Are you struggling to get your kids to eat vegetables? A few simple strategies and a deep breath will go a long way!
If you have kids, you know it can sometimes be a challenge to get them to eat vegetables. And look, I get it! Vegetables are an acquired taste. I don’t think I willingly ate a vegetable until I was about 15 years old.
But even if you sympathize with your kids for their vegetable aversion, you still know that vegetables are important. They are full of vitamins and nutrients that are good for them. Exposure to vegetables is important so your kids learn to love them. You need to get vegetables in your kids, but how?
I can tell you what doesn’t work to get your kids to eat vegetables. Forcing them to eat vegetables, threatening them if they don’t eat vegetables, and giving them a minimum number of bites they have to consume are all losing strategies. I still won’t touch a lima bean after being forced to eat them growing up.
But there are some strategies that do work to get your kids to eat vegetables. At least most of the time. I’m not a doctor, or a dietitian, or a social media influencer that calls myself an expert at feeding children. Nope, I’m just a mom who has tried a whole bunch of ways to get my kids to eat vegetables and is excited to share what works.
Get Your Kids to Eat Vegetables
Model
Perhaps the most powerful tool you have in your toolbelt when it comes to trying to get your kids to eat vegetables is to eat vegetables yourself. When your kids see you eating vegetables and enjoying them, they will be way more likely to try them. This tactic might not work for every vegetable, but if you consistently model eating and enjoying vegetables, your kids will try them eventually.
Serve raw
I don’t understand why this strategy works, but it does. It is completely counterintuitive to me, but most of the kids I know will more readily eat raw vegetables than cooked vegetables. This is especially true if you offer raw vegetables with a dip. And you don’t have to go to extremes with your dip. Simple Ranch dressing from a bottle is sufficient to get your kids to eat vegetables.
Lunch
Now that my older child is in elementary school, I’m packing his lunch. Although I generally hate this task, one silver lining to it is that I can make good choices for him at lunchtime. And our good choices include vegetables. They actually include fruit and vegetables, but I don’t typically have a hard time getting him to eat fruit, so we will focus only on the vegetables.
My rule for packed lunches is that I include at least one vegetable every day. Because my kid likes raw veggies more than cooked veggies, we go that route, but if your kid likes cooked veggies better, by all means give him cooked. Most days when I unpack his lunch, the vegetables are gone. Vegetables probably aren’t the first thing he eats from his lunch every day, but when he only has a finite amount of food, he’s willing to eat them.
To increase the odds of the veggies being eaten, lean into the veggies your kid likes best. If he hates broccoli, don’t send broccoli in his lunch. Get your kids to eat vegetables at lunch by giving them vegetables they like. My son’s favorites are mini sweet peppers, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, and carrots.
Offer when hungry
Kids will eat just about anything when they’re hungry. I find this to be the case especially right before dinner. My kids act like they haven’t eaten in a fortnight in the lead-up to dinner, despite having had a snack after school a mere hour or so before. It’s at this time that I offer some veggies that I’m cutting up for dinner as a pre-dinner snack. When I do this, it’s the only food on offer, so they often take the bait. It keeps the hangry at bay, gives them a boost of veggies, and won’t fill them up so much that they refuse to eat dinner. It’s a solution to several problems when you get your kids to eat vegetables as a pre-dinner snack.
Fun
Another great way to get your kids to eat vegetables is to make eating vegetables fun. How can eating vegetables be fun, you ask? It’s often in the presentation.
We like to make vegetables fun in a few ways at my house.
Dips
I’ve already talked about dips being crucial when serving raw vegetables. If your kids need more encouragement to eat veggies with dip, you can have your kids dunk their veggies in the pool (of dip). A broccoli floret dipped in ranch is boring, but a broccoli floret going swimming is something they’ve got to try!
Snow
My secret weapon when attempting to get my kids to eat cooked vegetables is Parmesan cheese, lovingly referred to as sprinkle cheese in our house. I give each kid a silicone muffin cup with some Parmesan cheese in it alongside their vegetables and then encourage them to make it snow on their veggies. Most of the time they are having so much fun sprinkling the cheese that they get caught up and barely even register that they’re eating something they profess to hate.
Shapes
Don’t underestimate the power of a fun shape. Cucumbers shaped like flowers, carrots shaped like Mickey Mouse, and bell peppers that look like four leaf clovers are all proven winners!
Gimmicks
Don’t feel like a failure if you have to use a gimmick to get your kids to eat vegetables. I mean, generations of moms have been serving their kids ants on a log to get them to eat celery (because why else would anyone eat celery?). Make the ants on a log or zucchini pizzas or any other gimmicky vegetable snack. At the end of the day, your kid is eating vegetables and that’s a good thing.
Add to favorite foods
To be clear, when I add vegetables to my kids’ favorite foods, I don’t hide them or lie to my kids about their presence in the dish. I just make vegetables more appetizing to them by incorporating vegetables in foods they know they love. Adding vegetables to food your kids love can be done in a couple ways. You can just straight-up add the veggie or you can incorporate the veggie in a way that isn’t obvious (my favorite example of this is by ad ding kale to smoothies). I’ve had success with both approaches. As long as your kids know they like the overall food, they’ll likely be willing to try the veggie-fied version.
If you’re looking for inspiration for how to incorporate veggies in foods your kids love in an effort to get your kids to eat vegetables, I’ve got some great dishes we make often in our house.
Lasagna roll-ups
I haven’t been shy about sharing just how much my kids love lasagna roll-ups. If the mood strikes and I have a box of frozen spinach in my freezer, I don’t hesitate to incorporate spinach in the filling. It’s bright green in a sea of white cheese, so it’s obviously there, but I swear my kids enjoy the lasagna roll-ups so much they don’t even notice when I add spinach.
Butternut squash mac & cheese
My kids love mac & cheese and yours probably do too. If you want to serve your kids their favorite food but also get an extra dose of veggies in them, consider making butternut squash mac & cheese. It doesn’t look much different than regular mac & cheese (especially if you use yellow cheddar), but it tastes a bit sweeter and richer. Everyone loves it in our family!
Pasta bolognese
Pasta bolognese is a fabulous way to get some veggies in your kids. I like to make a basic meat sauce that also includes a bunch of veggies I chop up really small. Like the size of the meat crumbles small. Not only does this method bulk up the nutrient content of the sauce, it also makes the sauce taste better.
Homemade Hamburger Helper
I’m not too proud to admit that I loved Hamburger Helper as a kid. When I was in middle school, my mom started working a few nights a week, and I was in charge of feeding the rest of us. Hamburger Helper was an easy option that everyone ate, so it got repeated a ton. As an adult, I’ve learned to make homemade Hamburger Helper. I didn’t think it would be possible, but it tastes so much better than the boxed stuff and I love to add zucchini, which makes the sauce even creamier.
Pumpkin chili
Is pumpkin a fruit or a vegetable? We’re going to call it a vegetable for our purposes and incorporate it into everything we can. Although we love pumpkin bread and pumpkin pancakes in our family, our favorite way to eat pumpkin is in pumpkin chili. This is sooo good. Puree the beans if you have a bean-hater in your house like I do!
Taco rice
My kids love anything taco-adjacent. They could eat tacos four times a week, easy. Tacos themselves are a good way to add some veggies (lettuce, tomatoes, avocado), but this taco rice skillet that uses cauliflower rice take your kids’ veggie consumption up a notch on taco night. Everyone in my house absolutely gobbles this up and no one makes a peep about it including cauliflower.
Spinach enchiladas
I first made spinach enchiladas over a decade ago when my husband’s vegetarian friend came over for dinner. They were so good, I added them to our typical dinner rotation. I was nervous that the kids would refuse them, but they’re just so good, the kids don’t care about the spinach. They’re cheesy and delicious!
Sloppy Joes
Did you grow up with Manwich Sloppy Joes? If so, it’s time to give Sloppy Joes another chance, and this time, make them from scratch. Making them from scratch makes them so much more delicious and gives you the opportunity to add some veggies. I really love chopped up carrots in my Sloppy Joes, and my kids eat them happily!
Turkey burgers
When I was home for the summer in college, I would try my hand at new recipes. I was expanding my horizons at school, and wanted to continue that at home, much to my parents’ chagrin. One of my summer meal experiments, though, got the stamp of approval. So much so that my parents still eat it regularly 20 years later. This magical dinner is the simple turkey burger, to which spinach and feta cheese are added. I simply add thawed frozen spinach and feta cheese crumbles to my typical turkey burger mix. Easy and crowd-pleasing!
Zucchini bread
Vegetables don’t have to be limited to dinner time! In the summer, I love to make zucchini bread or zucchini muffins while it’s in season. I’ve got to say, I don’t feel as bad about giving my kids dessert when it includes a vegetable!
Other posts
Looking for more help feeding your kids? This is a daily struggle for me, so I’ve got lots of posts that might help!
I hope you’ve picked up some good tips to get your kids to eat vegetables today. What has worked in your house (either from this list or not)? Please share down below or over on Instagram @sarainseason.