Healthy Toddler Foods

[Engrossed]

I'm just looking for ideas for easy toddler foods and recipes for my picky almost 2 year old Max.

He seems to be a carb-o-holic. The only healthy things he'll eat consistently are brown rice, millet and quinoa. He also likes noodles, chicken and ground beef. About the only vegetable he'll eat consistently is broccoli. He loves fruit. He switches back and forth from wanting really plain foods to wanting spiced ethnic foods. The newest thing he likes is plain cheese quesadillas. He only drinks watered down 100% juice blends...he won't drink milk or plain water except on rare occasions. He does love fruit smoothies which I try to sneak things into.

I never expected to have a picky kid, being that I eat almost everything, but I guess a lot of kids are. I also really want to feed him as healthy as possible, but like almost every other kid he just loves mac n' cheese, chips and french fries.

[FrenchBunny]

Would he like Chicken Parmesan with spaghetti, or some chicken nuggets, homemade not store bought ? At least he likes broccoli, that is good and healthy. Do you make it with some dips or a cheese sauce put on it? At least he would get some dairy in him with the cheeses. How about some Indian Butter chicken, it's real tasty and not spicy with some rice.

[Felix4067]

Substitute sweet potato chips and/or fries for the regular ones. They're healthier and he'll still get what he wants.

Make his mac & cheese with whole wheat pasta (even Kraft offers one, so he won't know the difference from the box).

Maybe make some casseroles with a ground beef and noodle base, but add other healthier things (start with broccoli, since he likes it). He might pick out the things he doesn't like, but it's something to try.

One of the tricks my niece started doing was serving whole wheat toast with Nutella for breakfast. It works really well on pancakes and/or waffles also.

I'd just start adding vegetables and/or protein powder to his smoothies. If he likes them, then he'll suck it down and none the wiser.

[Denise]

One thing we did with the kids and my DD does is to have a crudite platter with dinner. Typically whatever you have in the fridge. The kids favorites were carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and cucumber. If you have a little bowl of ranch in the middle, it seems like that really appeals to them for some reason. And raw is better, IMO.

If he likes spicy, perhaps a white bean and chicken chili. Sneak the spinach in breakfast muffins, lasagna or spaghetti sauce.

I think tomatoes are naturally one of the healthiest things you can eat, so I always serve a lot of tomato based foods.

Does he like salads? Some do, some don't.

[Kchurchill5]

I also always had fresh veggies. I let him pick it out often and had a dip. Now, I may of used ranch dressing, but I also had hummus, I tried other simple dips that were easy to prepare for him to dip.

I made mac and cheese and added ham and broccoli for extra protein. You could easily use a whole wheat pasta.

Baked or pan fried veggies are sometimes an easy way to get kids to eat new veggies. NOT deep fried, but lightly crusted with bread crumbs. And pan sauteed. Cauliflower, even green beans, zucchini. Serve with a light dip.

Peas pureed mixed with mashed potatoes are great, add a little cheese and they will never know. And it tastes great.

My son loved pureed carrots with a little brown sugar, yes ... sugar, but not much per portion and he really enjoyed it.

He also loved cucumber slices topped with ??? Ham, tuna salad, egg salad. He loved it. It was fun.

I also used to buy the small cocktail bread. Whole wheat. They are mini breads, by my son loved them. I could top them with anything and he would eat it because they were cute. He loved nutella, banana on the small wheat breads.

Apple with nutella is another nice healthy snack

[Engrossed]

Thanks for the replies!

FrenchBunny, Sometimes I top spaghetti with grilled cut up chicken sprinkled with garlic salt. Max is off and on whether he likes chicken nuggets. He likes grilled chicken breast so I'm lucky with that.

For dairy, the only things he'll eat are string cheese, colby/jack in a quesadilla, mac n' cheese and buttermilk or yogurt in a smoothie. He doesn't like it when I sprinkle any kind of cheese on stuff.

I haven't tried dips so much with him, but I think I'll start. Recently we were eating something with ketchup and sriracha sauce on our plates and my Hubby thought I only had ketchup on my plate so was trying to show Max how to dip a tater tot in it but it was sriracha and Max immediately grabbed a napkin and was wiping his tongue and grabbed his juice and drank it as fast as he could. It was pretty funny.

Butter chicken is a good idea, I love it and have tried a few recipes but haven't found one that tastes like the restaurants. Can you recommend a recipe? It's funny too that Max loved Indian food when he first started eating solids, so I made him an Indian feast for his 1st birthday along with prune/spice cupcakes because his favorite baby puree was prunes. Unfortunately the Indian food ended up too hot spicy for Max...he kept taking bites and crying and taking more bites LOL. He didn't want anything with spices for a long time after that. He loved the cupcakes though!

[Engrossed]

Felix, that's a good idea to sub sweet potato chips. He hasn't liked any of the super good for you 'orange' vegetables but since he loves finger foods maybe he'll eat it.

As much as I love to eat whole-grains, I haven't found a whole-grain noodle that I like. I think the closest I came was with spelt ones but I still can't imagine them being good in mac n' cheese. Can you recommend any brands?

One of the things that I recently found out Max loves is the spiral noodles with Italian dressing because he pigged out on a deli salad I had gotten. So I just bought some Barilla omega-3 fortified spiral pasta and some of the 3 veggie kind and tossed it with Italian dressing and grilled chicken and he loves it!

I have tried the casserole thing but he seems to think I'm tricking him or something because he doesn't like it when stuff is all mixed together. I think it's a toddler control thing where he wants to 'know' what he' eating and be able to pick and choose. I've been trying to cater to how he seems to like to eat but some people have told me he won't starve himself and will eventually eat stuff if I keep giving it to him. I just waste a lot of food when I do that and sometimes I don't know how he continues to grow with how little he eats.

He likes bread, toast, waffles, rolls and tortillas but with nothing on them. He's weird he doesn't even like butter or peanut butter. He doesn't even like butter and syrup on his waffles and he doesn't like pancakes. The closest thing to a sandwich I've gotten him to try is a plain cheese quesadilla. He does like chocolate so maybe I'll try Nutella but I actually don't like it myself LOL. I think I don't like hazlenuts.

I do add protein powder, coconut oil, yogurt or buttermilk, bananas and frozen fruit to his smoothies. Sometimes I'll add peanut butter too and I sweeten them with honey which he seems to love. Sometimes I try to sneak in spinach and peas but he always seems to know. I also bought ground flax and hemp seed protein powders for smoothies but they do add a grainyness.

[Engrossed]

Luckily he eats most of his gummy vitamins, but I can't find an Omega-3 one that he likes, I've tried the fish oil kinds in gummy and in liquid form, added to drinks and I found a vegan gummy one...he doesn't like any of them. He was eating tuna and salmon for awhile but stopped liking it. I think I just need to rotate stuff more and give him more variety or something.

Sorry if I'm writing a book here LOL.

Time for a Max break.

[Engrossed]

Denise, I actually haven't tried raw veggies with him yet. Sometimes he thinks he's a hamster and he puts more than he can chew in his mouth and then he ends up spitting it all out. I worry about him choking. He does love finger foods though, so maybe I can start trying it out with him. He loves whole apples.

I just made a white bean chili recently...he wouldn't touch it. Beans are one of the things I wish he would eat but he won't.

He has eaten grape tomatoes and does like plain spaghetti sauce and spaghetti-o's. I just hate cleaning up afterwards LOL.

I haven't tried giving him salad that much yet but when I have he just plays with it. Same thing with veggies like peas and corn he likes to squish them between his fingers. And if I add spinach or greens to anything and he gets the littlest bit in his mouth along with something he likes, he will spit out the whole mouthful.

[Engrossed]

Kchurchhill, I am going to have to try the fresh veggies and dip. Hummus is an excellent idea! He loves garlic, so maybe if I made it extra garlicky he will like it.

For awhile, I was putting tuna and peas or broccoli in his mac n' cheese and he ate it. Then he decided he wanted everything separate and will mostly just eat the mac n' cheese.

Love the idea of pan fried veggies crusted with bread crumbs and a dip. Again, I'll probably make them garlicky for him.

Never thought of peas in mashed potatoes, but there is another thing he won't eat: mashed potatoes. He loves french fries and sometimes tater tots but won't eat potatoes in any other form.

So far I haven't gotten him to eat carrots, but I'm going to try http://www.recipezazz.com/recipe/carrot-puff-bake soon...My guess is he won't eat it because of the texture. But maybe if I make matchstick carrots glazed with honey he would try them...he loves honey.

Cucumber slices topped with stuff sounds fun. I really think finger-foods is going to be the answer with him for now. I got him a 'boyish' tea set for Christmas and he loves to pretend to pour and drink and will even feed us. Maybe I should do a real tea party with him.