If you have a toddler, you may be searching for ways to get your toddler to eat more veggies in their diet. Now my son somehow loves a lot of veggies and happily eats them when they’re given at a meal. My daughter isn’t the biggest fan of a lot of veggies, but she loves cooked carrots and peas. My daughter also only sometimes likes berries, one day she will devour all of them, the next she won’t touch them.
Sometimes it can be a challenge to get a picky toddler to eat certain foods, including most vegetables. There is a reason for this. Fresh fruits and vegetables can vary in flavor, taste, and texture from one batch to the next. Kids like the consistency of shelf stable foods that tend to taste exactly the same no matter which batch they eat. One great way to combat this inconsistency is to add tiny bits to foods your toddler already loves. Here are several ideas for sneaking some veggies in.
Related: How To Go Out To Eat With Young Kids
Bake It In Bread
Zucchini bread or pumpkin bread are popular. Try out a banana bread that has loads of veggies included! Cornbread is not the most nutritious, but it is still a vegetable. Carrot cake can be made into a bread as well.
Bake It In Muffins
Turn your bread into a muffin by putting it into a muffin tin, or even a mini muffin tin. My son likes to call muffins cupcakes, if your child does too you don’t have to correct them! Let them eat their veggie loaded cupcakes unaware!
Make Pancakes
Make your pancakes loaded with veggies like carrots, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, or zucchini. Add some spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, or cardamom.
Make Waffles
Just like pancakes you can make some sweet waffles using carrots, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, or zucchini. Or you can make some savory waffles with broccoli, parsnip, squash, peas, corn, or spinach.
Cook Cookies
Try carrot cookies, zucchini cookies, or even spinach! Your child probably loves cookies so this is an almost sure way to get them to eat some veggies.
Get Dippin’
Make a dip with a creamy base and shredded, or diced veggies in it. Alternatively you can make a dip that tastes great when your kids dip their veggies in. My son loves eating ranch with everything- even blueberries and strawberries. Dipping makes things fun!
Fry It
This isn’t the healthiest option, but try some sweet potato fries or make avocado fries. Try frying onion, bell pepper, mushrooms, or zucchini. The batter may make the vegetable more familiar to your toddler.
Smoothies
Smoothies aren’t just for fruits, there are tons of recipes for smoothies that include greens like spinach, where the only sign of veggies is the color. Get creative with the name- tell them they’re grinch smoothies if they’re green.
Related: How To Eat More Spinach Even When You Hate Spinach
Help With Shopping
Have your toddler help you shop for the veggies they want to try. You may have to look up some new recipes with this one, but they will be more interested in the food if they are involved in the process. Give them some freedom to choose which veggies they want to eat.
Related: How To Get Out Of The House Quickly With Toddlers
Cooking Helper
Let your toddler help you cook. Give your toddler a spoon and let them stir, give them instructions on what to add next. Buy them child safe knives so they can help chop. You can even get them an apron just for them! It’s a lot of upfront work and it will make everything take longer, but in the end it will be rewarding.
Garden Together
Get your kid involved in planting and caring for a garden. Let them choose which vegetables to plant (within reason). Have them water the plants and help you weed them. My son loves eating sugar snap peas directly from our garden during the summer.
Start Solids Right
This tip won’t help if you already have a toddler who is picky, but if you have an infant about to start solids, I highly recommend starting them off with vegetables that have the closest sugar content and then slowly introducing fruits. For my son we went in this order- peas, green beans, broccoli, carrots, avocado, butternut squash, and then sweet potato. We gave him pureed baby food. For my daughter I didn’t want to deal with the mess so I didn’t use purees and tried the baby led weaning method so I was not as consistent as I was with my son for following this order.
Related: Signs My Son Was Tongue Tied That Were Missed
If all these tricks fail and your toddler only has one or two veggies they like, let them only eat those, as long as they’re eating some veggies it’s still good for them.
