Kids Group Meal Ideas

Pizza is always a hit with kids.

Kids are notoriously picky eaters, especially when it comes to healthy food like fruits and vegetables. Although it is usually easy to get a group of kids to eat their desserts, it can sometimes be challenging to entice them to eat the rest of the meal. If you are hosting a group of kids, your menu should be kid-friendly in terms of how it tastes and how easy it is to eat. Add this to my Recipe Box.

Make Your Own Pizza

Engaging kids in the meal-making process is one way to ensure that they will be more excited to eat the food. Pizza is one choice that is easy to personalize, cooks quickly and is liked by most children. When hosting a large group of kids, you should be as prepared as possible before you begin because kids will start to act up when they have to wait for too long. Have the dough ready in advance and set up stations around the room for each child. Each station should have a piece of dough on aluminum foil with the child's name written on the foil. Fill bowls with sauce, cheese and cut up vegetables and place a few bowls of each item around the room. When the children arrive, they should be able to find their name and begin creating their pizzas right away so that the food can get in the oven quickly.

BBQ

A barbeque is a good idea for a group of children because it can be made outside, where children are free to run around and less likely to make a mess. While the food is cooking, kids can enjoy the outdoors, which means they are less likely to complain that they cannot wait any longer to eat. Hot dogs are a child-friendly choice; they cook quickly and are not expensive. French fries are a popular accompaniment, but for an even easier choice, simply put out potato chips and pretzels. Pickles and corn on the cob are two vegetables that children usually like to eat and can be eaten without utensils.

Make Your Own Tacos

Make-your-own tacos is another idea that is engaging for the children, fun to eat and includes some vegetables to make the parents happy. Like the pizza idea, you should prepare before the children arrive in order to make the event go smoothly and keep everyone happy. For this meal, you will need taco shells (plan for two per person), cooked taco meat that has cooled down, olives, shredded lettuce, cut up peppers, corn and any other filling ingredients that you would like.

Lay out one or two taco shells at every place setting. Along the table, place bowls of the filling ingredients. When the children arrive, they can go straight to their taco shell, fill it and eat immediately.

References

• Easy Kids Meals, Main Dish Recipes with 6 or Fewer Ingredients
• Kids Meal Ideas