Pizza
Is there anything easier to feed children than pizza? If it’s a big hit in your house, then good news! There are simple, small steps you can take to turn pizza night into a chance to eat more veg and turn it into a more balanced meal.
Why is Pizza so great?
Most kids love pizza! Yes, there are occasional exceptions, but for most families pizza is a big hit, making it a great place to start adding more veg to the meal.
Pizza is fantastic for its ability to be a “base” – it is a building block (and a tasty one!) that can become a vehicle for making better choices for toppings, sides, or small improvements.
A plain pizza already contains some carbs (bread base) and protein (cheese) and even a tiny bit of veg (tomato sauce), so adding some more veg as a topping or side can easily create a balanced meal!
So whether you are starting with your favourite brand of frozen margarita, topping a wrap with some tomato puree and cheese, or making your own pizza dough and adding extras, we can help you with some small steps to a still-tasty-and-somewhat-healthier pizza night.
How are your pizza 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
Most kids love pizza!
Yes, there are occasional exceptions, but for most families pizza is a big hit, making it a great place to start adding more veg to the meal.
Pizza
Claire Wright
Ingredients:
Frozen pizza/base or a tortilla wrap
Tomato sauce/puree if needed
Grated cheese, if needed
Optional extra favourite toppings
Method:
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For a frozen pizza: Cook the frozen according to package instructions, adding any extra toppings you want before cooking.
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For pizza base: Top with tomato sauce/puree and cheese, plus any extra favourite toppings and bake in a hot oven (220C/gas 7) for 10 mins or until cheese is golden and base is cooked.
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For wraps: Top tortilla wraps with tomato sauce/puree and grated cheese, plus any extra favourite toppings and bake in a hot oven (200C/gas 6) for 2-5 mins or until cheese and wrap are golden (you can also do this for 1 minute under a grill for an even quicker pizza!).
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 Pizza
If you are feeling confident with your favourite pizza recipe, but you’re wondering if there are some small tweaks you could make for the better, this is for you.
We’ve outlined some simple stages for continually improving on a basic pizza recipe 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.
Better Sauce
Read the labels on jars of sauce and make changes as slowly as needed for your family, gently moving them towards lower sugar, salt and fat options and ingredients you recognise.
If and when you feel ready, you could start making your own sauce, but if you don’t have time, just some passata, or some chopped tomatoes blended with tomato puree and oregano or basil is cheaper and healthier than using a jarred pizza sauce.
If you do have a little time to make and store a big batch of homemade sauce for a few meals, why not try our rainbow veg sauce? Rainbow veg sauce is perfect for when you’re busy, as it’s a super quick way to get an excellent mix of veg into your kids and helps to produce tasty meals in a flash! Freeze in ice cubes trays for a few hours then transfer to freezer bags to have easy-to-grab small amounts for pizza nights.
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.
- Give kids choice of veg toppings: Pizza can be a wonderfully gentle way to introduce kids to new veggies – the key is to get them involved if you can. Lay out a few choices (stick to frozen or longer-lasting items at first if you are concerned about waste), and let them choose their own toppings, challenging them to make their pizza into a funny face or picture, or to get as much colour as they can onto it, so it becomes a game.
- What veg works? Lots of veg works with pizza – some of our favourites include: frozen/tinned corn, frozen or fresh sliced peppers, sliced mushrooms, frozen chargrilled veg (aubergine/courgette/pepper slices), sliced tomatoes/halved cherry tomatoes/sun dried tomatoes, sliced red onion… or get the kids to come up with their own pizza topping combinations!
- Start small – offer just a few safer options you know they are ok with; build up to introduce new ones slowly; and leave them fairly chunky so they can pick them off if needed at first (but do offer them again, it can take many many tries before they truly decide whether they like a veg or not).
- What doesn’t work – while most veg works, cabbages, leafy greens, broccoli/cauli, and root veg like carrots or sweet potatoes won’t do as well because they cook too quickly or slowly or the texture becomes mushy. However, leftover cooked root veg or roasted broccoli can be nice if they are feeling adventurous!
In addition to veg toppings, could you serve some raw veg like peppers, tomatoes, sugar snap peas, radishes, avocado, cucumber, etc on the side or add a small salad? Try putting these items in the middle of the table and everyone can help themselves. If you add them to your plate, they will be more likely to do the same and pizza night has got a whole lot healthier.
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? Pizzas can be frozen either fully assembled and wrapped well in foil or cling film, or you can freeze batch-made elements to build pizzas by freezing dough, wraps or pizza bases, sauce in ice cube trays and keeping various frozen veg and frozen toppings on hand. Keep for up to 3 months and defrost, then assemble if needed and heat through to piping hot, 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 pizza, kids can really own the recipe. Have them pick from several options (mostly veg) and top their own pizzas. If you’ve made dough, help younger kids roll it out and spread the sauce over it.
Older kids might be ready to learn how to chop some fresh veg to add to their pizza, grate some cheese, or even have a go at making the dough!
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 pizza, why not set them up with our tomato crown 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 pizza might be our Veg Selecta 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 mushroom and get them to describe what they see – does it remind them of anything? Maybe it looks like an animal nose, or a tiny crown or an ogre tooth. See if they want to chuck some onto the pizza 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 build their own pizzas by choosing toppings and try to make a picture with the veg they choose? Perhaps they can spell their name from sweetcorn or make a funny face with a pepper smile and tomato eyes. Make sure to praise them for their choices as you build and eat your own veg-topped pizza, it may encourage them to try some on theirs!
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