Today we’re going to talk about some food-related fun that you can have with your kids – ideas for evenings involving food in a fun way for your younger kids, for your older teens; for your family to do all together. So, let’s dive right in.
My first idea is a taco night, with DIY tacos – everyone gets to build their own taco. You’re going to provide some hard corn taco shells, and some soft tortilla tacos in different sizes. You can even include some unusual kinds. You get a lot of interesting gluten-free tortillas these days, like carrot or beetroot. Those are orange and red respectively. Just have a combination of different ones that you know your kids will enjoy.
Then there’s the fillings. You can use some ground beef that you’ve cooked. You can have shredded beef in barbecue sauce, which is even nicer, or you can have shredded chicken. You can have beans. You can have different cheeses like mozzarella and a harder, stronger cheese. You can have lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, salsa, guacamole, and sour cream,
You can get the vibe going with some upbeat Mexican music, or everybody can have a mini sombrero. You can put the Mexican flag on your table – whatever adds to the fun. Then think of some games to play. You can do paper plate throwing, and call it sombrero tossing. You can have people walk around with paper plates on their heads and see how long they can balance them. You can divide your kids into teams and give them each paper plates, cardboard, scissors, and tape, and the team that makes the most interesting sombreros for every team member wins. Give them some little prizes.
An activity and a kind of food to go with it is an easy way to make a family fun night. That’s tacos, and my second idea is that you can do a similar thing with pizza. Make your own pizza party. Kids love decorating their own pizzas. You could have a competition for the most interesting pizza, or for the grossest pizza. You can decorate the pizza with the toppings – not just adding toppings, but making a face or some kind of pattern. You can have a prize for the best decorated pizza.
So, you need to have pizza bases. It’s easiest if they’re already cooked, or you can have the dough and have everyone roll it out. Then they can add tomato puree, tomato paste, or pizza sauce, and some herbs and salt. It’s easiest, though, if the bases are pre-made, and then everybody can make their pizzas. You can have some big ones and some small ones that they can add to their main one for fun.
Obviously, you need lots of grated cheese. Mozzarella works best, but you can mix in a few other cheeses, and then add whatever toppings your kids like. You can have pepperoni and, dare I say, pineapple – people either love or hate to have pineapple on their pizza. You can have mushrooms, artichokes, red pepper, and even butternut. I’ve seen pumpkin seeds as a topping. You can have any meat – shredded chicken, shredded beef, ham, or bacon. You can play Italian bistro style music in the background, and just have fun together. Think of a fun game to do with pizza.
My third idea is to have a pasta bar, using a few kinds of pasta – penne, spaghetti, and something unusual like bow ties or shells. You should have some sauces – whatever you’d like for pasta. There’s alfredo sauce, red pesto, green pesto with cream, any kind of cheesy sauce or meat sauce, and tomato sauce. You can even just get store-bought pasta sauce – make it simple.
Have some extra toppings, like various types of cheese. You can have your favorite hard cheese, maybe some Parmigiano Reggiano, finely grated, and used in moderation compared to something like cheddar or mozzarella – you’d use more of that. You can add any vegetables that you like. Have some cooked zucchini, some cooked butternut, or anything that you think will go well with the pasta. Add some cooked mushrooms, and everyone can create a custom dish.
It’s even more fun if you get unusual dishes to use, like crockery, but not quite. You can get bamboo or paper tall bowls, which are a great thing to have pasta in. Then you mix it without messing. You can be standing and holding the bowl. Normally I talk about sitting at the table, having a more formal type of meal, but sometimes it’s fun to do a meal where you’re standing or moving around.
For this meal, if you have those big containers, then you can mix your pasta and sauce in it, you can come back for more if you want, and you can walk around and chat while you do it. This is great for a party as well, especially a teen party. You can also go and sit in another room with someone and chat to them while you eat. You can either eat with a fork, or with some kind of tongs. Just make it fun and have a good time together.
Idea number four is a Bento Box Bonanza. This is fun for younger kids at a party. You can have lots of tiny foods with cute presentations. You can have those little food sticks that you can stick into the food. You can do anything that’s easy finger food – little triangle sandwiches with cucumber and cream cheese, or pepperoni or salami with cream cheese. You can cut shapes in them using cookie cutters – make round sandwiches and star shaped sandwiches – anything fun for kids.
You can do cubes of cheese, or sticks with salad ingredients on them. You can put the cheese cubes onto little cocktail sticks or toothpicks. You have fruit on toothpicks – things like grapes, strawberries, any other kind of berries, and some melon or papaya. All those things are great on toothpicks or cocktail sticks. You can also put vegetables on them, like pieces of cucumber, baby tomatoes, feta, red pepper, and de-pipped olives.
You can do any other small items on the table – raisins, little jelly babies or chocolates, crackers, and individually wrapped cheese pieces like laughing cow cheese – anything that they can put into their bento box or lunchbox. If everybody has a box that has got a few different compartments, that makes it fun. Then they can pack their lunch. You can do small yogurts or juices that will fit in there. There are lots of grocery store packs that you can get with smaller packages inside, like fun shaped crackers.
My fifth idea, for another fun family dinner, is breakfast for dinner, but it’s a pajama party. Everybody puts on their PJs. If it’s winter, you can wrap up warm with robes and everything, or you can just put your summer PJs on. Then eat breakfast for dinner. You can have eggs and bacon with sausage, mushrooms, zucchini, or tomatoes. You can have pancakes or waffles with syrup, whipped cream, fruit, and chocolate. The best thing to put on top of pancakes or waffles is berries, and you can even get some ice cream to go on top of there.
You could have ready-made smoothies in little glasses, or you could do french toast dipped in egg, with salt and pepper or syrup on top. You could even have breakfast wraps, egg wraps with cheese inside, or omelet style wraps. To make those, whisk the eggs well beforehand, and then make very thin rolled up omelets that you can put cheese inside. Any of your favorite breakfasts work great for this one.
Then you can play some fun games sitting around in your PJs – maybe some word games while you eat. Just do something different away from the dinner table. I picture everybody sitting on the living room floor in their PJs with their plates in front of them, and eating while they play a game or two. You can play Pass the Parcel just for fun, and have some little treats inside, or some yo-yos, or whatever you can find from the dollar store, the crazy store, or other cheap places.
I think the combination of a fun game, a relaxed meal, and something else like dressing up or using lighting always makes a good atmosphere, so it’s good to do meals like that now and then. Number six is an old favorite – a backyard barbecue or cookout. If you have any, you can set up small tents in your garden for the kids to go in and out of. Then you can cook hot dogs, burgers, corn on the cob, grilled cheese on the grill, and s’mores.
Tell campfire stories. You can either sit around the fire on rocks, or you can sit in the tent and play flashlight games like making shapes with your hand. You can do anything fun that you normally do at a campfire. These times are great for group stories where everybody contributes a little bit to the story. You can get those little story dice that tell you how to start the story, and then you continue telling it. Any kind of outdoor food that you can use your hands to eat works great.
My seventh idea is to do a food challenge for a family fun night. For this one, you turn dinner into a silly competition. Have all the makings ready. You can have competitions like who can make the tallest sandwich? You’ll need lots of bread. Some of it can be healthy bread that you’ll actually eat, and some cheap bread that you’ll just use for the game. Also have various fillings. People can put things like butter on their bread, or if you’re not going to eat it, then get some margarine to make the bread stick together – just don’t eat it. Make the tallest sandwich with whatever fillings you can.
You could also see who can make the most interesting club sandwich, with various layers of bread and very interesting fillings, like a fried egg or a piece of pineapple besides the meats and cheeses. You can use different sauces or spreads like sweet chili sauce and mayonnaise. For this one, you’ll need to have healthy ingredients because you’ll hopefully eat those sandwiches. You’ll need to have a judge. Maybe mom and dad can be the judges, or an older sister can be the judge for who can make the most interesting sandwich.
You can do a mystery ingredient taste test evening with various options. You can be blindfolded, or you know how they do it on Instagram and TikTok, where you put the drinks behind cardboard with the straws sticking up. You can do that with drinks or sauces, but tasting would need to be blindfolded. You can choose different kinds of cheese, or people can guess different kinds of dessert, different kinds of cookies, or different kinds of deli meat. See who gets the most correct, and they can get a little prize or a chocolate.
You can decorate cupcakes for a fun evening activity. Have the cupcakes ready, as well as a few different flavors and colors of frosting, and some little toppings to sprinkle on. Then have a judge for whose looks best and whose tastes best. Then you can eat them, and smear some on each other’s cheeks. Just have fun.
Number eight – one for teenagers – is to do a mocktail bar or a mixology party. Teens love the vibe of fancy drinks. Perhaps you can have some fancy bottles that you put the drinks into, or fancy glasses with straws. Have some different options – different kinds of juices and cordials, which are like concentrates, some soda water, and some fizzy lemonade. You can have a few different herbs like mint and rosemary. You can have pieces of cucumber, and various fruits like blueberries, strawberries, or lemon – anything that’ll add to the flavor. There are some syrups that are even thicker than the concentrate, and you can use them to make different flavors.
You can have shaker bottles like the ones they use in a bar, those stainless steel, two-sided ones that you shake the drink in. Your teens will have to learn how to shake it so that the drink doesn’t go all over the room. You can have little cocktail sticks for a garnish with a lemon slice, strawberries, or even olives. You can use wired glasses or interesting tall glasses. Then go wild – make your own mocktail.
My ninth idea is to have a plating challenge. Have the ingredients ready, maybe a piece of steak or fish, some mash or rice, and some rings to plate them with. Have some sauces with squeeze bottles or spoons, some edible flowers, microgreens, and all those kinds of things. See who can create the fanciest or the most elegant looking dish. You can judge each other’s plates, and then eat the meal. Hopefully it won’t be too cold by then.
Lastly, number ten is a chocolate dipping party, like a chocolate fondue. You can melt some different kinds of chocolate, some dark chocolate, some milk chocolate, and some white chocolate. Then have things to dip into it, like fruit, pretzels, marshmallows, little cookies, mini croissants or pastries, or anything that you can dip in. Then you can have some nuts or sprinkles to go on top. You can use fondue forks to dip in whichever kind of chocolate you’d like to.
It can be kind of messy, so you can put big sheets of newsprint or paper on the table if that helps. Maybe everybody can have their own little bowl that they spoon some of the chocolate into. A chocolate dipping party is lots of fun. I hope this has inspired you to do something fun for dinner with your family. Let me know what you do. I’d love to hear, or to see a photo. You can email me at karyn@familyfoodformoms.com.
