One of our Cook At Home participants asked us the following question:
I had given my son a kids cookbook for Christmas with the promise that he would be responsible for choosing and helping to make one dinner each week… I would love to know if anyone has found a kids cookbook with HEALTHY recipes. When I bought this one, there were only a few kids cookbooks at the bookstore and I should have spent a little more time to find something with healthier recipes. Most of the kids cookbooks focus on tacos, hamburgers, and mac and cheese. Let me know if you have any suggestions!
I took a trip to my local bookstore and sat down with a handful of cookbooks that were geared towards kids. Many of them were full of dinosaur-shaped nuggets and candy coated cookie jumbles, but more than a few had some really yummy recipes. Here are a few of the best out there.
The Top 100 Recipes for Happy Kids: Keep Your Child Alert, Focused, Active and Healthy – Here are quick, delicious, and nutritious meals that will help grow a more contented, better behaved child, from an energy-boosting breakfast of blueberry and apple muffins to chicken dippers, a brown roll, and muesli munchies for the lunchbox. Try sweet potato wedges for an afternoon snack. Children will love the food, and parents will love the difference it makes in their kids.
The Healthy Start Kids’ Cookbook: Fun and Healthful Recipes That Kids Can Make Themselves – Children can create delicious, easy, and imaginative concoctions that are surprisingly good for them. Each recipe includes step-by-step instructions, preparation and cooking times, utensil listings, and complete nutrition information. In all, this illustrated cookbook contains 90 fun kid-tested recipes fully approved by parents and nutritionists alike.
Cooking Rocks! Rachael Ray 30-Minute Meals for Kids – This book provides a good foundation in cooking and healthy eating in the future. It teaches the basic methods in cooking, and introduces your child to different fresh herbs and healthy veggies, such as cilantro and arugula. In a world where many young adults don’t know how to cook, Rachael Ray does our kids a big service by teaching them how to cook restaurant-quality meals at home.
Toddler Café: Fast, Healthy, and Fun Ways to Feed Even the Pickiest Eater – Not only are the recipes creative, fun and delicious, but the photography within the book is also beautiful (there are pictures accompanying about half of the recipes). The author provides recipe notes for each recipe, which often include ideas for variations.
And finally, here is my favorite:
Sesame Street “C” is for Cooking – The stars of Sesame Street compile a wide range of dishes, from classics like Chicken Nuggets, Fish Sticks and Macaroni and Cheese to more exotic fare such as African Peanut Butter Soup and Bert’s Tutti Frutti Turkey Salad, which gets a boost of flavor from curry powder. Recipes are simple and straightforward, and each has at least one step a child can perform. Parents will like the fact that the book offers plenty of healthy alternatives to junk food and dishes traditionally high in fat; low-fat yogurt, for example, substitutes for mayonnaise in tartar sauce, and sour cream in stuffed potatoes.
Find more healthy recipes for kids here on DietsInReview.com.