Tired of daily food tantrums from your little one? Check out these quick, delicious, and healthy dinner recipes for your kiddos.
Kids can be hard to impress, especially when it comes to food. And to get that food into their mouth, mothers have to struggle daily bringing out innovative meal ideas to cook. I personally know it is tedious and tiresome to find unique recipes daily. Even though there is the internet for ideas, the cooking routine is lengthy and takes a bunch of ingredients.
If nothing pops into your mind apart from mac n’ cheese and toasties as a quick dinner meal, I have got your back. I have put up some tasty and healthy meal recipes below that are not only quick to make but guaranteed to get your little ones emptying their plates faster than ever!
16 Quick, Yummy, and Healthy Meal Recipes for Kids
Tortilla Quesadilla
Are those tortillas still lying at the back of your pantry? If so, just make some quick quesadillas with them. Put your kid’s favorite spread on, fill it with the filling of their choice, then cut the tortillas in a quesadilla shape. Lastly, toast them on the pan, and they’re ready to be eaten.
You don’t need to have fancy fillings in the house; some cheese slices and chicken shreds are more than enough for an excellent combination. Your little one will have no other option than to love it!
2. Pizza Tomatoes
Kids are severely picky when it comes to eating veggies. The best way to succeed in feeding them without forcing, you need to camouflage the veggies. One of the ways to do that is by putting pizza filling inside tomatoes, which I like to call ‘pizza tomatoes’. Basically, you need to fill the tomatoes with pizza instead of flat pizza bread. Just scrape the pulp from the tomato and mix it with pizza sauce. See how time-saving it is?
Add other ingredients like cheese or olives to the filling. Before baking your pizza tomatoes, grate some mozzarella cheese and decorate them with some pepperoni. Your kid will enjoy this pizza even though there is tomato in it! As an alternative to tomato, you can use capsicum too.
3. Baked Fish Fingers
Like chicken, fish is a great source of healthy protein. If your picky eater feels bored of having chicken all the time, give them a break. Cut a fish of your choice in long strips, add some herbs and subtle spices for taste, coat them in bread crumbs, and then bake.
You can also deep fry them but baking them is healthier as oil is not involved since the fish will bake in its own oil. These fish fingers are a very filling and delicious treat.
4. Quick Tacos
Tacos never fail to impress kids. But if you don’t have taco shells in your stock, take some tortillas, and adjust them in between the gaps underneath a muffin mold. Let them set to bake for around 2 minutes. Baking the tortillas in a muffin mold will make them rigid, forming a taco shell shape.
Now, you are ready to fill the taco or tortilla shells with anything your kiddo loves and let them enjoy their meal. To make dinner more fun, let your kid choose their desired filling.
5. One-Pot Flavored Rice
This is the best recipe to use up your leftover rice and to satisfy your kids waiting at the dinner table. Instant one-pot flavored rice is not only filling but scrumptious also. The flavors and ingredients to be used are totally your personal choice.
If you want to go healthy for your kids, then choose vegetables instead. Chop them, add some seasoning, and they won’t be able to say no to the deliciousness.
6. Grilled Cheese Sandwich
Grilled cheese sandwiches are a very quick meal idea for those lazy nights when you don’t feel like cooking. Take some bread slices, place on some preferred cheese slices, and add seasoning. That’s it! You can even bake or toast them to melt the cheese if you don’t have a sandwich griller.
7. Sweet Potato Fries
Give your kids a break from those unhealthy french fries, and serve them sweet potato fries instead. Sweet potato fries are less talked about, but they can be quite tasty to win your picky eater’s heart.
To make them healthier, bake them instead of deep-frying. You can even serve these fries as a side dish with the main meal.
8. Baked Chicken Tenders
Who doesn’t like chicken? Chicken recipes are indeed safe to experiment with. You can always make different recipes with this versatile food. Why not make some baked chicken tenders for dinner?
These tenders will turn out juicier inside and crisper outside if you soak them in buttermilk for a few minutes before baking. Give your child a punch of protein in a healthy way!
9. Bread Pizza
Have some bread lying around? Why not make wise use of it? Make quick bread pizza for your kids and witness the happiness in their eyes. You don’t need the hassle of making pizza dough; just regular brown/ white slices of bread are enough.
Go with some creamy mayonnaise for the pizza base and top it off with tasty chicken shreds, crunchy carrots, and cheese. Oh, what a combo! Isn’t the yummy bread pizza made from scratch simple enough? Instead of bread, you can also use good old tortillas, and it will turn out as delicious as the bread pizza.
10. Mac N Cheese Bites
Mac n cheese is a classic favorite for every kid. But why don’t you make it in a different way? Instead of cooking the mac n cheese, bake their bite-size cups in muffin molds.
With a crispy, cheesy layer on the outside and the soft mac n cheese on the inside, the taste is sure to be amazing. Top it off with some spring onions or parsley for a bit of color because kids love colors!
You can experiment with this with any leftover pasta in your house. It’s the same thing, just different sizes, and textures!
11. Veg Nuggets
Instead of giving them frozen chicken nuggets, you can make some veg nuggets for them at home. These are quick, healthy, and delicious too. Make batches and freeze them to save for a later date.
You can use any vegetable of your choice then mash them, season them, add a binder, give them preferred shapes, and finally bake/fry them. It is the easiest way to feed your child some veggies.
12. Shrimp Popcorn
Like chicken, shrimp is also a versatile and flavorsome ingredient. You can add shrimp to anything and everything, and they cook super fast. Tonight, try to make some delicious shrimp popcorn for your kid! Season some shrimp with your preferred herbs and spices and fry them. That’s it!
Squeeze some lemon juice to give the popcorn a bit of mouth-bursting tangy flavor. See your kid relish your yummy shrimp popcorns.
13. Protein Salad
Salads are not just for adults! If you can make one a bit more delicious, your kid will enjoy it too. In your kid's salad, try to add protein such as chicken pieces, ground beef, cheese, or grated boiled egg. For crunch, add carrots, cucumbers, or tomatoes as your kid likes. Give it a final mix with their favorite dip or sauce!
These kid-friendly salads are sure to win your little one’s heart. You will get a bunch of kid-friendly salad recipes in PickyEater.
14. One-Pot Pastas
One-pot recipes prevent multiple pots from being used and save time as well. Most importantly, a plate of pasta never fails to make your child happy. The options are limitless with pasta dishes and you can add any ingredient of your choice. See these recipes for more instant one-pot pasta ideas.
15. Tortilla Pinwheels
Tortilla pinwheels are just a fancy name for tortilla rolls. It is just a typical trick moms use to impress their child by making different ‘looking’ food every day. Really, you are just using the same old tortilla, cheese spread, and chicken but cutting it differently.
The trick is to slice the rolls that will give them pinwheel shapes. You are free to choose the inside filling or let your kid choose for themselves.
16. Bread Dogs
It is nothing but some sausage rolled up inside bread, which I gave a fancy name of ‘bread dogs’. These are way too delicious to avoid and even quicker to make. Roll out some bread flat to stretch them, then put the fried sausage inside, and make rolls to fry. You can add cheese slices or some kind of spread inside to make it yummier. Serve these bread dogs with delicious dips, and see your kid drooling over it!
Picky Eaters No More!
Well, now you can say that kids are not hard to impress with food if you know the easiest recipes to win their hearts. You can always make these meals from scratch, and they hardly require any fancy ingredients.
Just grab whatever you have in your kitchen pantry now, and make any of these quick delicacies at home. What can be healthier than food made at home? I am sure that even the pickiest eater won’t say no to these recipes.
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