Whether you’re spending a day at the park for a playdate, heading out on a road trip, or packing healthy snacks for your toddler at preschool, we moms know that creating healthy snack ideas that your child will actually eat can be overwhelming. You don’t have to resort to processed, junk foods.
Never fear, we’ve made snack time easy by serving up a selection of health-filled nibblies that even the pickiest child, toddler, or newly weaned babe will eat:
- Fruit kabobs
Use a cookie cutter to cut out colorful shapes from watermelon, honeydew melon, and cantaloupe. Thread onto wooden kabob skewers with halved grapes and strawberries for the juiciest snack yet. - Ants on logs
You really can’t go wrong by mixing savory, sweet, and crunch! Even the pickiest eaters will literally gobble up ants on a log, which is really celery sticks smeared with a teaspoon of all natural peanut or almond butter. The ants are actually raisins (or craisins) sprinkled on top. Create a story and watch them munch away on this protein-, fiber-, and potassium-filled snack. - Sweet tater fries
You bet French fries can be a healthy snack. Did we mention that these were made using a colorful array of purple and orange spuds. Dice them up into 1-inch sticks, cover lightly in olive oil and spices, and bake in the toaster oven for 25-minutes. Let cool and provide humus and low fat dressings for dipping. - Peanut butter-strawberry roll ups
If you feel like you can do healthier than peanut butter and jam on white bread, believe me, you can! Create an easy protein and vitamin C-rich roll up using whole grain tortillas, all natural peanut or almond butter, and diced fresh strawberries. Plus, the tortilla holds in the mess! Yay, less clean up. - Apple smash
Looking for a healthy snack and something to do with aging apples in your kitchen? What about smashing up dem apples into a rustic applesauce of sorts. Assemble 3 cored and diced apples, and a teaspoon each of ground cinnamon and nutmeg, and enlist your youngsters to SMASH! - Cheesy satellite sticks
This snack is fun and protein-filled, which means it will keep you hungry toddler nibbling until their tummies are satisfied. Spear a few cubes of cheese with a salt-free pretzel stick and top with a halved grape to make a fun, futuristic space satellite with snacktime.
