Fajitas
Fajitas are fun food! Kids love this colourful, flavoursome dinner you can eat with your fingers, and they are easily adaptable, too. Change the meat and veg for your own favourites, and follow our expert tips and simple steps to take your fajitas from good to great!
Why are fajitas so great?
Fajitas are simple, cheap and delicious. Spice levels can be changed for adults and children, and they lend themselves well to freezing a big batch of filling and a stack of wraps for future meals.
It can be easy to add veg to fajitas to add colour and crunch, which is a fun way for kids to get used to new veggies. Plus, they are always more on board with anything they can eat with their hands!
The adaptability of fajitas means they can be as healthy, cheap, easy, and quick as you choose to make them, meaning it’s a perfect family recipe to have under your belt to make small tweaks to over time.
Follow a basic rule of wraps, meat, fish or beans, a couple of colourful veg and some fajita seasoning, and you’ve got a winner every time.
And fajitas are a great “build your own” style meal to help kids feel they have more choice over what they are eating. Just put a little bit of cooked meat, fish or beans in a bowl, a good helping of 2-3 types of veg, a little grated cheese and some toppings like guacamole, salsa, sour cream, shredded lettuce or spring onions out, and let them fill their own wraps.
Use the basic recipe, small tweaks and tips below to take your fajitas from good to better!
How are your fajita skills?
Getting
started
I’m just starting out.
Next
Level
I’m ready to take it to the next level.
Engaging
Kids
How can I get my kids involved and interested?
Getting Started
Fajitas are simple, cheap and delicious. Spice levels can be changed for adults and children, and they lend themselves well to freezing a big batch of filling and a stack of wraps for future meals.
It can be easy to add veg to fajitas to add colour and crunch, which is a fun way for kids to get used to new veggies. Plus, they are always more on board with anything they can eat with their hands!
Here is a simple recipe for fajitas which you can use as a base and build on over time…
Fajitas
Claire Wright
Ingredients:
Meat strips or veggie alternative
Fajita seasoning
Sliced peppers, onions or sweetcorn
Optional tin of kidney or black beans
A little grated cheese (optional)
Tortilla wraps
Method:
- Cook the meat/veggie alternative according to pack instructions (usually just a case of frying in a little oil until browned and cooked all the way through).
- Add seasoning and peppers/onions/sweetcorn (and beans, if using) and cook until veg has softened a little (about 5-10 mins)
- Serve in tortilla wraps, with a little grated cheese if you like.
There is no need to go any further with this recipe until you are confident with it and feel up for the next step.
Feeling ready? Let’s see how you can get your next small victory without battles…
Engaging Kids
Kids who engage regularly with veg through veg-themed activities, such as arts and crafts, sensory experiences, growing and cooking are shown to be more likely to eat the veg they engage with. Encouraging kids to engage and play with veg is the handy first step to them developing a good relationship with veg and life-long healthy eating.
Kids in the kitchen
The eventual aim, if possible, is to get kids in the kitchen. Don’t worry, this doesn’t have to mean they are with you from start-to-end creating mess and rising stress levels! It can be as simple as giving them one small job (stirring, measuring, pouring, grating, chopping…) ideally involving veg. They can come in to do their little bit, and have fun with you for a few minutes. Getting them involved, making it playful and praising them plenty for their involvement, perhaps even serving it as dinner they “made”, makes it much more likely they will eat the food offered, not to mention teaching them important life skills. Find ideas, safety tips, videos and even a free chart in our Kids in the Kitchen section here.
Activities
While getting kids to interact with veggies for real and using their senses to explore them is best, encouraging hands off activities like arts & crafts, puzzles & games or at-home science experiments can be a great start, particularly for those who are fussier eaters or struggle with anything too sensory. Use these veg-themed activities as a stepping stone to interacting with the veg themselves. We have loads of crafty downloads here, puzzles here, and quirky science with veg here.
Sensory
Once you feel your child is ready to engage a little more, you can show them how to explore the veg you have on hand with their senses, coming up with playful silly descriptions of how a veg smells, feels, looks, sounds and perhaps even tastes. Find ideas, videos and some simple sensory education session ideas to get you started here.
Serving
The moments before food is offered can be a perfect opportunity for engagement that can help make it more likely a child will eat it! Giving children a sense of ownership in the meal can make a big difference to their feelings going into it and the pride they take in it. You know your child best, but if you aren’t sure where to start, we have some fun and simple ideas for easy roles you can give them in the serving process over here.
NEXT LEVEL
I Want To Improve My Fajitas
If you are feeling confident with your favourite fajita recipe, but you’re wondering if there are some small tweaks you could make for the better, this is for you.
basic fajita to get you from good to great. Find where you feel your current recipe sits and see if the next step is something you could aim for. You don’t have to go any further, but if you choose to, make sure you are feeling confident with this new stage before you try the next one.
And remember, the MOST important thing is that the family enjoys the meal! These changes and swaps can take as long as is needed if your family isn’t ready for big changes all in one go. Small simple improvements over time may not even be noticed.
And remember, the MOST important thing is that the family enjoys the meal! These changes and swaps can take as long as is needed if your family isn’t ready for big changes all in one go. Small simple improvements over time may not even be noticed.
Making meals go further
With food budgets being stretched, meat can be expensive. Using veg and pulses can help a meal go further without noticeably altering the taste and texture. This not only saves you money, it also helps you get a little closer to 5-a-day! Go at your pace and work through the stages to build up to 50% meat and 50% pulses/veg over time if you can.
For fajitas, try a tin of kidney or black beans, drained, rinsed and added for the last couple of mins of cooking, or add a tin of cooked lentils if you prefer.
Add veg
Adding veg means adding bulk, vitamins and fibre, so you can fill up hungry bellies while making a favourite meal cheaper, more filling and healthier! For the best chance of success, start small (with a veg you know the family like if possible), add a little more each time, don’t try to hide it, and build up over time.
Aim for 2 handfuls of veg per person in the long-run, but it’s better to go slowly and get there eventually than to rush to the finish line and find no one is ready to get there with you.
- Start with frozen veg – there is less waste, it’s cheaper and easier to add a little more each time. Try sliced peppers, mushrooms, sweetcorn kernels, frozen broad beans or chargrilled veg.
- If using fresh veg, make sure it is added at the start and allow time for it to soften in a little oil before adding the protein, and sauce. Try onions, peppers, mushrooms, sweetcorn, tomatoes, courgettes, aubergines, squash or sweet potato, carrots or fennel.
- Or try adding some raw veg either as a side or a topping: ripe avocado, chopped tomato or salsa, red onion, cucumber, shredded cabbage (raw as is, or mix with a little yogurt or mayo and some grated carrot to make a quick slaw if you like!).
Don’t forget that the MOST important thing is that the family enjoys the meal! There’s no rush, and no pressure in not getting to 2 portions per serve.
Batch cooking
Once you are happy with your recipe, why not batch cook and freeze extra to save you future time, effort and money? Fajita filling batches really well, just batch and freeze in freezer bags for up to 3 months and heat through to piping hot while you grab some wraps or taco shells and prep some fresh toppings to go with it, or keep in the fridge for a few days.
Not sure if batch cooking is for you? People often think batch cooking means you have to have a big freezer and a slow cooker. But while those things can be helpful, they’re definitely not essential. Find out more about how to start small with batch cooking in our guide.
engaging kids
Play is essential!
Think of children helping in the kitchen as a role play game with plenty of fun for maximum effect. One of the best ways to develop a love of veg in kids is to get them involved in the prep of the veg. Not only is cooking an essential life skill for kids to learn, but it’s a great, fun way to get them engaging with healthy foods!
Cooking with kids
One of the best ways to develop a love of veg in kids is to get them involved in the prep of the veg. Not only is cooking an essential life skill for kids to learn, but it’s a great, fun way to get them engaging with healthy foods! They don’t have to be involved in the whole process especially when they are very young (let’s keep the mess to a minimum!), just give them 1-2 smaller jobs they can own with some supervision.
If you are making fajitas, why not get younger kids mixing a few spices to make your own fajita mix, choosing and serving fresh veg toppings into small bowls for the table, rolling up the wraps or spooning into taco shells, and chucking a couple of handfuls of your chosen veg into the pan.
Older kids might be ready to learn how to chop some fresh veg to add at the start of the meal, stir everything together in the pan, and stuffing wraps or picking toppings to serve!
See if they can tick off our Kitchen Ninja skills over time as you all get used to the recipe.
Arts & crafts
While getting kids to interact with veggies for real and using their senses to explore them is best, encouraging veg-based arts & crafts can be a great start, particularly for those who are fussier eaters or struggle with anything too sensory.
Use these arts & crafts as a stepping stone to interacting with the veg themselves. While you make your fajitas, why not set them up with our cut out and colour pepper page?
Games & puzzles
Like arts & crafts, games & puzzles are a very safe way to get veggies to become more familiar and takes any pressure off eating or engaging their senses around veg for now.
A great place to start with fajitas might be our Chop Chop peppers game!
Sensory
Sensory engagement with veg is possibly the best way to get children to slowly become more familiar with a veg. Take away the pressure to taste for now (and remember that ‘tasting’ could be expanded to include sniffing, licking and smelling) and instead encourage exploring a veg with a sense of smell, hearing, touch or sight.
Why not start with a couple of slices of red pepper and get them to describe what they smell – does it remind them of anything? Maybe it smells like spices or the outdoors or tomatoes. If they take a bite without pinching their nose and then another while pinching it, does it taste different? See if they want to chuck some into the fajitas after having engaged with them.
Serving
If your kids aren’t ready to be in the kitchen helping with part of the prep or cooking process, why not give them a job around the serving that could help them feel involved in the meal?
A crafty kid may like to design a beautiful menu, one who likes to help can lay the table. One may like to help you plate up the food, another may love to give the meal a theme! If you can (and we know it’s not always possible), try to eat with the kids, as they are much more likely to eat healthier food if they see it being eaten (and enjoyed!) by their families.
Why not let your child be in charge of toppings? Let them choose a couple from our list of suggested fresh veg toppings and help them serve into bowls that can go on the table for a build-your-own fajitas dinner. Make sure to praise them for their choices as you pile them on your own fajitas, it may encourage them to try some on theirs!
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