Video:5 Tips for Hiding Vegetables in Kids' Meals

Transcript:5 Tips for Hiding Vegetables in Kids' Meals

Hi I'm Katherine Lee for About.com and this is Danielle, she is from Cooked in Brooklyn, and today we're going to show you five creative and fun ways to hide vegetables into your kid's meals. 

Add Zucchini to Pasta Sauce to Hide Vegetables

All right basically, this is a really easy one. I just made a basic marinara sauce with a little bit of ground beef. And I love sneaking zucchini, but I love this instrument this is a microplane, it makes vegetables really kind of fluffy, and when you put it on in the sauces and cook it down it just literally disappears. And then this is the finished product. And this is what it looks like and you can tell this has virtually disappeared in the sauce. And you just spoon it over some pasta, and hit it with a little bit of cheese.  

Great, and your kids will be none the wiser. No. Awesome, that's awesome.

Top Vegetables With Cheese to Hide Vegetables

So here's another trick that I've learned, and it's not exactly hiding your food, but it's covering it with cheese, which is pretty much the best thing in the world. So I'm going to make a simple cheese sauce. And I've had about a cup and a half of milk on a low simmer -- I put about a little pat of butter in there.  And I'm just going to basically put a cup of cheese in here.  And I'm just going to go ahead an put it on the stove on a low simmer for about 5 nminutes. Ok so this sauce has reduced a little bit. I'm just going to pour a little bit on this.

You can also make this ahead of time and reuse some the next day if you like. You can also use this for a mac and cheese base. 

Smoothies Are a Good Way to Hide Vegetables in Kids' Meals

And another way to hide vegetables is a smoothie, which is a sneak surprise on your children. I'm putting spinach in, about a cup and a half, and a little bit of berries -- strawberries in the bottom and a banana. I don't know if I can fit this all in one blender but I'm going to go for it. About how many strawberries did you have in there? About 8 or 10. And then just dump a little bit of orange juice, and I'm just going to blend that. I've just blended this literally for 30 seconds, and the kids will be none the wiser when they see this.  It's actually kind of pretty too. 

Hide Vegetables in Mac and Cheese

So Katherine, another great way to hide a vegetable, or put a vegetable in, is pasta of course.  I've made my basic macaroni and cheese, and I've steamed some cauliflower until fork tender. And I'm just going to add it. See, it's the same color as the pasta as well. And just stir it in. Good camouflage skills, I like that. And then just to add a little bit more texture to that, I made some buttered panko.  I just toasted this in a sauce pan with about a cup of panko and about 2 tablespoons of butter until brown. And there's your pasta dish for you. 

Spaghetti Squash Is a Great Way to Hide Vegetables

So the next thing I want to show you Katherine is spaghetti squash.  I've taken a spaghetti squash and baked it. You prick it with a fork a few times and bake it for about an hour. At how many degrees? About 350 F. This is only half a squash. And you shred it with a fork. So you take out the seeds and then you just -- look at this, it looks like spaghetti. It does. And kids don't have to know it's a vegetable. And I just have a touch of butter.

It's about 2 tablespoons? No, I'm not going to put it all in because it's a little too much. And just add some cheese, so we're just going to treat it like it's a traditional pasta. Oh my gosh, that's so healthy. And then you just toss it up, and you have spaghetti squash.