Choosing to be a vegetarian is becoming a more popular lifestyle choice for many families and their children. You may have chosen to bring up your child as a vegetarian, they may have made the choice themselves, or they are simply curious to try out some vegetarian recipes; there are plenty of delicious, nutritious meals and snacks just waiting to be eaten!

With that in mind, we know that it can feel like a challenge to find vegetarian recipes that are not only nutritionally balanced and protein-packed but also cater to your children’s full-on lifestyles—not to mention their fussy taste buds!

So, the question we will answer here is: how do you keep both vegetarianism on the agenda and your child full of beans?

Here are five easy steps:

Offering your child frequent meals and snacks

Ensuring that a vegetarian child is getting enough food, energy, or calories to fuel their growth, health, and all-around busy lives can feel like a concern. However, an easy way around this is to meet the nutrient and calorie demands of growth by offering your child more frequent meals and snacks. Provide foods with more unsaturated fats, such as nuts, nut butters, seeds, and avocados. Nutrient-rich snacks such as raw vegetables with hummus or tofu dip, finger-food veggies, fruits, dried fruits, and nuts are perfect for providing calories. With varied and balanced food choices, vegetarian eating doesn’t have to be lower-calorie eating!

Finding your child’s vegetarian “style”

Challenges are always better solved as a team. This is why it might be a useful idea to make a shopping list with the help of your family of food groups that fit your child’s vegetarian style. For example, hummus, cheese and crackers, fruit, milk, raw veggies, calcium-fortified soy beverages, yoghurt, and trail mix with nuts Once you’ve bought the foods, keep them on hand so satisfying your child's hunger cravings won’t be an issue—or result in you hastily reaching for the crisps and cookies!

Planning vegetarian dishes for the whole family

If your family has a range of food preferences, then keeping everyone happy can make mealtimes a chore. However, it doesn’t have to be if you plan vegetarian dishes ahead of time that will satisfy everyone. Delicious, nutritious, and filling options such as bean tacos, chilli with beans, or vegetarian pizza are great ideas to start with. Once you gain confidence in preparing vegetarian meals, the ideas for new recipes will start to flow in, and you’ll enjoy experimenting with new flavours and styles.

Preparing dishes in two ways

Providing your whole family with food they can all eat and will all love really isn’t as complicated as you think. Another solution to taking the stress out of feeding the family is to prepare some dishes in more than one way with a simple substitution. For example, a veggie burger for your child or teen and beef burgers for the rest of the family In addition, you can always prepare vegetarian foods as the main dish for your child and a side dish for others. For example, pasta, rice, and beans

Key nutrients to consider

When planning your vegetarian meals, think about the key nutrients that might be more challenging to get on a vegetarian diet. Consider how to get them in.

Here are some key nutrients to consider:

Protein. This can be found in foods such as eggs, tofu, beans, and lentils.
Iron. This can be found in fortified cereals and breads as well as veggies, especially dark green leafy vegetables.
B12. This can be found in milk, cheese, and fortified cereals (B12 can be more challenging to get when vegetarian and may need to be supplemented).
Omega 3. This can be found in walnuts, flaxseeds, and chia seeds (the best source of Omega 3 is oily fish, so this may also need to be supplemented in some vegetarian diets).
Fats. This can be found in oils, avocados, and nuts.

Top Tip: Your child’s doctor may advise a nutrient supplement to ensure they get all the nutrients they need for their growth and health. If ever concerned, do make sure to consult your doctor.

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