go when they can skewer a bite-sized portion and dip it into an oozing pot of cheesy sauce.

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    Ingredients

    • Chopped vegetables and other ingredients for dipping - you can include more or less anything you’d like to get them to try, including sliced carrots, mange tout, broccoli florets, cubed courgette, sliced boiled beetroot, gherkins, various cooked meats, tofu, torn-up sourdough baguette, and halved radishes

    For the cheesy dipping sauce:

    • 500ml whole milk (or non-dairy alternative)
    • 100g cheddar or other mild cheese, grated
    • 30g lightly salted butter
    • 2 tbsp plain flour
    • 1 garlic clove, minced or finely chopped
    • ½ tsp mustard (or ¼ tsp mustard powder)
    • ½ tsp nutmeg (fresh grated gives the best flavour, but powder is fine)
    • A pinch of freshly ground black pepper

    Method

    1. If you’re using any vegetables you don’t think the kids will eat raw - and that are suitable for oven-roasting (carrots, broccoli, peppers, courgette, mushrooms, and so on) - preheat the oven to 200C/400F, Gas Mark 6. For fan-assisted ovens, reduce the heat by 10-20 degrees. Lightly drizzle them in olive oil and roast for around 15 minutes, to help soften them up a little and bring out a bit more sweetness.
    2. Meanwhile, make the sauce. In a suitably deep saucepan, add all your ingredients except the cheese, and whisk well for about five minutes over a medium hob to combine and remove all lumps.
    3. Once the mixture starts to bubble and thicken, lower the heat slightly and add in your cheese a handful at a time, continuing to stir well so that it melts through evenly.
    4. Once the mixture is thick enough to cling nicely to any dipped veg, take it off the heat and leave it to cool for 5-7 minutes or until safe for kids to touch. (Note that it will thicken more as it cools, so don’t make it overly gloopy to start with - if it’s dense, you can always add a little more milk to loosen it.)
    5. Serve the sauce in the middle of the table, and portion out the chopped vegetables and other ingredients, along with skewers or forks to help dip. You can coordinate the dipping and tasting process if it makes it more of a fun game - that way, everybody tries the same thing at the same time.
    All-Day Breakfast Baked In Bread Bowls

    All-Day Breakfast Baked In Bread Bowls

    These are great for a hearty breakfast, but suitable as an all-in-one meal any time of day. They’re fun to eat, and the great thing is, they’re endlessly adaptable. Once you’ve got your kids into enjoying the basic recipe, you can try adding all manner of different ingredients into the main egg and bread base to help vary things up.

    Instead of the sausages, try various fish (salmon, tuna, haddock), cheeses such as feta and brie, and other vegetables like peppers, courgettes, and sweetcorn. All will work well with the eggs, tomatoes, and bacon bits.

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    Ingredients

    • 4 large free-range eggs
    • 4 large dinner rolls - not too crisp, but dense enough to hold a filling while baking
    • 4 sausages, cooked and cut into bite-sized pieces
    • 2 bacon rashers, cooked and chopped into small slivers
    • 2 tomatoes, diced fairly small
    • 160g baby spinach leaves
    • 40g pine nuts
    • 1tbsp olive oil
    • Salt and pepper to taste

    Method

    1. Preheat the oven to 200C (400F, Gas Mark 6). For fan-assisted cookers, reduce the heat by 10-20 degrees.
    2. Chop the top centimetre or two off each dinner roll, and scoop most of the bread out of the middle, leaving a nice big hollow for your eggs and other ingredients. (You can process the scooped-out bread into crumbs and freeze them for later use.) Place the rolls onto a baking tray.
    3. Heat your oil in a frying pan over a medium hob, and fry the cooked bacon and sausage for 3-4 minutes to reheat them. Once they’re sizzling, add in the chopped tomatoes, spinach, and pine nuts, and continue to cook while stirring for another 3-4 minutes, until everything is heated through.
    4. With a slotted spoon to help drain off any liquid (this should be left in the pan and discarded), portion out the hot ingredients into the hollowed-out rolls, leaving a small well in the centre. Crack an egg into the hollow of each, and season lightly.
    5. Pop them straight on the middle oven shelf for around 12-15 minutes, or until the egg has cooked through.

    Feeling inspired? Try our range cooker tool and discover your perfect range cooker today.