Do your kids eat salad? What kind? Favorite dressing? Nd help to get tween to eat vegetables.

[Anonymous]

Oh and she doesn't eat canned goods, frozen, steamed, smoothed, Nor raw veggies. Thankfully some raw carrots (only 2 pieces to appease me). My son eats veggies with ranch dressing, which I can't believe a lot of kids will eat except my DD. I think it tastes awful. Now she won't eat veggie vitamins (chewable). What kind of salad / vegetables do your kids eat? What kind of dressing? Is it s girl thing?

[Anonymous]

how about roasted vegetables? Both of my kids will eat those.

[Anonymous]

I think salad is one of those things you either like or don't like as a kid. I have 2 boys, the younger one will scarf a salad for breakfast and usually winds up stealing half of mine if we go out to eat. The older one gags at the sight of lettuce and wouldn't eat it if it was dipped in chocolate sauce. The only way around it is to find the veggies they will eat. My older kid eats peas and broccoli, not a single other vegetable (including carrot sticks which also make him gag.) So every night he gets peas or broccoli.

[Anonymous]

How about edamame?
Throwing in a few spinach leaves in a smoothie?
Roasted cauliflower? Cauliflower "rice" in mac and cheese?
Pureed carrots in tomato sauce?
Celery with peanut butter?

[Anonymous]

OP, will your DD not eat any produce, or is it just vegetables? As long as she's eating fruit, I wouldn't worry. (And, conversely, I have friends who don't like fruit but will eat vegetables. They're healthy.)

[Anonymous]

DD loves salad. When she was little she did the ranch dressing thing. Then just started eating them however they were prepared.

[Anonymous]

Second the roasted vegetables. The secret is to blast them on high heat, after cutting them in medium-small pieces, tossing them with lots of olive oil (more than you'd think, the veggies all need to be well-coated but not dripping) and some salt. Spread them out on baking sheets so that they roast and don't steam. I usually set the oven for 425, although I watch carefully and toss the vegetables and rotate the pans at least once.

Works for:

cauliflower
cabbage (cut in half, remove core, and slice thinly from pole to pole)
Brussels sprouts (shred them or cut in quarters)
broccoli
green beans
carrots (advanced users can add some whole cumin seeds)
butternut squash
and others

http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-roast-any-vegetable-101221

We usually roast one type of veggie per tray -- mixing them gets challenging because of different cooking times.

Roasting takes away a lot of the bitterness and caramelizes the natural sugars.

Baked sweet potatoes are also really good. I am perfectly fine if my kids slather theirs in butter or olive oil.

I think cooking makes many vegetables a lot more palatable, not to mention easier to eat in quantity. I love roasted cauliflower, but I can't face eating more than one floret of raw.

Our kids have developed a taste for more varieties of veggies as they've gotten older, but steamed broccoli and steamed baby carrots have been on the menu pretty much every night for years even though we add in other veggies now too. I figured if they're getting one green and one orange at dinner, we're doing fine.

[Anonymous]

I adore roasted veggies, but my kids won't touch them - they hate mushy vegetables, only like raw, so salads work for them. I started them on salads by only including veggies I knew they liked, and adding craisins and croutons. Now they they are older they will really eat most salads although neither is still a fan of dressing (a simple balsamic and evoo is the most they'll eat). What about going to a place like Chopped and let her pick what looks good in her salad (there are lots of "fun" salad ingreds there), and then in the future you can recreate at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, will your DD not eat any produce, or is it just vegetables? As long as she's eating fruit, I wouldn't worry. (And, conversely, I have friends who don't like fruit but will eat vegetables. They're healthy.)

This

[Anonymous]

Roasted veggies, especially broccoli

Smoothies are my primary delivery device though. I put giant handfuls of spinach into our smoothies, and they help, so it isn't a secret.

All of my kids will eat caesar salad, which I know isn't the healthiest.

They also like when I put blueberries and strawberries into salads.

[Anonymous]

ceasars with some chicken or salmon. or maybe a nice cobb salad..

[Anonymous]

At 2 we required he eat two leaves every night at dinner. Now he eats any undressed salad I put on the table and will eat dresssed salad when we are not at home since he knows better than to bring up the salad discussion.

He eats any vegetable I serve except cooked spinach, mushrooms, or eggplant.

Roasted veggies get the least complaint, even brussel sprouts.

He chooses to put lettuce, tomato and onion on sandwiches.

So yes.

[Anonymous]

My no salad eater will eat spinach tossed with raisins and cut up pieces of apple.

She will also eat roasted veggies (as mentioned above) as well as veggies sauteed in olive oil and garlic.

[Anonymous]

Teen nephew lives with us full time and it's always a struggle to get vegetables down his gullet. I've had some success with

1) the kale, apple, and cheddar salad recipe from NYT (i don't have the link handy but it should be easily google-able)
2) roasted sweet potatoes and parsnips. especially if you can find duck fat to cook them in! i guess these are more "starch" than "vegetable" but still pretty healthy. and he guzzles them down like they're candy.
3) when i make burgers i carmelize onions and chopped zucchini in the leftover burger fat and make him put that on top of the burger
4) he also doesn't hate roasted brussels sprouts with balsamic vinegar

[Anonymous]

DD (11) eats soem salads. She likes going to Chop't where she can pick her ingredients. She didn't start to eat salad until she did a cooking camp and learned to make her own dressing. They made a dressing she really liked, and now she is willing to try others.
Does your child eat legumes? DD has always liked black beans, edamame, lentils, etc. She ate those before she took to other veggies. The easiest on for me to start her on when she was little were corn, raw peppers, cucumbers and raw carrots. DD generally prefers raw vegetables, except for corn and broccoli. It is a texture thing. Find out if your child's object is taste, texture or appearance, and try to work from there to solve the issue.