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!
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.
Our Simple Fajitas recipe below is just that – a basic mix of meat (or veggie alternative) + seasoning + optional beans + cheese + tortilla wraps. If you are just starting out, this is the place to start! If you already have the basics and want to work on slowly improving your recipe using our Step by Step method, try our Next Steps Fajitas.
Kids who engage with healthy foods are more likely to eat them, so to set yourself up for success, we’ve included tips to get kids involved in the second recipe to keep things simple.
Simple Fajitas
Ingredients:
Meat strips or veggie alternative (or mince)
Fajita seasoning mix
Tin of kidney or black beans, drained (optional)
A little grated cheese (optional)
Tortilla wraps
Not made fajitas before, or not ready to try the next steps? Start here!
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 beans, if using, and cook an extra 2-3 mins until everything is heated through.
- 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.
Once you have the basics it’s time to slowly improve your recipe using our Step by Step method to a bit better.
There are three ways to step-by-step your way to better fajitas – start where you feel most comfortable and if in doubt, start with a few veg.
Remember, the MOST important thing is that the family enjoys the meal! These changes and swaps can take as long as is needed. Small simple improvements over time may not even be noticed!
add veg
Aim for 2 handfuls of veg per person in the long-run, but it’s better to go slow and get there than to rush to the finish line and find no one is there with you. For the best chance of success, start with a veg you know the family likes, don’t try to hide it, and build up over time. Starting with frozen veg can also mean less waste, keeping costs down, and being able to add a small amount simply.
We’ve added our top suggestions and how and when to add them to the recipe below.
better sauce
Whether you are adding sauces or just packet spice mix, you can save yourself some money while also reducing your sugar and salt content by using simple alternatives.
If you prefer a sauce-based wrap dish, try swapping higher sugar and salt jarred sauces for a basic salsa with minimal ingredients you recognise, or even just a tin of chopped tomatoes and some spices!
Swap a packet fajita seasoning for a simpler (and cheaper in the long-term) combination of paprika/smoked paprika, ground cumin and oregano.
reduce meat
Try a tin of cooked beans (drained and rinsed) to replace half (or all of) the meat, added for the last couple of mins of cooking – black, pinto or kidney work especially well here.
You can even leave the meat out completely and make veggie bean, veg and cheese wraps, which are delicious and fun to eat, especially when you put out toppings for everyone to build-their-own so the kids are too preoccupied with the fun aspect to notice the filling as much!
Next Steps Fajitas
Ingredients:
Meat strips or veggie alternative (or mince)
Fajita seasoning mix (or make your own using 1/2 tsp garlic powder and 1 tsp each smoked paprika, cumin and oregano)
A handful per person of 1-2 veg (see suggestions in recipe)
Tin of kidney or black beans
A little grated cheese (optional)
Tortilla wraps
We suggest you do this in stages, slowly, and go as far as works for your family, here’s how your final recipe might come together…
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 any fresh veg (eg: thinly sliced onions and/or peppers, sliced mushrooms, etc) and cook an extra 5-10 mins until just starting to soften.
- Add seasoning and beans, if using, and cook an extra 2-3 mins until everything is heated through. If using any frozen/tinned veg (eg: sweetcorn, frozen edamame beans, frozen mixed veg, frozen shredded cabbage, etc), add with the beans and cook until piping heat (most thin/small veg will cook in less than 5 mins).
- Serve in tortilla wraps, with a little grated cheese if you like.
- If you want to, making this a “build-your-own” dinner by placing some healthy toppings into bowls on the table gives kids more control over the veg they eat, so try laying out a few fresh ingredients alongside grated cheese or sour cream like: shredded iceberg lettuce, shredded red cabbage, ripe avocado (sliced or mashed), finely sliced red onion, chopped ripe tomatoes or salsa, or thinly sliced cucumber.
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. Find out more here.
Kids in the kitchen
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!
Activities
Use arts & crafts as a stepping stone to interacting with the veg themselves. While you make your fajitas, why not set a child up with:
Take It To the Board Pepper game
Pens At the Ready Pepper puzzle
Find more arts & crafts and puzzles & games on our website.
Sensory
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.
Watch Ruth Platt’s sensory ideas for peppers video for more inspiration, or head to our Sensory page for more games, tips and ideas.
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? 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! Get more ideas over on our Roles for Kids page.
Family Favourite Recipes
Use our step-by-step methods to slowly improve these favourites, too…
DO you have a question you’d like one of our experts to help you with?
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