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