Roast
It doesn’t get more quintessentially British than a Sunday roast! By adding veg to your meat and potatoes you create a balanced meal, but let us take you step by step to make your favourite roast even better.
Why are Roasts so great?
Roasts are popular! Whether you are a meat-eating family or doing a veggie roast, these meals are pretty easy to feed to your family. Whether you make them often or are only just starting out, you can rest assured that the success rate is high.
Roasts can be easily created as a balanced, nutritious meal. It’s not hard to visualise aiming for approximately ¼ plate meat or protein, ¼ plate carbs (including white potatoes) and ½ plate veg (although don’t worry if you are a long way off that, it can take time!). This makes a roast an easy dish to slowly improve over time simply by gently increasing and decreasing the portion size of each type of food.
So take your favourite way of making a roast, find where you are in our steps, and see if you can try out the next stage and use our tips to help make it easier!
How are your roast 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
Roasts are popular!
Whether you are a meat-eating family or doing a veggie roast, these meals are pretty easy to feed to your family. Whether you make them often or are only just starting out, you can rest assured that the success rate is high.
Here is a simple recipe for a roast which you can use as a base and build on over time…
Roast
Claire Wright
Ingredients:
Cooked meat or veggie alternative
Frozen roast potatoes or yorkshire puddings
Optional: frozen peas
Optional: condiments (mustard, ketchup, mayo, etc)
Method:
-
Cook the frozen roast potatoes or yorkshire puddings according to package instructions.
-
Cook the frozen peas according to package instructions (pan of boiling water or microwave for a few mins).
-
Serve the cooked meat with the potatoes and peas, and some condiments if you feel they are needed.
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 Roast
If you are feeling confident with your favourite roast 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 roast 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.
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. Keep veg sides simple – frozen veg like peas, broad beans, green beans, prepped root veg (like carrots or parsnips), mixed veg or chargrilled Mediterranean veg can just be heated in the microwave, oven or pan according to packet instructions and served as is, or with a little seasoning and oil/butter to add some flavour.
- If using fresh veg, make sure it is added at the start and allow time for it to soften. Try some roughly chopped carrots, onions, fennel or root veg and cook them in with the meat (this works especially well with chicken), checking they are soft enough to eat before you serve.
- Try simple swaps to keep it easy – swap your roast potatoes for sweet potatoes (pre-prepped frozen sweet potato fries or chunks can be roasted quicker than roast potatoes!), add a few handfuls of frozen cauliflower florets or some celeriac diced to a similar size to your potatoes when cooking for a half-and-half mash, or stir through a good few handfuls of frozen mixed veg into your rice.
- Don’t overdo it – pretty much any veg can work with a roast, but if you are putting in the effort of making a roast dinner, try to keep it simple, avoiding complex recipes for side dishes that might not be worth the extra effort – a bag of frozen prepped parsnips or carrots that are just tossed in a little oil and roasted with the meat is going to be far easier and quicker than a slow-braised red cabbage dish!
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? You can freeze some cooked meat, roasted veg or a dish of cauliflower cheese for up to 3 months! Just heat through to piping hot before serving.
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 a roast, why not get younger kids sprinkling herbs and spices over the meat and pulses, helping choose the veg and even preparing a couple of simple sides based on frozen veg so they can push microwave buttons and stir through butter or set the oven dial.
Older kids might be ready to learn how to chop some fresh veg to add at the start of the meal, stir everything together on the tray, and taking charge of a vegetable side!
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 roast, why not set them up with our broccoli cut out and colour 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 a roast might be our In the Pan broccoli 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 slice or chunk or roasted butternut squash or sweet potato and get them to describe what they smell – does it remind them of anything? Maybe it smells like autumn or sweets. 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 roast 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 help you serve up the food? Roasts often involve a few serving plates on the table, so get them to help you load up various bowls (sneaking a couple of tastes of veg on the way to see if they want to, too!). Let them add last-minute bits like stirring through a little butter or sprinkling a bit of seasoning. Make sure to praise them for their help and choices, it may encourage them to try some!
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