Today we’re going to be talking about how to get your kids to eat more vegetables, and to enjoy them. Vegetables can be delicious, and I think that as adults we know when they aren’t. We know when they’re dry, chewy, or bitter – they’re not good.
The goal is to make vegetables that we enjoy, and to help our kids to enjoy them too. We don’t have to hide them away. Sometimes that works, but it’s also good to know that they taste good and that we can enjoy them. It’s also different for different ages – you may need a different strategy for your young kids than for your teenagers. It’s a good thing to start as early as possible with making vegetables a normal part of life, a food that your kids like just as much as any other food.
So, let’s start with some ways that you can incorporate them into your food. Whether or not your kids are used to them, it’s always a good thing to do. Remember, if you enjoy it, they’re more likely to as well. There’s something to be said, though, for developing a good palate, and the more they practice, the more they will enjoy them. We’ve talked about French lunch meals for young children, where they try all kinds of unusual things from a young age. This is very helpful in developing a good palate so that they’re used to eating the good stuff.
One of the things that I like to do is to add some vegetables into sauces and bolognese or other pasta sauces. If we’re doing a bolognese, it’s great to add some grated carrot and marrow to the mince. Somehow, it adds such a good flavour, it bulks it up, it stretches it, and gives it a good texture. It’s a win all round, so it’s really great to add those. You can even use other vegetables such as parsnips or patty pans, or anything really that can be grated into the mince. You could do beetroot – that’ll taste good. You should put it in near the beginning of cooking the bolognese, so that it has time to soften and really incorporate into the meal. You can also add lentils into your bolognese – I like to use tinned cooked lentils that are already salted and softened, and then it’s very easy.
Soups are a great way to eat vegetables. Often, your kids will be happy with a soup when perhaps they wouldn’t have liked the individual vegetable. For example, you could make a cauliflower and cheese soup. All you need is some bone broth, some cauliflower, some cream for when you blend it, and perhaps some cheddar cheese to blend into it. This makes a delicious soup, which is a good appetizer.
Broccoli works just as well – you can make broccoli and cheese soup, or broccoli cream soup. Again, you just cook the broccoli in a little bone broth and water, and then you blend it with a bit of cream and maybe some cheese, and it makes a lovely, smooth, delicious soup.
An obvious one is butternut squash and sweet potato soup, which is very delicious. Sometimes this is more appetizing than just steamed butternut. You just cook some chopped butternut squash and sweet potato in a pot with a bit of bone broth, water, and a little salt, and then you blend it again with either some regular cream or some coconut cream to make it smooth and yummy.
You can do a similar thing with a puree, which is great to have on your plate next to your meat. It can be fancy, like on Masterchef, where you do a smear with a spoon. It’s very similar to a soup, but just not as thin, so you wouldn’t add as much water, and usually you would do a smaller quantity. You’d cook up some vegetables like butternut squash, sweet potato, or cauliflower in a little bone broth and water with salt. Then you blend it, and you can add a little cream if you want to. That’s your veggie on the side, and it’s very decorative and fancy, and it’s a very fun, easy way to get your kids to eat vegetables. Also, if you have small children, they love making the smear, and it makes them even more excited to eat it. It also adds color to your plate – if you have a broccoli puree, then that’s a lovely green color, and the butternut squash is lovely and orange. That’s great when you want to do a little fancy meal with some elegant plating.
Steamed vegetables are also delicious. We have a vegetable steamer which you add water to, and you don’t have to worry about it burning because it will turn off when the water runs out, but usually the water lasts for the hour that it needs to steam. You can also steam something with a metal tray in a pot, but just be careful the water doesn’t run out and burn. Steamed vegetables always taste very good because all the nutrients are still there; they’re not lost in the water.
Then when you’re done steaming something like long stemmed broccoli or green beans, adding salt and butter, and maybe a little bit of garlic on top always adds flavor. If you’re adding salt and butter, just mix it up with the vegetables gently, or lay it on top. If it’s broccoli, then it’s tender and you want it to look elegant, but if you’re going to add garlic to green beans, it’s often good to do a quick stir fry to cook the garlic. Add the green beans to a pan with a little coconut oil or butter and garlic and then, and then stir fry it until it’s just right. That really enhances the vegetables in a way that adds interest and tastes delicious, and your kids are far more likely to enjoy them than if you just had plain vegetables.
A salad with dressing, or roast vegetables with an oil and salt dressing always add a lot of interest. Adding lemon juice, or anything else on top is going to make them more appetizing. You can make a salad and then put roast vegetables on top, maybe with some nice olive oil and salt, or some homemade olive-oil-and-balsamic dressing. That really makes it amazing. You could use some red peppers and some butternut squash in thin slices so they cook quickly, along with some zucchini, some carrot – just slices of all those with olive oil and salt, baked in the oven for a short while, and then put on top of the salad tastes really good.
You can also do fancy things with vegetables. We have an appetizer cookbook coming out which I’m very excited about, and in it, all the recipes have exactly five ingredients. They’re really simple things that you can do as appetizers for your family to make your meal interesting, but without adding a huge amount of work, time, or money. One of the things in there is a zucchini, red pepper, and halloumi appetizer. Basically, you steam the zucchini and the red pepper slices, then you add a little pesto to the zucchini, and a little oil and salt to the peppers, and then you pile them on the plate with a little bit of halloumi cheese. This makes an amazing vegetable starter. Because of the cheese, it’s not just vegetables, and it tastes amazing. That’s a good one to try.
There are a lot of things in that recipe book which are basically vegetables that you can start your meal with, and then you don’t have to worry as much with your main course. You can even just have chicken pieces or lamb chops because you’ve already had your vegetable starter. Alternatively, you could add puree on the side of that if you’d like to.
That brings me to my next point, which is that it’s really helpful to have a first course, a separate course, which is just vegetables, or vegetables with cheese, like I mentioned. Instead of having a main course where the kids are going to eat their meat and the vegetables are there on the side, give them the vegetables first, because when they’re hungry, that’s what there is, and they’ll eat it. Then they can enjoy their meat or whatever else they’re having in the next course.
This is quite common in Europe. Instead of eating everything all at once, they eat their food in courses, and they separate it – first this and then that. First the soup, then a little bit of pasta or a little bit of a certain kind of vegetable or salad, and then the meat, perhaps with more vegetable sides. The courses really help you to dictate the order that you want your kids to eat their food without them realising. Having a vegetable starter hopefully makes them eat what they see when they’re hungry, at the beginning of the meal.
If you have really fussy kids, try to just make the eating of vegetables a very natural part of the meal, and not make it into a big thing. Just have that part of the meal out on the table for them to dish up from, or when you have the individual plates set out, that’s what there is. Then we have the next thing, without it being a big deal – “Oh, you must eat your vegetables.” Hopefully, it just becomes natural for them.
Also, crudités with a dip are a great appetizer, and a great way to get your vegetables in. These would be raw vegetables – carrots, celery, baby tomatoes, cucumber, and else anything that you can dip. The key here is that you have it with a dip, and that makes it more interesting. Maybe your kids like hummus, or maybe they like a tzatziki dip, or perhaps olive oil and balsamic – you can do anything that they will enjoy, that they can dip their crudités into.
Let me mention that I think it’s very important that vegetables are cooked the right amount. Often if they’re not tasty, it’s because they’re overcooked and mushy or bitter, or they’re undercooked and too hard. I don’t really enjoy sheet pan or oven vegetables like Brussels sprouts, because they don’t seem to be soft inside, and they’re crispy and often burnt on the outside. Maybe I just don’t have the skill there. I do like to do butternut and things like that in the oven. When it’s done in the steamer, it tastes great and it’s fine, but it’s even nicer when done in the oven. If you add olive oil and salt to your butternut and then bake it, it makes it really lovely and sweet, but not too sweet. The same goes with potatoes. They’re amazing if you cook them in the oven with some olive oil and salt on them, and somehow they taste better than just plain steamed or other potatoes.
Try to master one vegetable at a time and find the method that works best for you, when you know it’s just right, not undercooked or overcooked. That may be an amount of time in a steamer. For me, we do Brussels sprouts or broccoli in a steamer for 45 minutes. Butternut or sweet potato would be one hour, although I do prefer butternut in the oven. As I said, that’s the best. I also love the soups and purees. Those are a little bit more forgiving. It’s easier to get the vegetables right if they’re in a soup or a puree, and you can really bring out the flavor.
Also, children have different tastes. Some children love pickles or sauerkraut, and those vegetables are so good for the gut. If they enjoy those, then that’s a win. Introducing fermented vegetables to have on salads or sandwiches is also a great way to incorporate some vegetables.
Here are a few final tips. For one thing, make it fun. When you’re putting together a vegetable dish, arrange them into a fun shape or a face, or make a colorful veggie platter and involve your kids in this process. Let them enjoy chopping the veggies and arranging them on the plates. Then they’re more interested in eating them, and often they’ll even snack a few while you’re preparing the meal. If you have a vegetable garden, your kids will love to help pick baby tomatoes, beans, or herbs for you to help in your cooking, and then they’re also more likely to snack on those things. If you eat your vegetables in a way that you show you love them, and you make them interesting, they’re very likely to follow.
You can incorporate vegetables into foods they already like, like into mac and cheese or muffins, or into a veggie sauce. If you’re making a tomato sauce for a pasta, you can put lots of veggies in there, and that’ll be delicious. Jamie Oliver has a recipe on YouTube where he adds seven vegetables to a tomato pasta sauce. You can search “Jamie Oliver seven veg pasta sauce” on YouTube.
Lastly, don’t give up. Don’t feel that just because it was hard this time, it’s going to stay hard. If you just continue to make yummy vegetables a normal part of dinner and meals, your kids will get on board.
