Between the fussy eating habits and the determined  “I can do it!” attitude of your toddler, it can seem like Mission Impossible to encourage your child to eat anything that resembles a well-balanced meal. Now you can make your life a whole lot simpler (and stress-free!) by using our most popular recipes for toddler:

Finger food

You toddler is much more likely to eat what’s on her plate if she can pick it up and feed herself. One of the great toddler mealtime tactics is to serve a range of foods on a plate that she can select from. Try:

• Baby sushi
• Chicken strips
• Crunchy chicken nuggets
• Egg men with crispy bacon toasts
• Delicious cheese pizza
• Mini burgers
• Sausage rolls

Family food

Mealtimes can be a battle with toddlers in the house, so keep things simple by choosing recipes that use familiar foods as their base. Recipes that include pasta or rice are often a big hit. Try:

• Chicken bake
• Macaroni cheese
• Cheesy three veg pasta bake
• Meatballs
• Easy spaghetti bake
• Tuna Mornay
• Vegetable pasties

Sweet snacks

You can almost bet money on the fact that your toddler will prefer to put something sweet in her mouth before choosing a savoury food. So the best thing you can do is make sure that those sweet snacks also have some nutritional value. To avoid the empty calories of pre-packaged snacks, it’s a great idea to make nutritious homemade snacks including:

• Banana bread
• Watermelon fangs
• Spotty berry pancakes
• Rock cakes
• Pikelets
• ABC muffins
• Oat, date and honey muffins

This article was written by Ella Walsh for Kidspot, New Zealand’s best resource for family health.