kid friendly meals Archives

I promised you all more healthy toddler meal ideas and here is a peak at what my toddler eats in a week. Hope this inspires you to make some creative and healthy meals for your littles. The last post got an overwhelming response from so many mothers. I was pinged on Instagram and Facebook asking me to do more of these. I am sincerely touched by the response to my toddler meal ideas. And I hope that these types of blog posts help you plan your family meals better.

If you have followed me for a while now, you know I love simple cooking and one pot type of recipes. I don’t have time in the day to cook elaborate meals for my family as I also work from home on my blog.

There are three areas I focus on when cooking; incorporating more greens, healthy fats and proteins. All of these are important for growing children. This also ensures that every meal my son eats is satiating and nourishing.

Toddlers are constantly moving and eat tiny meals at a time. That is why I focus on adding healthy fats like nut powders, nut butter, seeds, avocados, and coconuts wherever I can. I have already written an in-depth blog post on how I add healthy fats to my child’s diet. You can read that blog post to know more.

Disclaimer: Once again I would like to remind you I am not a nutritionist and neither am I promoting any specific diet plan for kids. This post is all about a mother sharing healthy toddler meal ideas with another.

Besides meals our toddler is also breastfeeding at the moment.

Okay now that all the disclaimers are out of the way, let’s look at the yummy meals.

What my toddler eats in a week – Healthy toddler meal ideas

Healthy Toddler Meal Ideas

Monday

Monday Dinner – Healthy toddler meal ideas

Breakfast – Oats porridge (made in soymilk, added flax powder, hemp seeds, chia seeds and almond butter) with strawberries

Snack 1 – Muskmelon and papaya

Lunch – Rice, mixed veggie (Cauliflower, peas, and potatoes) and coconut curry

Snack 2 – Strawberries, banana and besan Chilla (Gramflour pancake)

Dinner – Mixed veggie pasta (Homemade tomato base with broccoli, mushroom and peas.)

Tuesday

Tuesday Dinner – Healthy toddler meal ideas

Breakfast – Masala dosa with chutney

Snack 1 – Sweet potato

Lunch – Rice, chana dal curry, and potato sabzi

Snack 2 – Strawberry, blueberries, coconut water, and coconut meat.

Dinner – Rice, chana dal curry, spinach sabzi and potato sabzi

Wednesday

Wednesday Dinner – Healthy toddler meal ideas

Breakfast – Upma

Snack 1 – Muskmelon and walnuts powder (powder of 2-3 walnuts)

Lunch – Rice, dal and methi sabzi (Fenugreek leaves)

Snack 2 – 2 Quail eggs and muskmelon

Dinner – Rice, dal and peas sabzi

Thursday

Thursday Snack – Healthy toddler meal ideas

Breakfast – Chappati and almond butter roll

Snack 1 – Strawberry and walnuts powder

Lunch – Broccoli and potato soup, mushroom and carrots quinoa

Snack 2 – Strawberries and blueberries

Snack 3 – Chappati and almond butter roll with half cup soy milk

Dinner – Same as lunch with homemade potato fries

Friday

Friday Snack 3 – Healthy toddler meal ideas

Breakfast – Chappati and almond butter roll

Snack 1 – Sprouts bowl with a date and tamarind sauce

Lunch – Rice, dal, mushroom sabzi and capsicum sabzi

Snack 2 – 2 Quail eggs

Snack 3 – Smoothie bowl contains banana, strawberries, topped with chia seeds, desiccated coconut, hemp seeds and blueberries.

Dinner – Rice, dal and capsicum sabzi

Saturday

Saturday Snack – Healthy toddler meal ideas

Breakfast – Upma

Snack 1 – Upma and walnuts powder

Lunch – Quinoa, matki (Moth beans) sabzi and bindi (Okra) sabzi. Little one requested for quinoa instead of rice.

Snack 2 – Sprouts with date and tamarind sauce

Dinner – Rice, dal, matki, bhindi sabzi and dosa

Sunday

Sunday Lunch – Healthy toddler meal ideas

Breakfast – Dosa and coconut chutney

Snack 1 – Malida topped with raisins and pomegranate.

Lunch – Rice, dal, methi sabzi and besan chilla

Snack 2 – Banana and oats pancake with honey and almond butter.

Dinner – Rice, dal and methi sabzi

Featured Pantry products

That was all the toddler meals for a week. If you have a toddler who is picky about foods you can read about my strategies to get children excited about healthy eating. These are the same steps I used to get my son interested in eating green leafy vegetables, vegetables like broccoli and a whole other rainbow colors of foods. Patience and consistency work well during the toddler years to set healthy eating habits for life. Happy eating to you all!

I have received a lot of queries on Instagram about what my toddler eats. Starting this month I’m launching a series called “What my toddler eats in a week”. This way other mothers can get an idea of what to offer toddlers. There are very few blog posts and videos online about Indian weaning foods past the initial stage. Hope this series acts as an inspiration for your toddler meals.

Disclaimer: I am not a nutritionist, and this is not a portrayal of an ideal diet. Any dietary issues you may face with your child need to be consulted with a doctor and trained nutritionist.

We practice baby led weaning in our home. And I try my best to bring variety to my child’s meals taking all the information I have about food and nutrition into consideration.

We are still breastfeeding at 20 months and breastfeeding consists of 2-3 feeds in the day and 2-3 feeds in the night. I don’t give him any other milk daily, but I do make almond milk at home once or twice a month, and also switch between offering cows milk or goat’s milk from time to time. Its not a daily; “have one glass of milk” type of thing. He gets his nutrition primarily from breast milk and solid foods.

At present he eats 3 full meals and 2 snacks, but there are days he can have as many as 6-7 mini meals a day. I just go with the flow. Being baby led weaned, he eats family meals. But since he eats frequently I prepare many mini meals throughout the day to keep him fed. So the main meals are what we all eat together as a family and the rest are sometimes made especially for him.

I haven’t added pictures of every meal either because many times dinner is the same as lunch or because a hungry toddler didn’t give me enough time to set up the plate and click a picture. To keep it uniform I stuck to 4 pictures a day with detailed description of everything he ate in the day.

Let’s begin,

Monday

Breakfast: Started the week with oats pancake and two hard-boiled quail eggs
Snack 1: Bowl of muskmelon
Lunch: Dal, rice, capsicum sabzi, and a side of mushrooms sautéed in butter.
Snack 2: Sprouted jowar porridge. I simply soak the sprouted jowar in water for 15 minutes. Then cook in 1:2 proportion water and let it cook until the water is absorbed. Towards the end of cook time I add a teaspoon on ghee and cardamom powder.
Dinner: Was the same as lunch.

Tuesday

Breakfast: Pohe. My husband makes some yummy maharashtrian breakfast dishes. Pohe is one of his specialties. (Flattened rice savory breakfast dish)
Snack 1: Chikoo, My son loves fruits and chikoos are one of his favorites. He had 2 chikoos as a snack this day.
Lunch: Dal, rice, okra sabzi, boiled and grated beetroot salad.
Snack 2: Leftover pohe from breakfast, some oat balls, and raisins.
Dinner: Pasta dish. We usually add whatever vegetables are left over in the house. Today in the tomato sauce I added broccoli, onions, leftover green and yellow capsicums. Pasta is a hit with my son; we make pasta atleast once or sometimes even twice a week. Also, its super easy for me to quickly whip up a one-pot pasta meal for dinner. We use whole-wheat pasta.

Wednesday

Breakfast: Upma, Little A’s grandma was home and she made delicious upma.
Snack 1: Watermelon and Brazil nuts. Now the thing is, my son is obsessed with watermelon. As a mother I feel like he is only getting in tiny amounts of calories through this watery fruit. So I made a Brazil nut powder and served that too on the side. This way he is taking in some healthy fats along with the watermelon.
Lunch: Dal, rice, cabbage and okra sabzi.
Snack 2: 2 hard-boiled quail eggs and oranges.
Snack 3: Oats pancake with teaspoon of honey.
Dinner: Dal, rice, cabbage sabzi and grated beetroot salad.

Thursday

Breakfast: Pohe once again. Yes, we eat the same foods on repeat!
Snack 1: Chapatti, banana, chikoo. We use a wheat flour and ragi flour mix to make our chapatti. Ragi is a good source of iron. I spread almond butter on the chapatti.
Lunch: Chickpea curry and rice.
Snack 2: Watermelon and scrambled duck egg.
Dinner: Chickpea curry, rice and thalipeeth. In my post on baby led weaning breakfast ideas I mentioned my cheats version to having thalipeeth flour ready at home always. This helps me out on days when I am running out of ideas and I can quickly whip up a snack or a side like this for my son.

Friday

Breakfast: Idli and coconut chutney
Snack 1: Overnight oats; I add whatever is available at home to the oats in the night. This day I added, oats, almond milk, almond butter, chia seeds, banana, desiccated coconut and hemp seeds. This one is again one of my son’s absolute favorites.
Lunch: Dal, rice, cauliflower sabzi, grated beetroot salad.
Snack 2: Paneer (cottage cheese), potato patty.
Dinner: Dal, rice, sautéed mushrooms and steamed broccoli with a drizzle of olive oil. We ran out of the lunch vegetables. Hubby and I wanted to eat some take out, so I quickly made Little A some sautéed mushrooms and steamed broccoli to go along with his dal rice.

Saturday

Breakfast: Idli. He didn’t want any chutney with his idli. Toddler food choices are random; one day they enjoy eating one thing and the next day they don’t want to touch the same. We don’t fret over it, we just move on to planning the next meal and he usually forgets about his own specifications in the coming days. The key takeaway here is don’t stop preparing things because your toddler won’t eat, repeated exposure makes them get over their initial apprehensions.
Snack 1: Strawberries and some more plain idli’s!
Lunch: Dal, rice, dum aloo (baby potatoes) and spinach sabzi. He was ravenously hungry by this time and loved the dum aloo dish. Win for mommy!
Snack 2: Milkshake (goat’s milk, banana, cardamom powder, and saffron)
Dinner: Same as lunch.

Sunday

Breakfast: Dosa and chutney. So today with dosa he enjoyed dipping his chutney and eating it. This proves their choices vary every day.
Snack 1: Oats balls and raisins.
Lunch: Dal, rice, pumpkin sabzi
Snack 2: Uttapa and chutney, I used the dosa batter to make a thicker pancake called uttapa.
Snack 3: Coconut water and tender coconut meat.
Snack 4: Duck egg, chapatti with almond butter and chikoo
Dinner: Mushroom fried rice. There are days like this where he keeps asking for meals, so I make him many mini meals throughout the day.
If you want to take a look at some more snack ideas I use for my son you can check this post on how I get my child to eat healthy everyday for some recipes I shared.

Since I get a lot of questions about some of our baby led weaning equipment and pantry products, I have included a mini favorites list below:

Equipment:

Favorite Pantry Products:

We buy most of our organic staples like rice and dals from Amazon Pantry. The rest like eggs,milk, fresh fruits and vegetables we either buy organic from Nature’s Basket stores or local vendors.

I hope you found this post useful. If you have any specific queries or want to know more about products I use leave me a comment below.

For more food ideas for your child follow me on Instagram. I regularly upload pictures of what my son eats in a day.

For more recipes for toddlers 12-18 months

and what my toddler eats in a week, read here.

Healthy Toddler Meal Ideas: A Week Of Toddler Eats