3 Easy Mini Meal Ideas for Kids

Kids love to eat with their hands. They love small foods they can pick up and pop right into their mouths - and even picky eaters are more interested if they get to make those foods themselves! Here are three finger food ideas that your kids can help to prepare. For special occasions, fancy up your recipe. They make great appetizers for a kids' party and are sure to be popular at your next potluck!

Egg-in-a-basket
A lot of versions of this recipe are fried, but baking is healthier and can be faster when you have a whole crowd to feed. Cut crusts off sliced bread and use a rolling pin to gently flatten and stretch each slice. Brush lightly with oil, or spread thinly with margarine or butter. Fit the bread, oiled side down, in the well of a muffin tin. Break an egg into each bread-filled well. Bake for 15 minutes in a preheated 400ºF (200º C) oven. Be sure a grownup supervises kids around knives and the hot oven! Washing up is an absolute must after handling raw egg.

Serve your eggs-in-a-basket for breakfast with a few planks of baked parsnip or yam, a handful of cherry or grape tomatoes, and little slices of sausage. If your kids are picky eaters or have more of a sweet tooth, try fresh fruit and cheese or yogurt on the side instead. For lunch, try adding a little grated cheese and some sliced mushrooms, peppers or other veggies. Kids may want to scramble their eggs before baking, to make it a bit more like a quiche or omelet. Serve with a garden salad.

My Mom used to make a twist on this, that we called chicken-in-a-basket. Prepare the bread the same way, but fill it with a spoonful of condensed cream of chicken soup instead of the egg. This could be done with pretty much any cream-style soup, and would be delicious with chowder! It's a good way to use up left-over meat and gravy, too. Chopped veggies would be good in this, or simply line the bread with a spinach leaf before adding the soup. This version may be a little too messy to be a finger food, though.

Mini pizzas
Who hasn't made mini pizzas at one time or another? This is another great finger food recipe that kids can customize. Let them choose between bagels and English muffins, or go back to the muffin tin idea, and use unbaked biscuit dough instead of baked bread products for the base. Add some pizza or spaghetti sauce, a little grated cheese, and offer the kids their choice of healthy toppings. Again, if your kids are picky eaters and aren't big on their veggies, you can grate a few into the sauce when you prepare it. Place pizzas under the broiler until the cheese bubbles, or bake 10 to 13 minutes in a 400ºF (200º C) oven.

Serve your pizzas with a green salad, and a baked potato or some oven-baked potato planks. You might want to make a "fruit pizza" for dessert too. Bake a single pie crust and spread it with a layer of slightly sweetened cream cheese or cottage cheese. Top with various sorts of berries and sliced fruits. Serve chilled.

Mini meatloaf
The first time we made these, we did them for Halloween and called them "witches' fingers." The kids loved them! Mix up a batch of your favourite meatloaf recipe, and let your kids shape it into lots of fingers, a little smaller than the size of a hotdog. You might want to have the kids wear gloves to handle the raw meat, and emphasize that they mustn't try to eat it or touch their faces until they've washed well with soapy water afterwards.

Line a baking tray with parchment and place the raw "fingers" on it, leaving space between them so they'll keep their shape. You can make one end a little pointy, and thicken the "knuckle" a bit so it looks knobby. You can use a thin slice of vegetable for the fingernail. For "bloody" fingers, brush your mini meatloaves with a bit of BBQ sauce or ketchup before baking. Parents may turn their noses up at the bloody part, but sometimes even the pickiest kid will eat food if it seems "gross"!

Bake about 35 to 40 minutes at 350º F (175º C) or until the outside is browned and there is no remaining pink inside. Your meat thermometer should read 160º F (70º C.) My girls love these mini meatloaves with a mix of cooked baby carrots and snow peas, and baked potato planks. My son isn't a big veggie eater, so I like to shred the veggies into the meatloaf sometimes. He likes his witches' fingers with rice - but that requires cutlery!