Almost every parent struggles with children who are picky eaters. Children tend to have favorites from a young age and stick to them. Moreover, they aren’t big fans of vegetables. As adults, we eat more vegetables because we know their importance. But children, on the other hand, only judge food by its look and taste. This is why they dislike eating vegetables, especially green ones. You can convince your children that vegetables are good for them in various ways. But if that doesn’t seem like an option, you can hide vegetables in your tasty recipes. That way, your children will eat the needed vegetables but won’t know they are. In this article, we have come up with a list of Recipes With Hidden Veggies for you to make at home.
What do Recipes With Hidden Veggies mean?
By hidden veggies, we are not suggesting that you hide chunks of vegetables in curries and soups. Doing that will not fool anybody, let alone your children. By hiding veggies in your recipes, we are implying you mix them in your recipes so well that they are unrecognizable but still carry their nutrients.
Is this only a trick to make kids eat their veggies?
Unfortunately, kids aren’t the only ones who dislike vegetables. A lot of adults aren’t vegetable lovers. They would rather have meats, eggs, and fruits all their lives. But vegetables are very important for our day-to-day and long-term health. If you feel like you do not like to eat vegetables the usual way, you can try these recipes as well. It will help you take in vegetables almost every day but without the feeling of being forced.
The recipes we have mentioned below can be made at home with very easily available ingredients. Feel free to include them in your day-to-day meals and enjoy them as a family.
Recipes With Hidden Veggies
Follow the given recipes to include vegetables in your meals without making them obvious.
1. Mac and Cheese (healthy version)
Whenever we think of Mac and Cheese, we think of lots of cheese and generally an unhealthy meal. But you can make it healthy with just a few changes in your recipe.
Ingredients
- Pasta
- Flour
- Zucchini
- Cauliflower
- Butter
- Milk
- Onions
- Cheese sauce
- Grated Parmesan
- Bacon or chicken
- Salt and Pepper
Method
Boil your pasta of choice in salted water but don’t overcook it. On the other hand, cut up the cauliflower and zucchini into small pieces. You don’t have to cut them into perfectly equal pieces since it won’t matter in the long run. At this step, you can use any vegetable you want. Except, keep in mind that using leafy vegetables will change the color of the dish.
But if that’s okay with you, you can substitute cauliflower and zucchini with any other veggie. After you’ve cut them, steam them until they are well-cooked and soft. Turn the steamed vegetables into a puree. You can do this in a blender or by using a stick blender. Once the puree is done, set it aside.
In a different pan, heat the butter. Add the onion and meat of your choice until it’s a little cooked. Now slowly add the flour to this pan and cook for two minutes while you keep stirring. Pour the milk gradually into the pan and stir until there is a smooth sauce. Make sure you boil the sauce for a while before you reduce the heat and add the grated cheese. Once the cheese melts well into the sauce, remove it from the heat and add the vegetable puree to the sauce.
Your next step is to add the cooked pasta to the cheese and veggie sauce and stir it well. Then pour the pasta and sauce into an ovenproof dish and top it with more grated cheese. Transfer the dish to a preheated oven (that was preheated to 180°C). Bake it for approximately twenty-five minutes. But keep an eye on it; it should be done when the crust becomes golden brown.
2. Healthy Sloppy Joes
Sloppy joes are usually very synonymous with unhealthy food. And this is exactly why children love eating these. They are tasty and do not have vegetables. But you can make Sloppy Joes a healthy dish by following the given recipe:
Ingredients
- Ground beef
- Flour
- Canned crushed tomatoes
- Broth (chicken or beef)
- Whole grain buns
- Maple syrup or brown sugar
- Worcestershire sauce and white vinegar
- Thyme
- Allspice
- Salt and pepper
- Avocado oil
- Sweet onions
- Mushrooms
Method
Once you’ve arranged all the ingredients, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions and caramelize them. On the other hand, turn the mushrooms into a grounded mixture in a food processor. Add the mushrooms to the caramelized onions and cook until the mushroom releases its juices. Add the ground beef to this, break it up, and cook it for three minutes.
The next step is to add flour to the mixture. This is to make it thicker. Now, instead of adding ketchup which is not very healthy, you are recommended to add canned tomatoes. That way, you are adding vegetables but it’s also substituting for ketchup. Bring the mixture to a simmer and then add the maple syrup or brown sugar. Follow that with vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, thyme, and allspice. Add salt and pepper according to taste. Stir the mixture occasionally while you let it simmer for a few minutes. Once the beef is cooked and the sauce is glossy, you can fake it off the heat.
Now serve the Sloppy Joe mixture in between your whole grain buns. You finally have your healthy Sloppy Joes that have mushrooms and tomatoes hidden in them, but your children will never realize that. If you want to add more vegetables, you can also add finely chopped carrots to this mixture. It will easily mix with the beef and the sauce, making it unrecognizable.
3. Instant Pot Cabbage Daal
Instant pot recipes are widely popular right now because they take very less time to make and are very simple to make as well. Let’s see the recipe for this instant pot recipe.
Ingredients
- Green cabbage
- Oil
- Toor Daal (pigeon pea)
- Coconut
- Cumin seeds
- Black pepper
- Green chilies
- Mustard seeds
- Curry leaves
- Tomatoes
- Turmeric powder
- Cilantro
- Lemon or lime juice
- Asafoetida
Method
This dish is based more on preparation than the cooking itself. To begin making this dish, you need to grind coconut, green chilies, Cumin seeds, and black pepper into a smooth paste.
Put your instant pot on sauté mode and add oil. Add the Mustard seeds and let it splutter. Do not get scared of the splattering, and it’s very normal. Then add the Asafoetida and curry leaves and sauté everything together. Now add washed pigeon pea lentils, cabbage, tomatoes, turmeric powder, and salt. Follow this by adding the ground paste you made before and about six cups of water. Mix it all and put the lid on securely. Set the instant pot to pressure cook mode for eight minutes on high pressure.
Once the daal is cooked, do a natural release for ten minutes and then do a quick release. Before plating it, add coriander and lemon juice to the daal for enhanced flavor. Serve it with steamed rice or roti.
4. Carrot cake
When we are talking about Recipes With Hidden Veggies, it would be unfair not to include a sweet treat. And since children love to eat cake, it is one of the best things to hide veggies in.
Ingredients
- All-purpose flour
- Milk or water
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Vanilla extract
- Oil or butter
- Cinnamon
- Sugar
- Eggs
- Carrots
- Nuts (optional)
Method
Assemble the wet and dry ingredients of the batter separately.
Hence, mix the all-purpose flour, baking soda, salt, Cinnamon, and sugar in a bowl.
Mix the eggs, oil or butter, and vanilla extract in another bowl.
Now mix your dry and wet ingredients. Keep mixing it until there are no lumps of flour. You can add milk or water at this stage to make the batter thinner in consistency. This is because the liquid mixture here is not as much as the dry mixture; it will need some sort of a liquid to bind it all together.
Once the batter is of the right consistency, add the grated carrots and nuts of your choice. It is recommended to use two to three cups of grated carrots. You can also turn the carrots into a paste and add it to the batter.
Divide the batter into two equal cake pans that have been buttered and floured before. Transfer the pans to a preheated oven for thirty-five to forty minutes. After the cakes are done, let them cool before taking them off the pans.
To assemble them into one cake, put icing of your choice in between the two cakes. Usually, it is recommended you use cream cheese icing. Whatever icing you use in between the cakes, put the sane icing on top before serving. You can also skip the icing part if you want; it’s not necessary. The cake can be enjoyed just by itself.
Conclusive Insights
We hope you liked our article on Recipes With Hidden Veggies. If you found any of our suggestions useful, do try them out. We have tried to suggest to you some of the best and easiest Recipes With Hidden Veggies. Let us know how they turn out in the comments below.
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