Vegetable Tagine
Vegetable tagine (North African stew) is simple, cheap and delicious. It is easy to adapt, simple to add veg to, and can be batch cooked to save time and money for the future, too! We’ve gathered some expert tips and small steps to help you take a basic spiced veg stew from good to great!
Why is Veg Tagine so great?
Veg tagine is simple, cheap and delicious. It’s focus on sweeter veg, dried fruit and flavours such as cinnamon suit children’s palates very well and it is easy to add veg to without changing the flavour or texture of the dish too much. By adding more veg and less meat, you’ll make your money go further all while eating better.
Its adaptability means tagine can be as healthy, cheap, easy and quick as you choose to make it, meaning it’s a perfect basic family recipe to have under your belt to make small tweaks to over time.
You can make a big batch of tagine and freeze for up to 3 months to have it on hand for quick dinners, especially since it is traditionally served with super quick sides like couscous or warmed pitta or flatbreads.
Use the basic recipe, small tweaks and tips below to take your veg stew from good to better!
How are your tagine 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
Tagine is simple, cheap and delicious.
Its sweet flavours go down well with kids, and it is easy to add veg to without changing the flavour or texture of the dish. By adding more veg and less meat, you’ll make your money go further all while eating better.
Here is a simple recipe for veg (and meat, if you want) tagine which you can use as a base and build on over time…
Veg Tagine
Claire Wright
Serves: 4
Ingredients:
1 tbsp oil
300g diced chicken breast or veggie alternative (optional)
1 bag of cubed frozen squash or sweet potato (or fresh diced squash or sweet potato)
1 tin chickpeas
1 tbsp Moroccan spice mix (or use a mix of 2 or more of: 1 tsp ground coriander, 1 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp cinnamon, ½ tsp turmeric)
1 tin chopped tomatoes (or 1 jar of tomato sauce)
A handful of chopped dried apricots, prunes or dried figs (optional)
Juice of ½ a lemon (optional)
A handful of roughly chopped fresh coriander (optional)
Method:
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Get a big saucepan or frying pan on a medium heat and add 1 tbsp of oil – give it a minute to get hot, then add the chicken (if using), cook for 5 mins until browned and add the frozen squash or sweet potato (or fresh, if you prefer), drained tin of chickpeas and the spices or spice mix.
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Stir together and cook for another 5 mins, then add the chopped tomatoes, refill the tin with water and pour into the pan, then bring to the boil and turn the heat down fairly low to simmer for 20-30 mins, or until the sauce has reduced a little and the veg is cooked and softened.
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Stir in the dried fruit and lemon juice (if using), then take off the heat and serve with couscous, warmed pitta breads or flatbreads, and scatter with fresh coriander, 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
You could get kids rinsing the chickpeas in a sieve, stirring the squash into the pan (carefully!) or scattering any optional extras like dried fruit and herbs over at the end.
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 Tagine
If you are feeling confident with your favourite tagine 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 tagine 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.
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.
Swapping a ready-made tomato sauce for tinned chopped tomatoes and a couple of ground spices can often help the budget as well as the salt and sugar content.
If you 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!
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 a tagine, chickpeas are a traditional addition – you can swap the meat entirely with them, or work slowly to increase the pulses while reducing the meat. If chickpeas aren’t your favourite, try tinned lentils, red lentils (which can be added with the tomatoes and an extra tin of water and cooked until softened for 20-30 mins), or tinned beans (especially kidney beans or cannellini beans). If you think it will be turned down, try starting with just half a tin and perhaps even blending it into the sauce and just reduce the meat while adding more lentils and/or beans slowly each time you make the meal.
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 Mediterranean veg like aubergines, courgettes and peppers, sweetcorn, or baby leaf or chopped spinach, or even sliced carrots, diced onions or a bag of frozen mixed 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 finely diced fresh carrots, onions and celery, sliced peppers or mushrooms, cubed sweet potato or squash, diced aubergine or courgettes, or adding a few handfuls of fresh leafy greens at the end of cooking time if you prefer.
- While most veg will work here, ones that may not do quite so well are: cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, sprouts, parsnips, swede/turnips, celeriac, beetroot, asparagus, sugar snap peas, salad leaves, radishes or the 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? Veg tagine batches really well, just batch and freeze for up to 3 months and heat through to piping hot while you cook some couscous or warm some flatbreads 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 a tagine, why not get younger kids rinsing the chickpeas in a sieve, measuring out the spices, using scissors or a butter knife to roughly chop the dried fruit and/or 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 learning to taste (careful, it’s hot!) to determine whether to add the optional extras for flavours such as lemon, coriander, and dried fruit.
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 tagine, why not set them up with our tomato face masks?
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 tagine might be our tomato Squash ‘Em 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 ripe tomato and get them to describe what they feel – maybe it’s squishy or smooth on the outside, but slimy or grainy on the inside! See if they want to chuck some into the tagine 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 the plating up. Maybe leave out the dried apricot (if using) and coriander until the end, then let them help you spoon the couscous and tagine into bowls and scatter over the dried fruit and herbs.
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