10 Encouraging Ways to Sneak More Fruits and Veggies into Your Child’s Diet
10 Ways to Sneak More Fruits & Veggies into Your Child’s Diet
10 Encouraging Ways to Sneak More Fruits & Veggies into Your Child’s Diet (Without the Mealtime Meltdowns)
If you struggle to get your little one to eat their fruits and/or veggies, you are not alone! It’s normal, and not a reflection of your parenting ability.
Kids need to be exposed to new foods often. Sometimes 10-15 times before they’ll accept said food.
My son was this way with cucumbers. I’ve been presenting cucumbers to him since he was a baby. It was always the same: he’d gnaw, lick, or bite into it and make a face before saying no thank you or straight ‘I don’t like that.’ It wasn’t until he was over 3.5 before he actually bit into one and didn’t immediately try to spit it out.
Likewise, your kiddo may just need to find the style of a certain food they like. My kid doesn’t like cooked peppers. Like, at all. But give him a raw sweet pepper and he’ll happily eat a full serving.
In fact, those little snacking peppers are one of his favorite foods now! But it took a few years for me to understand what he liked. Trial and error, baby.
Focus on progress over perfection, one bite is a win! Today I’m sharing some tried and true tips for making fruits and veggies feel fun,familiar, and stress-free.
Blend It! Smoothies are Your Friend
Veggies
Toss spinach, kale, or even frozen cauliflower into fruit smoothies — they usually go unnoticed. In fact, as a picky eater myself, I cannot taste the spinach, and now I’m actually sad if I don’t have any in the fridge to toss into my smoothie.
The same goes for avocado. I can’t taste it, and I’m getting extra nutrients in. Avocado is especially great for those that don’t like bananas (like me!) but still want that creaminess in their smoothie.
Some other ways to get veggies into your kid’s smoothie is to add a few pieces of chopped carrots or a couple of cubes of beet, plus the color is divine!
Sweetness
Add berries, banana, yogurt, and a dash of honey for sweetness. Most kiddos like berries, so it’s an easy way to get them interested in a smoothie.
Chopped apples also add sweetness without much effort. I’ll add a bit of pure fruit juice to my smoothies sometimes, too.
Try oranges, mangoes, pineapple, or kiwi for tropical flavors. Add peanut butter or chocolate protein powder for a different sort of sweet flavor.
Fun
Serve with a fun straw or in a favorite cup. Presentation helps! Does your kiddo have a favorite color? Make a smoothie to match! Below are some ingredient combos to get the desired color:
- Blue – blue spirulina powder, blueberries and bananas
- Pink – spinach, strawberry and kiwi
- Orange – banana, mango, and spinach
- Green – avocado, spinach, apples, banana
- Purple – berries, especially blackberries and blueberries, beets, avocado and kale
Bonus tip: Freeze extra smoothie in popsicle molds for a fun snack later.
Bake It In
Add shredded zucchini or carrots into muffins, pancakes, or old bananas into banana bread. Sweet potato, pumpkin, or avocado can be used in brownies or cookies for extra nutrition. Applesauce can replace some oils in baked goods. This is an easy way to sneak more fruits and veggies; your child most likely won’t even taste them!
Bonus tip: Let your child help mix. They’ll be more excited to eat what they helped make. In fact, I’ve got a whole post on getting your child involved into the kitchen for you!
Sauce Hides Everything
Puree carrots, squash, or spinach into pasta sauce or mac & cheese. One of my family’s favorite recipes is the viral pastina recipe that was circulating the internet a while back. It is one of my favorite ways to sneak in more fruits and veggies. You simply:
- Chop and saute carrots, onions, garlic, and celery until the onions are translucent.
- Add broth of your choice until it covers the veggies.
- Bring to a boil and cook for 20 minutes.
- Strain the broth and add the veggies to a blender. Return the broth to the pot.
- Add water until the veggies are covered in the blender and then blend until smooth.
- Add the purée back into the pot with the broth and bring to a boil.
- Add small pasta of choice and cook until the pasta is tender (approx. 12-15 min).
- Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Top with Parmesan and serve.
Blend cooked veggies into cheese sauce for grilled cheese or quesadillas.
Add veggie purées to sloppy joes, taco meat, or chili.
Add to Familiar Favorites
Mix chopped broccoli into scrambled eggs, omelets, or Mac and cheese. Top pizza with bell peppers or mushrooms (even half-and-half to ease into it). Stir peas or corn into rice or pasta.
The more that you expose your child to fruits and veggies, the more they will get used to seeing them. Eventually, it just becomes the norm that your family puts black beans in their quesadillas or shredded carrots into their spaghetti sauce.
Fun with Frozen
Frozen fruit is often sweeter and less intimidating: try frozen blueberries, mango chunks, or banana slices. You can also spread some Greek yogurt onto a lined baking dish and let them help you top it with fruit, chocolate chips, or peanut butter. If it’s fun, they’re more likely to eat it!
Blend frozen fruit with Greek yogurt for a “nice cream” alternative. This helps you sneak more fruits and veggies in, without actually having to be sneaky. Let kids snack on frozen peas or corn straight from the freezer.
Juice & Popsicles (In Moderation)
Mix a splash of veggie juice (like carrot or beet) with fruit juice or water. Make homemade popsicles with blended fruits and hidden veggies like spinach or beets.
Bonus tip: Look for 100% juice and avoid added sugars when possible. This isn’t something you have to feed your kiddo regularly, but the more they’re exposed to healthy options, the better.
Dip It & Dunk It
Offer small servings of hummus, yogurt, ranch, or nut butter for dipping. I particularly like roasted red pepper hummus, so that’s where I started with my son.
Even picky eaters often love dipping apples, cucumbers, carrots, or snap peas. There are a ton of recipes online for fruit dips, if that appeals to your child. Also consider fondue if your kiddo is showing signs of being able to eat it safely.
Sometimes it’s all about the sauce! If you find it weird that your kid is dipping his carrots in ketchup, ignore the urge to get him to stop. Focus on the win that he’s eating happily.
If your daughter will eat fried rice with peas and carrots if she has yum yum sauce with it, lean in. This is less about trying to sneak more fruits and veggies, and just making them readily available.
As they get older, your kids will correct their ratios of sauce to veggies. Work with the season that you’re in, not against it.
Make It Mini & Cute
Cut fruits and veggies into fun shapes with mini cookie cutters. We have this set and my son loves the Dino shape! Use skewers or toothpicks for fruit/veggie kabobs (supervised, of course).
Make little “snack trays” or bento boxes
We have a family tradition of ‘Goblin Dinner.’ One weekend, I was super tired and just didn’t feel like cooking. I wanted to rot on the couch watching tv like a goblin. So I got out a 9×13 baking tray and filled it with odds and ends from the fridge and pantry.
Leftover dip, carrots, hummus, salami. Yogurt covered pretzels, raw broccoli, popcorn, cucumber slices. You could throw in deli meat slices or basically anything you can eat with your hands. It ended up as a nonsensical charcuterie.
But It was all about the branding. I told him we were going to eat dinner on the couch like goblins. We had to wear pajamas or sweatpants and only eat with our hands. We had to only watch a silly movie, it couldn’t possibly be serious or heroic.
And my kid ate every. last. veggie. on that tray. He LOVED that dinner was something different and silly. Sometimes thinking outside the box is the easiest way to get your kid to eat fruits and veggies. Plus, I didn’t have to cook!
Bonus tip: get a fun dish like this one to make the experience more fun. If it makes them giggle, it will probably make dinner more fun! If you’d like something more practical, try a baking dish with a high lip. You’re less likely to have spills this way.
Play with Color and Texture
Kids eat with their eyes! Make “rainbow plates” or color-themed snack times. Make a literal rainbow out of different colored fruit or simply fill a platter with different colored fruits.
Does your kid love the color orange? Have a meal with only orange-colored foods: mango smoothie, pasta with an orange tomato and pepper sauce, butternut squash soup, pumpkin muffins, and of course, oranges!
Mix crunchy and soft textures: pair soft banana with crunchy cereal or yogurt with granola and berries. Texture is one of my biggest hurdles (you can read more about that here) so finding more ways in which I can consume more fruits and veggies is always helpful.
Let them explore food before expecting them to eat it without extra pressure, just exposure.
My husband often tells our son about how he loved to pretend he was a giant eating trees (broccoli) when he was little. If your kiddo wants to turn his plate into a miniature Jurassic park before eating it, let him!
Maybe your kiddo needs more gentle exploration. Use encouraging language like:
- “See how many seeds are on the strawberry? Do you think you can count them all?
- “I wonder what would happen if we ate spinach…do you think it would crunch?”
- “Whoa, check out the rind on this canteloup! Feel how bumpy it is!”
Whether your child is curious or reluctant, keep giving them chances to explore fruits and vegetables. Always add at least a small portion to their plate.
When they consistently see healthy foods on their plates, children will start to view it as normal and thus, be more likely to try it.
Model It Without Pressure
Eat fruits and veggies with them. Kids mimic what they see. I made a conscious effort to make sure my kid saw both of his parents eating fruits and veggies, even though I struggle to eat them in large quantities.
When my son started helping in the kitchen, I made sure to make a habit of popping a piece of carrot or a blackberry in my mouth. Because he saw me doing it, he started doing the same.
Use gentle language. Instead of forcing compliance, make healthy food fun for your kiddo. This starts when they are young, and continues for years.
Keep in mind that every child will go through a “no” phase and a “I think that’s gross” phase. It’s your job as a parent to be encouraging and resourceful. Try some of these responses:
- “These carrots make us strong!” instead of “You have to eat your veggies.”
- “I’m so proud of you for trying a new food! It’s okay that you didn’t like it because you still tried it.” (Reminder to offer this disliked food again at a later time)
- “Whoa, you ate ALL of your broccoli, how fantastic! I see there are still some carrots left. Do you want me to save those for later?”
Keep offering different fruits and vegetables. Don’t give up just because they said “no” once (or ten times). Like I mentioned above, your kid might not like something the first twelve times she tries it.
If you consistently offer, it signals to your child that these foods are normal, important, and not a big deal. You may get pushback (because what little one doesn’t push back??) and that’s perfectly normal.
Put it on their plate just like everyone else’s and don’t make a fuss like “okaayyyy you’ve got some cauliflower on your plate and I want to see you eating it.” Don’t even acknowledge it. Just let your kiddo explore.
Final Thoughts
- Keep it light and encouraging.
- Picky eating is a phase, not a permanent problem.
- Your job is to offer a variety; your child’s job is to decide what to eat.
- Keep mealtimes peaceful, flexible, and fun.
- You’re already doing great. Just showing up and trying new things means you’re winning.
- Looking for ways to encourage and normalize eating fruits and vegetables? Check out these cute books:
If you’ve made it this far, be sure to comment your favorite ways to sneak more fruits and veggies into your child’s diet.
Great ideas!