Favorite toddler approved dinners

Lesleyjking

What are some of your favorite dinners to make for the family? I find myself making my daughter the same things-and often husband and I eat something different as she is becoming picky. Also, the only greens she will eat is peas. Would love to steal some of your ideas!

countrygrl5533

-pizza (I do homemade crust, sauce, etc.) Her fav is Hawaiian but she will also eat hamburg and mushroom

-homemade mac 'n cheese (a side for DH and I but she tends to eat just that, not the meat)

-anything with a sauce she can dip things in

That's about it honestly. She doesn't like much. If it is something she really hates like steak, I just give her a PB sandwich from the get go. Other than that, she has to at least try dinner. If she is polite is refusing, she can have some cheese or a PB sandwich. If she's rude, she has to calm down before she can get anything else. If she doesn't calm down, well, I guess she'll just eat a big breakfast the next morning.

JENandJEH

One thing that DS2 will always gobble up is grilled BBQ chicken or pork chops.  He also likes any type of rice (and I can sneak chopped up veggies in the rice usually) and spaghetti (another easy one to sneak veggies in).  

Other than that, I always offer him what we're eating and make sure to offer 1 item that I know he likes and just encourage him to try the others.  Toddlers are just picky and half the time, they forget what they "don't like".  As long as he's eaten a good breakfast or lunch, he can refuse all of dinner and I'm fine with that.  I don't offer him another option but I'll save his plate for an hour or so in case he gets hungry.  DS1's pediatrician told me when he was little to look at the big picture when it came to food...what he ingests over the course of the week and not just the day.  

krispy83

We are lucky in that DS is a really good eater and there are very few things he will not eat.  So most of the time (unless we're having salads or something that isn't good for him to have yet) he eats what we eat.  But one of the meals he really likes is when I make soup (minestrone, chicken with vegetables and vegetable beef barley are the faves) and give him that without the broth.

I know a lot of moms have luck sneaking various fruits and veggies into smoothies - maybe your DD would go for that?

Our pedi also told me what @JENandJEH said - to look at it from a big picture point of view - if one day he only eats cheese, strawberries and bell peppers, not to stress as long as he eats well over the course of a week.

lindslalala

The only time we make separate meals for DS is if we're having something way too spicy,and even then he'll still have other parts of our meal.
DS loves pasta. Any meals where ravioli, tortellini, lasagna, penne, etc are served are big hits. He likes our homemade pizza too. He likes rice and cous cous a lot so we do those as side dishes frequently.

Lesleyjking

Thanks everyone! Started to make smoothies with spinach in it and have called it "ice cream"-so thats working. She doesnt like pasta (with red sauce) or pizza-ugh! Thanks again for ideas!

nunzchucks

@lesleyjking If I make a pasta dish, I'll set some plain noodles aside for DD. She won't eat red sauce either. I usually add a little butter and she will scarf that right down.

krispy83

@lesleyjking - have you tried pesto?  Maybe she'd like that instead?