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I have a couple kids of my own, and I know how hard it can be to get a toddler to eat consistently. One day it’s their favorite food, and the next time you prepare it they won’t even touch it. It just winds up on the floor.
This can be super frustrating, so it’s important to try to stay one step ahead of your toddler and come up with new, creative menu options with what you have on hand. The following are toddler-centric recipes that focus on being easy to eat, soft and chewable, not too spicy, and easily modified for the pickiest eater.
1) Buttered Pasta
This is your typical buttered noodles, just cooked pasta and butter with Parmesan, but in this case, chop some vegetables really small, sauté them, and then mix them in as a sneaky addition.
I like to do a little garlic in the butter before I add the noodles for this one, because my kids love garlicky buttered noodles with Parmesan. If your kids aren’t into the vegetables, you could always try sneaking a little shredded rotisserie chicken into this one.
2) Turkey Meatballs
These are turkey meatballs baked in the oven, easy to chew up and nice and soft. I like to warm up a pot of marinara sauce to go with these. You can add tons of Parmesan right to the sauce for extra protein, or even shred some zucchini or carrots or throw some spinach in there to make the vegetables kind of disappear.
When you bake your meatballs in the oven, just give the pan a little shake every 10 to 15 minutes to get even browning on your meatballs.
3) Mini Quesadillas
These are soft beans that have been warmed up and smashed in between two tortillas with a little bit of cheese. Make sure to use plenty of cheese so it sticks together really well, but try not to fry the tortillas too hard in the pan when you’re making the quesadilla, otherwise it won’t be soft enough to eat.
Cut these into lots of little fun triangles, or even other fun shapes that you like, and serve with sour cream or even Greek yogurt for a little extra protein.
4) Sheet Pan Chicken Nuggets
This is a homemade version of the classic frozen chicken nugget. Cut your raw chicken to as consistently even of a size as possible so they bake for about the same amount of time in the oven, and you’re not wondering if one piece is cooked and one isn’t.
I would use a three-step breading process for this: flour, and then an egg wash, which is eggs and milk or water mixed together, and then your breadcrumbs or crushed cereal. Flour first, then the eggs, then the breadcrumbs, then the oven. Ketchup or even a little bit of homemade ranch dressing go great with these.
5) Scrambled Eggs and Toast
This is scrambled eggs on top of toast cut into long rectangular strips, with some spinach snuck into the scrambled eggs if you can get away with it. Crack your eggs in a bowl first, add a pinch of salt, whisk, and let stand for five minutes to get some really fluffy scrambled eggs. That way if your toddler starts eating them really fast, you’re not going to have to heat the pan back up and make more. These will actually last a little bit longer.
If you’re going to try to sneak the spinach into this, I recommend doing it first in the pan and really letting it go until the spinach is cooked down as much as possible. That’s your best chance of hiding it.
6) Mac and Cheese
This is homemade cheese sauce with macaroni noodles. If you’re making a cheese sauce or macaroni and cheese from scratch, the best approach is to use a roux, which is equal parts butter and flour cooked in a pan until golden brown. You’ll be able to tell when it’s done when it stops smelling like flour and starts smelling like toasted nuts.
When you’re using cheese for your cheese sauce, stick with a milder cheddar. Not only will the flavor be acceptable for kids, but it’ll also keep the sauce nice and gooey and not as prone to breaking like a sharper cheddar. I love to throw frozen peas in this one at the end and just call it mac and peas instead of mac and cheese.
7) Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese
We like to do the tomato soup in a handheld mug for all the kids. This way they feel a little bit more like big kids, but they also actually eat and don’t notice they’re doing it. We’ll usually add a splash of heavy cream to our soup too, to make it a little creamier.
You can sneak some fresh herbs into this one too without the kids noticing. Cut your grilled cheese into nice dippable rectangular pieces.
8) Chicken and Rice
This is cooked chicken breast cut up nice and small and served with rice. I like to bake the chicken lightly seasoned in the oven to try to keep it from drying out too much. You’re looking for a 165 degree internal temperature. If you’re worried about choking hazards for toddlers, you can always shred the chicken instead of dicing it.
When I cook the rice, I like to add a little bit more stock than the recipe calls for, so that when it’s done cooking, it’s still got a little bit of a liquidy consistency to it. It’s easier for little kids to eat.
9) Pasta With Marinara
This is pasta of any kind with marinara sauce, with the option to sneak some lentils into the sauce if you think you can do it. All different shapes of pasta can be fun for kids, whether it’s the tiny wagon wheels or long spaghetti for them to tackle.
I like to cook onions and bell pepper and zucchini, as long as it’s cut up really small or shredded up, and then add the sauce to the pan. That way it kind of disappears in there and they don’t even know they’re eating hidden vegetables. Shredded Parmesan cheese can go a long way with this one as well.
10) Salmon Cakes
Think crab cakes, but with canned salmon and geared more towards kids. Just canned salmon mixed with breadcrumbs and eggs and fried in little small patties. I would make a nice little dip on the side of half yogurt, half mayo, a little bit of dill, and maybe a little bit of mustard and salt and pepper.
Be sure to add plenty of egg and not too much breadcrumbs so your salmon cakes actually hold together when you’re frying them instead of just falling apart. Sometimes toddlers can get really mad when their food falls apart unexpectedly when they’re eating it.
11) Sweet Potato Nachos
These are roasted sweet potatoes with nacho toppings like cheese and beans. You can set some extra stuff aside, like pickled jalapeños or anything adults might want. Try to cut your sweet potatoes thin, season lightly, and then bake in the oven. The sugar will start to come out of them and they’ll brown a little bit.
When you’re heating the beans, cook some onions and bell pepper or even spinach in the pan ahead of time until it’s well cooked and soft. Then add your beans and mash them with a potato masher. I like to substitute Greek yogurt for things like this in place of sour cream, because I feel like it’s a much healthier alternative and nobody notices.
12) Mini Pita Pizzas
This is a little pizza with pita bread taking the place of the pizza dough, and just cheese and sauce on top of it, with the option to add extra toppings for adults. I would heat these up in the oven just enough to melt the cheese and not get it too hot, so your hungry kid doesn’t have to wait too long to eat it.
You can make a ranch dressing with Greek yogurt instead of mayo for a nice dip with this. Try to keep the cheese to a nice mozzarella.
13) Beef Rice Bowls
This is fully cooked ground beef served with rice. If you want to, you could add some zucchini and diced carrots if your little ones will eat it. If you’re adding carrot and zucchini, go ahead and do the carrots first and give them plenty of time to soften before you add the zucchini, because it cooks really fast.
Lightly season your ground beef, and just get some nice crispy char on it when you’re pan frying it to make up for the lack of seasoning.
14) Baked Potato Bar
These are fully cooked baked potatoes served with all the fixings, whatever your kid could want or not want, from broccoli to chili to ground meat to butter, sour cream, and cheese. This is a staple in my house. We love baked potatoes either for breakfast or for dinner. We always like to serve them with chives, sour cream or Greek yogurt, and shredded cheese.
My little ones tend to love bacon, so if I cut some bacon up really fine and pan fry it to make homemade bacon bits, they would probably eat an entire potato without thinking about it. If you want to do some steamed broccoli on this, be sure you cut it up really small and cook it good and long so it’s really soft and almost falls apart.
15) Peanut Noodles
This is a light Asian peanut butter and soy sauce served with noodles, Asian style noodles like a ramen or a soba. Cook your noodles ahead of time and then cut them up. I like to use a pair of kitchen scissors right in the strainer, otherwise the noodles get too long and they can be frustrating for kids to eat.
Make your sauce separately and add a little bit at a time to your noodles, not all at once. That way you can start to dial in the amount in there, because the flavor might be too strong for some kids.
16) Chicken Alfredo
This is pasta served with a nice cream sauce and some finely chopped chicken, and peas if your kids will eat them. To make a simple Alfredo without anything fancy like garlic or white wine in it, I like to just heat up some heavy cream in a pan, add a splash of chicken stock to thin it out, and then Parmesan cheese and salt and pepper to finish it.
Peas are great in this, and I feel like kids really like the green color standing out against the white sauce. Typically you would do a fettuccine with this or something like a longer noodle, but I find that penne is pretty great because it holds a lot of sauce, the peas can sneak in there, and kids can eat them one at a time.
17) Veggie Fried Rice
This is a vegetable fried rice with light soy. Recipes usually recommend using yesterday’s cold rice from the fridge, but if you don’t have that, you can easily make rice, spread it out on a pan, and cool it off in the fridge for as long as you can before making dinner.
I like to make this a little healthier for kids by scrambling a few eggs in some sesame oil before making the rice, and if you scramble them really finely, they barely notice them in there with the rice. In my house, I’ll add one cup of mixed frozen veggies to the fried rice. Those tend to be small enough and colorful enough that kids like them.
18) Chicken Curry
This is a light curry sauce served with chicken. If you’re using jarred curry paste, sauté it in a pan with a little bit of oil to wake it up, but in this version just use a little bit and then add your coconut milk to make your sauce. If you find you’ve made it too spicy, just add an extra can of coconut milk.
I like to add shredded rotisserie chicken to this because it has really great flavor and it imparts some of that to your sauce. You could serve this one with rice or with soft pita bread cut into triangles.
19) Cheeseburger Sliders
These are tiny cheeseburgers for tiny people, served with just cheese and a bun and a burger. Patty your burgers up nicely beforehand on parchment paper so they’re all set to go when you go to make your burgers. I like to toast all the buns ahead of time and set them aside, then make my burgers and melt the cheese on them. Then I’ve got the buns there waiting for me when I’m ready.
Everybody likes pickles on their cheeseburgers, but some kids can be picky, so serve them on the side along with some ketchup.
20) Broccoli Cheddar Rice
This is a one pot rice dish with cooked rice, cheddar cheese, and really finely chopped broccoli. I like to make the rice separate from the broccoli. Make the rice, add a little bit of extra liquid, then add your cheese to get a really nice cheesy, creamy rice.
Finely chop and steam or roast your broccoli and then fold it into the rice. You can let it cook a little bit longer if your broccoli is not quite done yet. Here’s another great spot to sneak some shredded rotisserie chicken in.
21) Buttered Tortellini
This is cheese tortellini served in butter and Parmesan with a little pasta water, maybe with some peas or some spinach if you’re looking for some color. I like to keep frozen cheese tortellini on hand all the time because it’s a really quick, easy meal for kids. They can eat it hot out of the pan or eat it leftover cold out of the fridge.
I would warm up some heavy cream for this one too and add plenty of Parmesan and that little splash of pasta water, so you get a little bit higher fat sauce and a little bit more creamy sauce for kids.
22) Snack Plate Dinner
We do this one all the time in my house. Kids think they’re getting a snack, but you really know they’re getting a healthy meal. It’s a win-win for everybody. Usually the trick is variety: grapes, salami, cut up cheese, something crunchy, something soft.
If you’re feeding a toddler, you want to lose the crunchy and keep all the soft stuff unless you’re carefully supervising them. Cubed up cheese is a great one for this, and if your kids are really ambitious, even some smoked canned oysters or sardines.
23) Fish Sticks and Peas
This is frozen fish sticks served with peas or corn. What kid doesn’t love fish sticks, right? I always like to serve them with ketchup, or if you want to make a quick tartar sauce, a little bit of mayo or Greek yogurt and some sweet relish and you’re done.
I like to make my peas in the microwave. Put them in a glass bowl with a splash of water, cover it with Saran wrap, and microwave until they’re done, or heat them over water on the stove. Drain them either way and then add lots of butter and salt. Some lemon for the adults is a great option, or even a little bit of arugula salad. Maybe your kids will see you eating it and get curious and want to try it too.
24) Mini Pancakes
This is a smaller than average pancake meant for a little person to eat. Pancakes are always a hit in my house, and when I’m making them, I like to make a really large batch and then freeze the pancakes on parchment paper lined sheet pans and bag them up. Then whenever I need pancakes for the kids, I just pop them in the toaster for one minute and they’re done.
Butter them before you cut them up and hand them to your kids. That way you’re sneaking some extra healthy fat in there. You can serve this with all the extra breakfast fare that you typically see, like hash browns or bacon or scrambled eggs, if you think your kids will eat those. Otherwise you could always go for some fresh fruit on top.
25) Chicken Noodle Soup
This is chicken noodle soup, just with miniaturized ingredients, making it easier for kids to eat. When I make soup, I like to use the concentrated stock base that comes in a jar. That way you can add as much as you want to the water, and in a case like this where you’re trying to keep the salt low for kids, you can have a really low sodium, low flavored chicken broth.
I like to go with small egg noodles, because not only are they easy for kids to eat, but they start to fall apart in the soup, making it even easier for them to chew. Instead of cubed chicken, I like to shred the chicken for this as small as possible and then give it a little chop afterwards so the strands aren’t too long. This makes it super toddler friendly.
26) Pasta Primavera
This is pasta and veggies. I like to do it with marinara sauce, but this one calls for oil and Parmesan. When I make mine, I try to choose veggies that I can hide in the sauce, like red bell pepper, fresh tomato, garlic or onion, or even mushrooms. As long as you cut them up small enough and cook them long enough, they’ll disappear in the sauce once you add it.
This is another good use for something like penne pasta or fusilli or some small noodle that can be eaten one at a time with a fork, because if your toddler’s using a fork, they’ll really want to be able to pick the food up, and spaghetti can make them very frustrated. And who needs more toddler screaming, right? Plenty of Parmesan on this one too, and crushed red pepper on the side for adults.
27) Baked Ravioli
This is ravioli baked with marinara sauce, or the option to just do plain butter and ravioli for your little ones that don’t want the sauce. This is a baked version, so you don’t necessarily have to cook your ravioli ahead of time. As long as they’re refrigerated and not frozen, you should be able to layer them with the sauce, bake them in the oven, and cook them all the way through.
This is one you could definitely hide a lot of spinach in if you cook it down ahead of time, add it to the sauce, and then mix it all together with the ravioli. When doing the ravioli in plain butter, I like to boil it, then brown a little bit of butter in a pan and add my ravioli to that once it’s fully cooked in the water, so it only needs a few minutes in the butter.
28) Meat Sauce
This is ground meat, typically beef or sausage or a combination of both, but you could always do chicken or turkey. I always like to serve this one with spaghetti, and I like to sneak some peas into this one. If you want to make your meat sauce a little bit creamy, you can always add a little bit of heavy cream when it’s just about done, and extra Parmesan cheese.
I like to do my ground meat first, chopping it up as fine as possible in the pan to get as much crumbly brown goodness as I can.
29) Cottage Pie
This is a dish similar to shepherd’s pie, with a ground beef and vegetable filling topped with mashed potatoes and then typically baked in the oven. When I make this, I’ll mix the mashed potatoes and the cheese together, so when I bake it in the oven it gets nice and crispy, almost like the inside of a twice baked potato.
The ground meat filling is a great place to hide lots of extra vegetables. Even just a frozen vegetable medley out of the freezer with a couple pounds of ground beef will disappear into these pies perfectly.
When you’re prepping this dish to go in the oven, and you’ve got your meat filling on the bottom and you’re putting your mashed potatoes on top, you want to try your best to make a really even and solid continuous seal around the lip of whatever you’re baking it in, so the gravy doesn’t bubble out.
30) Bean and Cheese Burrito
This is a tortilla rolled up and gently pan-fried, filled with cheese and seasoned mashed beans, with salsa on the side for adults or your more adventurous toddlers. I like to warm my tortillas either in the microwave or in the oven just for a little bit before trying to roll them up. This usually keeps them from breaking.
For quick toddler approved refried beans, I like to just take the canned beans, rinse them, mix a little bit of really mild salsa in, warm them up in a pan, and mash them up with a little bit of chicken stock.
31) Chicken Teriyaki
This is chicken in a teriyaki sauce served over rice, broccoli optional. Try to cut your chicken into small, almost rectangular, easily grabbable pieces for this one so your toddler can pick them up and put them right in their mouth.
I’ll cut my chicken up, marinate it with a little bit of soy sauce and sesame oil, and then pan fry it. I try to get a nice crisp on it before I add the teriyaki sauce, just being careful not to put too many pieces in the pan at once and crowd it. If you put too much in there, you’ll sort of steam it and not get any real char.
If you’ve cut your raw broccoli up small enough, once you add the teriyaki sauce to the chicken pan, you can just sprinkle the broccoli in there too and give it a few minutes to simmer until it’s soft.
32) Veggie Omelet
This is an omelette loaded with veggies and cheese, cut into small strips, making it easy for kids to eat. Chop all of your veggies really fine, cook them first, and set them aside before you make your omelette. Do your best to use a non-stick or really well seasoned cast iron pan, so when you go to flip your omelette, it doesn’t stick and wind up making a scramble. Sometimes the novelty of a dish is what will help a kid eat it.
I like to crack my eggs with plenty of salt and whisk them, letting them sit for five minutes before cooking. American cheese is a great cheese for this omelette. Kids absolutely love it. Once you flip your omelette, put your finely chopped cooked veggies back in, then your American cheese over the top of the veggies, and fold your omelette in half.
33) Roasted Veg and Sausage
This is veggies and sausage cut roughly to the same shape and then roasted in the oven. Sometimes serving things family style is all it takes for a toddler to be interested. If they see you eating it, they’ll be into it.
I like to cut bigger pieces of bell pepper and onion and mushroom, zucchini, really whatever I have laying around. Toss them with salt and pepper and olive oil and give them a good blast in the oven with the fan on at 375. I would probably do my sausage on a separate sheet pan. Cut them into small rounds and leave them on the sheet pan separate from the veggies so they get some nice color on them, and then combine them all at the end to serve.
34) Creamy Polenta
This is polenta cooked with milk or broth, with the option to add soft veggies or tomato sauce. If you want to add any soft vegetables to this, cook them ahead of time in a separate pan. Once your polenta is done and the consistency you’re looking for, then mix them in.
I like to cook my polenta in chicken stock or vegetable stock, and then if I want it to be creamy at the end, I’ll add a little bit of heavy cream or mascarpone cheese.
35) Tofu Stir Fry
This is a stir-fry made with tofu and vegetables and a light sauce. Cut your tofu up into small cubes first, then put it on a paper towel to pat it dry, then do your best to get any sort of color and flavor on it by pan frying it in a little bit of sesame oil.
Shredded cabbage is great for this one, also shredded carrots and a little bit of sesame seeds. Snow peas out of the freezer or fridge, or even just mixed veggies, are great in this one too.
36) Mini Shepherd’s Pies
This is a take on shepherd’s pie, but made in a muffin tin to make miniature ones suitable for kids. This recipe calls for ground lamb, but that might be a little bit too strong for some kids, so you could always just substitute ground beef.
I like to cook my ground beef until it’s mostly done and then add peas and carrots and cook until soft. Lots of cheese in the mashed potatoes will make your kids love the flavor on these.
37) Chicken Drumsticks
These are great for little cavemen that want to tear into the chicken and eat like a grown-up. Easy to hold on to, not too many separate bones, and easy to flavor well. I like to bake these on a parchment lined sheet pan in the oven with just salt and pepper and a little bit of smoked paprika, turning them about halfway so the skin crisps evenly.
You’re just looking to cook them to 165 degrees. You don’t want to go too much farther than that, otherwise they can dry out and be tough to eat. If your kid is having a hard time with the drumstick concept, you can always cut the chicken off and shred it up and give it to them that way. I like to do this with barbecue sauce and ranch.
38) Breakfast Burrito
This is scrambled eggs and cheese in a burrito made with a soft tortilla. This is one where you could sneak some beans in too. Season them lightly, mash them up with a fork, and spread them on your tortilla with the cheese. Then add the eggs and roll it up. If you have tater tots in the freezer, you could also make those and throw them in here as the hash brown in your breakfast burritos.
These are a great one to prep a bunch of ahead of time, wrap in foil, and freeze in the freezer, and then you can just make them in the oven real quick for your toddlers if they do end up loving them. I can’t promise anything.
The Kit Behind These Recipes
The kit that quietly does the heavy lifting in most of these recipes.
- ThermoMaven Instant-Read Meat Thermometer. Pulls chicken at the right number instead of the guess, which is the whole difference between juicy and dry.
- WOODLANDS USA Teak Wooden Ladle with Spoon Rest. Deep teak bowl for soups and stews, a hook handle, and a spoon rest so the counter stays clean.
- Cutluxe Carving Knife and Fork Set. German steel carving knife and fork for roasts, turkey, and anything that needs clean slices.
