Kid's Meal Ideas

10 Sneaky Ways to Get Kids to Eat More Veggies

Emily Lockhart

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Trying to get your kids to eat more vegetables is almost impossible—I said “almost”!

It’s simple to incorporate more health in the form of fresh vegetables into your family meals, particularly if your children are none the wiser. So instead of struggling with your kids to eat their peas and carrots, here are 10 sneaky ways you can ensure they are getting their daily portions of veggies…without them even knowing it…

1. Pumpkin Puree

Use it as a healthy thickener in recipes like pudding and macaroni and cheese.

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2. Mashed Avocado

Use it as an alternative spread for butter or margarine on sandwiches.

3. Blended Spinach

Throw a few handfuls into a fruit smoothie—they won’t even taste it!

4. Sweet Potatoes

Mash together a combination of yellow and sweet potatoes in your next Sheppard’s pie.

5. Camouflaged Cauliflower

Cauliflower picks up the flavor and blends in inconspicuously with pasta sauces.

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6. Sweet Carrots

Carrots are naturally sweet so they hide perfectly inside of cookies and muffins while sneaking in extra potassium, fiber, and antioxidants.

7. Pulverized Peppers

The great thing about pureeing foods is that they’re able to hide fairly unnoticeably in jarred goods—such as salsa or spaghetti sauce.

8. Encouraging Eggplant

The texture of a rounded piece of eggplant can be mistaken—in taste and texture—for a rounded piece of pepperoni, especially if hungry kiddies are scarfing down a few slices of pizza!

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9. Ground Mushrooms

Do you make a mean meatball? How about grinding some mushrooms into your meat mix to increase the vitamins A and potassium.

10. Wrap Things Up

Wrapping up a sandwich has 2 benefits—first, it keeps things clean and tidy and second, it lets you sneak in things like hummus and thinly sliced veggies without kids even knowing!