5 Creative Cooking Tips for Picky Eaters
Providing nutritious and balanced meals can seem difficult when faced with stubborn eaters who only want chicken nuggets or pizza. However, with some creative tips and an open mind, you can introduce picky eaters to a wider variety of healthy foods. Read on for creative cooking tips for picky eaters to try with your fussy children.
Cooking Tips For Picky Eaters
Getting picky eaters to try new foods can be a challenge, but adding a creative twist like fun shapes, colorful presentations, or interactive meals can make all the difference. Try involving kids in the kitchen to spark their interest—let them pick out ingredients, create their own pizzas, or assemble their own veggie skewers for a fun and tasty experience.
1. Making Healthy Food Fun
The key to getting children to eat healthy food is presenting it appealingly.
Make faces out of sliced fruits and vegetables, cut sandwiches into fun shapes with cookie cutters, or add a drizzle of honey or maple syrup to add sweetness to plain yoghurt or oatmeal. Getting the kids involved in preparing healthy recipes also makes them more likely to try the finished dish.
2. Offer Choices
Giving picky eaters a sense of control can ease their anxiety about unfamiliar foods. Instead of forcing something new on their plate, offer a choice between two items like broccoli or cauliflower, salmon or cod, carrot sticks or snap peas, apples or pears. Assure them they only have to take one or two bites to try. Respect it if they genuinely don’t like something after attempting it. Simply reintroducing rejected foods at later meals in different preparations increases the odds they’ll acquire new tastes eventually.
However, while this sounds great, offering multiple choices can get expensive. To save money on healthy food, buy in-season fruits and veggies, shop sales, buy generic brands, and grow your own herbs and vegetables. On top of this, foster carers can use part of their fostering allowance to buy pricier superfoods like blueberries, salmon, and avocados.
3. Make Mini Meals
Don’t overwhelm picky eaters with large portions. Presenting foods in bite-sized pieces makes them less intimidating to try. Try making mini turkey meatballs, tiny veggie frittatas, or fruit and cheese kebabs for more approachable snacks. Use small cookie cutters to make shapes out of sandwich bread, or get creative with the presentation by skewing meat and vegetables on frilly toothpicks. Having an array of finger foods keeps them engaged and makes meals more interactive.
4. Hide the Veggies
The old standby of hiding vegetables in foods kids already enjoy still works wonders. Puree carrots, zucchini, spinach or sweet potatoes and mix them into pasta sauces, bake them into brownies and muffins, or fold them into casseroles and soups. Simply adjusting the proportion over time can slowly warm them up to the taste, and pack in extra nutrients. Grated vegetables like zucchini also blend seamlessly into dishes like lasagna, quesadillas, wraps and omelettes.
5. Make it Together
Giving your child a role in meal prep makes them more excited to try the finished product. Let them help rub herbs on chicken, toss salads, shape veggie fritters or assemble their own pizza or nachos. No-bake treats like granola bars or chia pudding are also easy to whip up together. Kids take pride in their culinary creations, and it helps them become more comfortable with unfamiliar ingredients when they handle them themselves.
Turning picky eaters into more adventurous eaters requires patience and creativity. The tips above help make nourishing foods irresistible even for the choosiest palates. By engaging kids in preparing fun, colourful meals, you’ll see their curiosity about new foods grow.
