My last post on Cauliflower Cheese Biscuits prompted quite a lot of people to message me saying how popular they were with picky eaters and what a great idea it was to hide veg in a biscuit. I realised that I actually hide vegetables in most of The Boy’s meals as he really refuses to eat most kinds. I thought you may want to see some of my favourite sneaky ways to hide vegetables in everyday meals – so here they are!
I make these ALL the time. Mr MMM loves them too and I frequently make them when we have family over as everyone seems to love them. I don’t think I have ever made exactly the same ones though as I just see what veg I have in the kitchen and use that. My current batch are beef mince with red peppers, courgette and some leek amd are really delicious.
Microwave Tomato and Vegetable Sauce:
This sauce is so quick to make (as the name suggests!) but I also make a stove top version too when I have time. I just use a jar of passata and boil it up on the stove with any vegetables that I have in my fridge or freezer and leave it to simmer for about an hour then I puree it up and The Boy goes crazy for it. I make it in bulk and freeze it in portions. It’s great for eating with pasta, rice or couscous and I frequently add cheese to it or even some fish or meat for a quick bolognaise. The Boy knows that there are vegetables in it but somehow he eats it all up anyway!
This is The Boy’s absolute favourite thing that I make and he constantly asks me to make it with chicken mince. My most recent batch is turkey bolognaise (that he thinks is chicken) and for this version I mashed up cauliflower into it and then finely grated some carrot. He ate the lot!
I made these a few weeks ago and when I presented them to The Boy I expected him to flat out refuse to eat them. But he thought they were cheese scones and (naughty mummy time) I didn’t correct him! I made another batch last week and pureed up some carrots and cauliflower and added them to the mixture and, again, he assumed they were cheese flavoured and happily ate 3!
The Boy thinks this is his usual pasta sauce – and who am I to correct him? He has no idea that this probably contains more veg than any of the other things I make for him! As I say in the recipe I puree it up for him and he loves it.
Other ideas how to hide veg:
– Mash cooked cauliflower into potato anytime you have mashed potato in a recipe.
– Any time I use cod I also use cauliflower as it blends nicely into the fish.
– Grate carrots finely into anything with a tomato sauce. The Boy frequently has baked beans (and carrot) on toast or on a (cauliflower infused) jacket potato.
– Cooked red, yellow or orange peppers puree up beautifully and mix well with any tomato based or red coloured sauce. They hide very well in beef dishes too.
– Green veg are harder to hide but the odd bit of very well mashed or pureed broccoli I find is hard to spot in dark sauces or in beef burgers.
– Peeled courgettes aren’t green so they work well hidden in most dishes too.
– Carrots, red, yellow or orange peppers hide nicely amongst salmon.
– Butternut squash, once well cooked, mashes up really smoothly and mixes really well with cheese sauces and goes nicely in burgers.
This post has given me some great ideas for feeding my two little guys, thank you! I took your tip of adding cauliflower to any use of mashed potato and also added mashed broccoli to a salmon fishcake recipe tonight and it went down a storm! Hidden veggie pasta is on the menu later this week. Look forward to following for more great tips 🙂
Thank you so much for such a lovely comment. It’s so great hearing that my ideas are successful!
Another thing that pretty much disappears completely when cooked is sweet potato- even less texture than carrot!