Whenever I post a weekly menu plan, there’s always someone who asks (and lot more people who are thinking!), ‘how do you get your kids to eat beans?? My kids would never touch that!”
Here are some tips that work for us:
a) When I add in ‘special’ or protein elements to a bean dish, that adds to the appeal. Hence a lentil salad would be ‘meh’, but when feta cheese is chopped up into the same salad it will be greeted with ‘yum!’ Chickpeas cooked with vegetables is kind of boring, but with a peanut sauce mixed in, much more appealing! Same thing with the burritos – by adding a little bit of shredded cheese to some beans and rice, it gets a significantly more positive reception.
b) The form the beans are served with also matters – bean stews are seen as blah by my kids, but if I make the same mixture into a burger or loaf, it gets gobbled up.
c) I usually add meat or chicken gravy or stock into the bean dishes that I cook to add a rich depth of flavor to the dish. I always save the gravy from roasted chicken for this purpose.
d) It’s not enough to make the bean dish look and taste good if you have the attitude that your kids will probably hate it! They pick up on that and respond accordingly.
Realize that beans are a kind of boring food – they don’t have much flavor on their own and need to be seasoned well. It’s also CRITICAL that they are cooked until completely soft. It is yuck to eat beans that are underdone and even a tiny bit of a crunch to them or even that mealy texture when they’re just cooked but not really soft!
There’s no way to get kids used to eating any kind of food without giving them opportunities to have them! If one attempt isn’t successful, it doesn’t mean they’ll hate all beans – it means you need to find a different recipe! My kids have grown up eating bean dishes and as a result, even without integrating any of the tips above, will eat them willingly. I can’t tell you they wouldn’t prefer hamburgers (so would I!) but beans are a staple in our pantry.
Avivah
I have about 100 recipies for curries, and they all adapt beautifully with beans. Many people from India are vegetarian. Chili is always a classic favorite, and I make it with 3 types of beans, and serve it over cornbread. My kiddo is a very picky eater, but she never complains about beans as long as the sauce is tasty and interesting.
My son loves beans. Believe it or not, his favorite way to eat them is frozen.
my kids like them straight from the can with a lot of ketchup and often mustard. i mean baked beans in sauce (the israeli kind, which i find too garlicky and not sweet enough and need to doctor them up for myself to taste like heinz). fairly popular quick dinner or school lunch in my house. except that my 2yo won’t touch them and needs to be fed something else.
re your whole picky eating shita, i pretty much do the same thing except that my kids (5.25, 3.5, 2) are often too little/distractable/busy to eat properly at mealtimes at home (we’re all out all day), and will often prefer to eat until they’re satisfied for the short-term and then run off to play. then they get hangry and impossible later or the next morning. so we do have to be a bit firm with “food time is now” and “no shabbos dessert until you’ve eaten enough food”. in gan it’s beyond my control and some are better than others at recognizing hunger cues and eating instead of just having meltdowns.
all that being said, BH they’re not particularly picky (differently picky. they’ll try anything once. they happily eat sardines and tuna straight from the can, but oatmeal with fruit made them cry. they tried liver and said they don’t like it very much. once they know they like something in one configuration, e.g., fish, they’re not afraid of the concept and will eat it in most forms) and they get enough nutrition. the 5yo will eat a lot of dairy and carbs all week and then only salad all shabbos.