How to Make School Tiffins Healthy and Fun

Mothers are always concerned about their kids not finishing their tiffin.

The common complaints of parents are that children don’t  finish their tiffin and other major concern is the nutrition factor of the snacks given. So today were are going to help you with small tips and tricks to make tiffin fun and healthy for kids.

How to encourage kids to finish their tiffin?

• *Teach them to eat independently.
• *Let it get messy initially .Do not stop them rather encourage them.
• *Use cute cartoon tiffin’s, forks and spoons.
• *Make their favourite snack with a healthy twist.
• * Motivate them
• * Promise them to make a healthy cake or their favourite food.
• *Encourage them to sit with their friends and share and enjoy their tiffin.

Healthy tiffin’s options are infinite to start with Roti sabji, vegetable upma, vegetable paratha, stuffed paratha, idli, dosa , finger foods, homemade healthy cookies, for sweet option try seera ., roti with homemade Makhan ( butter ) and little sugar, cutlets the list is never-ending.

Let’s see how can you swipe a few ingredients and make the regular recipes nutritious and healthy: 

Swipe aloo (potato) paratha with these options: 

• *Paneer paratha (Cottage cheese)
• *Mix veggies paratha
• *Masala paratha
• *Green paratha (mix all greens)
• *Spinach paratha (Spinach)
• *Palak paneer paratha (spinach cottage cheese)
• * Matter paratha (Peas paratha)
• * Mattar paneer paratha (Peas and cottage cheese paratha)
• *Cabbage paratha
• *Coriander paratha
• * Methi paratha (Fenugreek thepla/ paratha) 
• *Ajwain paratha
• * Mix sprouts paratha
• *Pizza paratha (same fillers as pizza cheese with cottage cheese)
• * Pav bhaji paratha (Use bhaji as a filler and u can add pumpkin, cottage cheese, and potato or banana as a binder)

Oh…so many parathas…  I can go on with the types of paratha … so next time you make paratha for your child try all these varieties and do let me know if u like.

• *Try Ragda patty with mixed beans or mixed veggies Pattie rather than aloo ki Pattie with chole or Ragda
• *Mix sprouts with green spicy Chutney, sweet dates Chutney, Garlic Chutney.
• * Swap your biscuits with whole wheat Rusk, oats and dates cookies, oats banana cookies.
• * Instead of pakoda opt for poha croquettes. Croquettes are actually an Italian recipe. It is nothing but cheese balls but to give it a healthier twist, prepare them using poha. Make a mixture of soaked poha and boiled potatoes and make little balls out of it. To bring more taste, you can add mozzarella cheese in between the balls and fry them till golden brown, always choose air-fryer over deep frying to keep them healthy. I make them on the non-stick pan like patties, to add a twist to it I add pepper and sometimes boiled mix veggies (corn, carrot, pepper, peas, broccoli, etc).
• *Make Chapatti bhel, try varieties of bhel – murmur bhel, peanuts bhel, corn bhel, sprouts bye.

 Chilla/ dosa let’s see varieties – 

• *Moong dal ka chilla 
• *Mix daal ka chilla 
• * Oats ka chilla 
• * Mixed veggies oats chilla 
• * Ragi ka chilla 
• * Multigrain flour chilla / Dosa
• *Green Moong dal dosa with flex seeds 
• * Masala idli 
• * Idli Manchurian
• * Kebab idli 
• *Try healthy uttapams like oats uttapams, onion uttapams, and Tomato onion rava uttapams, paneer cheese uttapams.

Let me tell u my secret I make a paste of spinach, coriander, flax seeds and add it to my batter it not only adds nutrition but its green colour looks bright and nice and kids love to try new colours.

* Try cutlets/ Pattie /tikkis / fritters / kebab/ kofta…Call it by any name … just try the healthy option –

• -Beetroot cutlet, 

-Mix veg cutlet, 

-Soya green pea’s cutlet, 

-Hara bhara kebab, 

-Cauliflower fritter,

• * Try wraps/ Frankie /rolls rather than the same old roti sabji. To make it interesting and healthy swap the Maida Roti to whole wheat Roti, lettuce and cabbage leaves to add some crunch (if your child likes). Varieties you can try – 
• -Aloo paneer kofta
• *Aloo paneer roll 
• *Sprouts Frankie
• *Tandoor Paneer Frankie
• *cabbage ki sabji as filler.

The list is never-ending.

Get creative, try doing little food art, presentation makes food more appealing, try using rainbow colour (colourful fruits and veggies) 

Do try them and see the tiffin coming all empty.