
To help busy folk hide goodness in their children’s lunches, Jo has shared some top tips with us…
Top tips for putting hidden goodness into your lunchbox!
1 When adding any extra goodness into children’s meals start by using small quantities, then when they get a taste for it, gradually increase the quantities
2 Cook fresh chopped vegetables such as courgette, carrot, broccoli and leek, with tinned tomatoes, garlic, onion and olive oil then blend until smooth. Use this ‘tomato’ sauce as a tasty pasta sauce, pizza topping, or even as a base to tomato soup.
3 Make fresh fruit milkshakes/smoothies to get more fruit into your children’s diet. The more colourful they are, the more children will be attracted to them. Strawberries are a perfect ingredient to blend with milk until smooth, strain and serve in a nice glass with a straw
4 Puree fresh or dried fruits and add to rice pudding, porridge or plain yogurt so kids can have fun making their own new and exciting flavour combinations
5 When baking, substitute a third to a half of the white flour with wholemeal flour; it will add flavour and nutrients to baked products. Even try adding a few oats when possible (such as to a crumble topping or to muffins)
Our tip would be to make lunch boxes as colourful as possible. Here are some examples below:
* Add in a couple of carrot sticks, or cucumber sticks.
* If you have the time, make up a smoothie the night before, freeze overnight, get out the next morning, so that it’ll be de-frosted by lunch time.
* Add a small pot of mixed dried fruit: mango, papaya, apricot, all chopped up so it’s bite sized nibbles – they won’t even know what they’re eating and just a tiny amount can go a long way!
* Try some of our oat based recipes, oats release the energy slowly, so keep you going for that much longer.
* Check out our recipe section for some fun lunch box ideas!

Leave a Reply