Healthy Snacks for My Toddler

I always cut up soft fruit and cooked veggies. I also, gave my kids cherrios,kix or other cereals. Good luck!!!

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Hi M. - My toddler likes a lot of the same things mentioned here. Some things he likes that weren't mentioned are mini-bagels with cream cheese or peanut butter and jelly. Fruit juice popsicles - fun to make yourself. mini-muffins (if you make them homemade use applesauce 1:1 rather than oil). He also likes tiny broccoli florets with ranch dressing. He likes yogurt also but we use the Horizon brands yogurt tubes. My whole family also likes my homemade cookies and they don't even care that their healthy! Just take a basic peanut butter cookie recipe and add a little oatmeal (reducing the flour) then add chocolate chips and nuts or even raisins.

I'm going to check back to see what other ideas come in :)

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Hi,
I give my girls, edamame. They sell it at Sam's Club in a eight pack container and you can microwave it for three minutes. peel and eat! I do not add the salt packet they put in there... the girls eat it up!! My girls are big fruit eaters too, I usually buy the fruit at Sunflower market I just get what's on sale that week, very economical. I cut it up and they love it. i also buy frozen mango at Sam's club. You can get a big bag for about $7/$8 and i just put some in a bowl let it defrost and they love that too. Good luck! hope that helps!

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My two year old loves cheese, yogurt, granola bars, dry cereal like mini wheats and fruity cheerios (not too much sugar in those), graham crackers, chic peas are also good, they are salty like chips but high in protein, a good finger food. There is also in the chips isle something called Veggie Booty. It's a light yellow bag with a pirate on the front of it. It's completely natural puffed corn with spinach and kale. It's really good. You'll probably like it too. But it has all natural ingredients and vegetables. There's also a pirate's booty. It's white cheddar covered puffed corn. That one is also good and made from natural ingredients. Hope those give you some good ideas.

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Hi! I have three kids under the age of 5 (the youngest is 2), so I constantly have to revamp snacks or it gets too boring for them. :) So here are some snacks (which double as great lunches, as well) I've tried that my kids enjoy eating:

one piece, cut up or torn up lunchmeat with cheddar cheese (they like thin-sliced meat because the texture is pleasing :) )

cottage cheese with cut up fruit (peaches, pears taste the best, I think)

hard-boiled egg (seriously)

cut-up apples with cheddar cheese

dried cranberries or raisins with crackers or a slice of bread

graham crackers with raisins

grapes with bread or crackers (of course, cut the grapes in half so he doesn't choke)

peanut-butter toast (toast the bread and instead of using butter, use peanut butter...My kids love it!) with slices of banana

yogurt (always a good one -- although I've found that my girls love yogurt and their brother does not) with dried cranberries or raisins

fruity granola bars, broken into bite-size pieces

Anyway, I hope there are some good ideas there for you!

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Great to read these responses because my 2.5yo daughter is not a big eater. She's not a fan of bread, so peanut butter on graham crackers is a big hit (I eat them too!). My daughter is always asking for popcycles so I freeze those yogurt tubes (Stonyfield or go-gurt). I have no problem giving her one whenever she wants - she's getting yogurt but thinks she's getting "dessert"!

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My daughter LOVEs fruit kabobs...I just cut up whatever we have on hand and put the chunks of fruit on bamboo skewers you can use to grill.

Another favorite is what we call banana sushi...I take a piece of bread & flatten it out with my rolling pin. I spread peanut butter on the bread and then peel a banana whole. Put the banana on one end of the bread and roll it up, then cut it into "rolls".

My daugher loves mini carrots cut into sticks and served with "dip" (i.e. ranch dressing)

Hope this helps!

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A few things my little guy likes:
-whole grain bread with hummus smeared on it
-apples or celery with peanut butter
-yogurt
-trail mix (raisins, nuts, cheerios)
-chunks of avocado (plain or with salsa)
-fruit with cottage cheese
-cubes of cheese

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Go-gurt (somehow it's more fun out of the tube :-), cereal bars, freeze dried fruit (there's a great one from costco from Brother's all natural and it comes in apples and strawberries and bananas), mini pb&j (I just make a regular sandwich and cut it into fourths), frozen veggies like corn, peas and carrots can be fun, graham crackers with dip (you can use yogurt or pudding). That's about all I can think of. Good luck!

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Graham crackers are a favorite. This is more of a lunch idea, but my kids like peanut butter roll-ups. Spread peanut butter on a tortilla, add some jelly, roll it up, and stick a toothpick in it to hold it together. It's way more fun than a sandwich.
We also like to fold up real American cheese slices (not Kraft Singles, which aren't real cheese) into quarters and make "sandwiches" with saltines or other crackers. My older son was a bit older when he started doing this, but I gave him crackers, a few slices of that cheese, and mini cookie cutters. He cut the cheese into shapes and put them on his crackers and was occupied for an hour! It was incredible.
We also love string cheese.
How about bugs on a log? Celery with peanut butter in the concave side, then stick raisins along the peanut butter like ants on a stick. Or M&M's, or chocolate chips.
We don't usually let bananas sit around long enough to make a sandwich out of them, but this is a taste that most Americans don't experience. I have a sandwich maker (squishes and seals the sandwich as it cooks it). I arrange banana slices to cover a piece of bread, then sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. You have to butter the bread or spray the sandwich maker so it doesn't stick. Hot cooked bananas are really yummy!
And then there's our house favorite, applesauce. Just to mix it up, we sometimes sprinkle cinnamon on it, or puree some strawberries or blueberries to mix in.
Gee, and I thought I didn't have any ideas!

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Some things we like:
*frozen tubes of yogurt or applesauce
*plain yogurt drizzled with honey, jam, or fresh-sliced fruit
*applesauce
*cheese quesadillas on whole wheat tortillas
*mozzarella cheese sticks
*hummus with vegetables (peppers, carrots, celery, etc.)for dipping
*frozen peas, corn, beans--my kids like them when they're still frozen
*crackers and cheese
*fruit smoothies (freeze fruit, dump it into the blender or food processor with some juice and yogurt and blend...yum!)
*You can freeze leftover smoothie mixture in popsicle molds for a snack a different day

Happy eating!!

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Hi M.,
here are a few suggestions.....
Frosted mini shredded whaet--rasins--peanut butter and honey sand--apple slices w/p. Butter--banana on a stick dipped in yogert and covered with rice crispies or whole grain cherrios. Freeze slightly (30 min) soy nuts and trail mix. Can sweet potates warmed w/ a pinch of brown sugar. If i think of any more i will respond again. good luck and god bless

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mine love cut up strips of red bell peppers - they're colorful and sweet.

also, there's a rice snack called Mochi that you can get at Whole Foods or Vitamin Cottage that puff up when you bake them.

the absolute favorite is firm tofu cut into squares and either drizzled with honey or with soy sauce to dip.

he also like edemame because they are fun to pop out of the shell.

yoghurt is another favorite, they like it with granola on the side that they can sprinkle on top.

(if he hasn't ever had tofu or edemame before then have a back up ready in case he doesn't like it.... but you may be surprised.)

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Excellent resource: Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron. There are many healthy recipes in the back for toddler aged children. I also love Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld.

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My son at that age loved pizza chopped into bite sized pieces, hard boiled eggs, yogurt of all flavors, cottage cheese with tomatoes and cucumbers diced very small mixed in it, scrambled eggs with cheese, english muffins with pb&j, he loves still frozen peas, shredded chicken, chex mix with cheerios mixed in (I took out the pretzels until he had more teeth), any type of cereal dry, oatmeal with a bit of lite syrup mixed in, cheese sticks (still a favorite)....if he isn't picky it is a fun age to test new flavors and spices. My son got a taste for garlic at that age and thankfully still loves it, my daughter at that age LOVES and still loves salsa, the chunky kind with tomatoes and onions.

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You've gotten some great ideas here!

I just want to mention that you can also load up your smoothies w/veggies. Great nutrition and you can't even taste most veggies. There are a ton of recipes at www.goneraw.com or you can google "green smoothies."

My 3 1/2 year old loves them so I can get him to eat veggies even when he's not in the mood. :) They're great for popsicles, too.

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i picked up one of those free recipe booklets from the produce section one time because it had a cartoon character on it my son was familiar with. he loves to be the one to choose a recipe from it and help me make it or just get out the ingredients from the fridge.