Intro
We consider ourselves foodies. We love dining out, trying new restaurants, and experiencing different cuisines together as a family. One of our biggest challenges, though, is navigating meals with kids—especially when you have one very picky eater.
If he had his way, every meal would be chicken fingers and fries, with the occasional slice of cheese pizza. While expanding his palate is still a work in progress, we’ve learned a lot along the way. These are the strategies that have helped us balance nutrition without turning every meal into a battle.
1. Dining Out: Order À La Carte When You Can
Don’t be afraid to ask your server if the kitchen can work with you. While kids’ menus rarely include things like salmon, steak, or grilled chicken, many kitchens are happy to prepare a simple protein if asked.
We’ve ordered a plain salmon filet with a side of fries or fruit more times than we can count. The key is flexibility—you don’t always have to order straight from the kids’ menu. Many restaurants can work with you.
2. Always Put Vegetables on the Plate
Even if you know they won’t eat them, put a small portion of vegetables on the plate. Exposure matters.
At first, it helps reduce food anxiety. Over time, it opens the door to negotiations:
“Try one bite and we’ll talk about dessert.”
Kids are good negotiators—and sometimes that works in your favor.
3. Involve Them in Cooking Early
Letting kids help prepare meals can completely change their attitude toward food. Dicing vegetables, seasoning meat, or stirring sauces gives them a sense of ownership.
When they help make it, they’re far more likely to try it!
4. Try a Meal Delivery Service
We’ve had great success using Home Chef. Our kids recognize Chef Ramsay from YouTube, which oddly enough makes them more trusting of the meals.
Once our kids started online school, we realized how much control we had over their daily nutrition—but it also meant more meals to prepare. Home Chef helped by introducing new flavors while still letting the kids participate in cooking. This was also a great relief to grocery planning.
👉 Sign up here to get meals for $4.99 each:
HomeChef.com/invite/aaronb505
5. Combine Foods They Love With New Foods
This one sounds strange—but it works.
Our son loves Doritos. He isn’t a fan of lettuce, cheese, or even bread some days. Before a trip to the park, we made deli subs and suggested putting Doritos inside the sandwich.
It worked. The chips made the sandwich familiar—and park time became the reward. Sometimes parenting really does turn into strategic negotiation.
6. Relate New Foods to Familiar Foods
A huge win for us was tacos.
Once we explained that tacos could simply be taco meat in a hard shell, it clicked. To him, it was basically meat and chips—something he already liked.
7. Talk About the Culture Behind the Food
Before our trip to Italy, we talked to our kids about the love and tradition behind Italian cooking. We explained how much pride goes into pasta and how many famous chefs come from Italy.
Did it magically make him love pasta? No—but he did try it. And when he said, “It’s not bad,” that felt like a win in the heart of Rome.
8. Introduce “Safe Foods” Alongside One New Item
Instead of completely changing a meal, keep one or two “safe” foods on the plate while adding just one new item.
This reduces pressure. The meal doesn’t feel risky, and the new food becomes optional rather than overwhelming.
9. Plan an Activity During or After Dinner
Pick an activity to look forward to either during the meal or right after. This could be a simple card game at the table, a conversation game, or even talking about what you’ll do once dinner is finished.
Asking questions and keeping them engaged helps them stay seated longer, which naturally leads to more bites over time. It also buys you a little extra negotiating window 😉—sometimes that’s all you need for one more taste or a few more vegetables.
Final Thoughts
Having a picky eater can be frustrating, especially if you love food and shared meals as much as we do. But patience, creativity, and flexibility go a long way.
Progress doesn’t always look like a clean plate—it looks like small wins, fewer power struggles, and slowly building trust around food.
And sometimes, it looks like Doritos on a sandwich before a trip to the park—and that’s okay too.
Comments
3 responses
I also found a very fun way to get kids involved. We called it Theme Dinner night. I would tell them the country and they would need to look up a fact or idea from the place. The dinner was appetizer, dinner and dessert. They began to look forward to it and we’re able to invite friends when they were older. I even got them to try seaweed!
What great tips! I have a picky eater and so tired of just Mac and cheese or pizza! I will have to try a Mac and cheese pizza maybe with Doritos.
Me again. I meant to put adding a vegetables to the Mac and cheese pizza with a few Dorito crumbs to hide the vegetables!