Picky Eater Dinners for Families to Customize

Dinner ideas for picky eaters: 5 flexible strategies plus recipes and tips to make one meal work for everyone, without becoming a short-order cook.

Oh, the picky eater and how they test us. Our time, our patience, our sanity…

Today, I’m sharing a curated collection of strategies and recipes to help you navigate whichever type of picky eater issue you are facing.

No more short-order cook. No more of the entire family’s dinner being hijacked by a single person’s needs (ahem, demands).

Instead, we are getting smart and strategic. And we are hacking recipes to make them work for us. As they should.

Two things to keep in mind:

1. You decide what’s served. They decide what and how much to eat. (It’s a framework called the Division of Responsibility by Ellyn Slatter and it’s incredibly freeing.)
2. Aim to include one “safe” food for your picky eater at every meal. Having something they know they like and will eat can lessen anxiety and allow for trying something new or different.

And of course, every picky eater is different. Use the recipes and tips below as a starting point and adapt to what works best for your household.

If your picky eater…	Try this…
Hates foods touching	Deconstructed Plates
Will only eat bland/beige or safe foods	Base & Boost
Refuses sauces, spices and extras	Pull Before You Sauce
Wants control or fights about food	Build Your Own
Has different preferences than others in family	Individually Assembled

OK, let’s get to the recipes and some tips to help you make them work. Click on any title or photo to be taken to the original recipe website for full ingredients and instructions. Also, some recipes and ideas could work for multiple categories, so feel free to browse around.

Here are the sections if you want to jump down.

Build Your Own Recipes

Everyone gets to customize their plate with their favorite add-ons and toppings. Find a few favorite bases and you can rotate what you offer with them so it feels like a familiar but also new meal every couple of weeks!

Baked Potato Bar: Use a regular russet or a sweet potato as the base. Offer whatever fillings might work best: chili, chicken and broccoli, pulled pork, cheese and bacon, etc. Plus, you can have a variety of toppings to let everyone customize their bowl.

Ramen Bar: Use store-bought ramen packets as a shortcut to get going. Then let everyone add in their favorite protein: chicken, pork, steak, etc. And finish with any desired toppings, including a fried or soft boiled egg.

Kabob Bar: It’s just fun to eat off of sticks and to arrange your own. You can easily keep the individual things separate for picky eaters.

Chili Bowls: Start with a mild chili as a base and let everyone customize. You can simplify this recipe by omitting the onion, jalapeño and green chilies if needed. 

Rice Bowls: Start with a base of plain white or brown rice and allow everyone to pick and choose what to add on top. These are vegetarian, but you could add some shredded chicken or cooked ground turkey or beef or steak or shrimp as protein options.

Burritos: Keep all of the filling and topping ingredients separate and everyone can add to and roll their own burrito just like they want.

Nacho Bar: Keep it to just chips and cheese and let everyone customize their own nacho plate with their desired toppings. Can be as simple or as complex as you like and every bite will have some good stuff on it!

Base & Boost Recipes

Start with a simple baseline meal that everyone can eat. Any more adventurous eaters can add toppings or make upgrades for just their plate.

Buttered Noodles: A classic that can be served on its own. Skip the parsley for the group. Add in shredded chicken or cooked shrimp, steamed broccoli, peas, Parmesan, chili crisp and other additions for anyone who wants some extras.

Spaghetti Dinner: Cook the spaghetti separately from the meat and marinara and everyone can layer theirs on. Or remove some food for the picky eater and then add some flavor boosts, such as garlic and red pepper flakes to the sauce. Or wilt in some fresh spinach and add diced tomatoes for texture. You could also swirl in heavy cream and/or Parmesan for richness, or experiment with some white miso or anchovy paste.

Chicken Tenders: A kid favorite. Serve plain or offer dipping sauces. Enhancements include serving as a wrap or over a salad or grain bowl.

Cheesy Chicken Meatballs: Meatballs can be an easy on-their-own protein for picky kids. Serve plain, with a dipping sauce or tossed in marinara, depending on preferences. They can also be used to make a sub or for a pizza for part of the family.

Mac & Cheese: A favorite stand-alone side dish that can become a main meal for anyone who wants to boost their bowl. You could add some chicken or ground meat, steamed broccoli or peas, extra cheese or fun flavor extras like buffalo sauce and blue cheese.

Chicken and Mashed Potato Bowls: The picky eater can have just the rotisserie chicken and plain mashed potatoes. Everyone else can add the peas and gravy and any other toppings like roasted veggies, cheese or hot sauce.

Pull Before You Sauce Recipes

These recipes work great for picky eaters who don’t like sauces or spices and a family who wants a real, complete meal.

Fried Rice & Stir Fry: Reserve some plain rice and chicken, or your protein of choice, and any plain vegetables that your picky eater might try. Then proceed with the recipe and add all the spice and sauce and flavor you want! This idea also works for any type of stir fry. Separate and remove some for the picky eater and then cook the rest all together for the rest of the family.

Sheet Pan Chicken and Veggies and Sheet Pan Chicken Sausage: Only use the honey mustard on some of the chicken, leave the rest plain and just lightly season a portion of the potatoes so those and the broccoli stay simple. This general idea can be applied to many sheet pan meals, which are great for separating what’s being cooked and seasoned to allow for different tastes.

Swedish Meatballs: These meatballs bake  before being tossed with the creamy gravy. So a picky eater can have their meatballs plain alongside or over mashed potatoes or egg noodles while everyone else can enjoy the real deal.

Curry Ground Turkey: Use the trick of moving all the onions and garlic to one side of the pan and making sure there’s some plain, cooked ground turkey you can remove for your picky eater. Then continue with the recipe and have a flavorful curry ground turkey served with rice and peas (separate for the picky eater of course).

Honey Garlic Chicken or Honey Mustard Chicken: The cubed chicken gets cooked before the sauce is added to the skillet, so you can just remove some for your picky one. This method works for any type of saucy skillet chicken where the chicken is cooked through before the sauce and other flavorings are added.

Deconstructed Plates

These plates mean food is cooked and served separately and no food is touching, unless the eater wants them to. For kids or adults especially concerned about mingling, use a plate with built in dividers to keep things separate (or use mini bowls that can go on or near the plate).

Meatballs & Noodles & Sauce: These can easily stay separate for picky eaters and get tossed together for the rest of the family. Same goes for a side salad (which can be just plain lettuce for the picky one).

Taco Bowls: Most bowl-type recipes can easily be deconstructed to keep some of the ingredients separate for picky eaters. 

Skillet Fajitas or Sheet Pan Fajitas: Whether baked or made in the oven sheet-pan style, fajitas are an easy one to separate out. Use one pan for sautéing the onions and peppers and a separate pan for the chicken or steak or shrimp. (It’s an extra dish but it’s faster, I do this regardless some nights!) Remove before seasoning with fajitas seasoning, if needed. Then serve cheese and tortillas and beans all on their own.

Sheet Pan Pork Chops or Sheet Pan Sausage and Veggies: You can easily use different sections on your sheet pan (separated by crimped up aluminum foil if needed) to keep food cooking separately. And you can also season parts less for picky eaters.

Snack Board Dinner: A charcuterie board style meal, but extra spread out. You can have some very simple options for the picky eater and some more adventurous snacks and appetizers for everyone else.

Individually Assembled Meals

These are recipes that can be customized for different family members. This might not work great if you have 5 or more family members because now you are cooking 5 separate meals back to back and we’re getting into short order cook territory.

But on a night where you’re maybe serving yourself and your picky eater, these can be the perfect fit! Or if you want to make an all-in-one casserole or soup for everyone else and just have a separate meal for your picky one, that works too!

Chicken Quesadillas: Use plain chicken and a simple, favorite cheese for a low-key quesadilla and add all the veggies, mix-ins and toppings for any non-picky eaters.

Grilled Cheese: Keep it simple or make an epic sandwich! Pair with tomato soup. Many of these ideas, and other sandwich fillings you can think of, would work great for creating individual paninis as well.

French Bread Pizzas: Cheesy and comforting, you can make a pizza loaf specifically for your picky eater and let everyone else add on to theirs. Works great for pita pizzas and English muffin pizzas too.

Omelets: Make an individualized breakfast for dinner night. Each person gets to decide what goes into their omelet. Nothing or just cheese are perfectly good options.

Foil Packet Meals: Everyone decides what goes into their packet and they can all cook at the same time, whether that’s in the oven or over a campfire!

That’s it for the recipes. But I’ve got a few more tips and resources for you.

Tips for Your Mental Sanity:

One: If you flinch at the term “picky eater” like I do, feel free to use my pivot phrase: selective eaters. Cause aren’t we all selective about what we do and do not eat? Of course, that’s normal.

Two: Focus on the positive. (Surely there is one in there somewhere.) Maybe the only green thing your kid will eat is lettuce. You could be bummed or you could brag that your kid actually likes salad.

Tiny perspective shifts as a survival strategy!

Also, if you are worried about a child’s nutrition or growth or anything medical or even psychological involving food and eating, please consult a medical professional.

Have a recipe you’d like to see included? Or other suggestions or feedback? Let us know!

Looking to simplify dinner time? 

You might also be interested in these collections:

Cook once, eat twice dinners includes combinations of common base main dish recipes and two or more recipes you can use to repurpose the leftovers.

Emergency dinners are quick and easy to make with what you’re likely to already have on hand. They are perfect for nights when the chicken is still frozen, everyone’s just walked in the door and is starving or the original plan fell apart.

Sports practice night meals: Tips and recipes for feeding your busy kid amid sports practices or activities that have you running all over. From slow cooker recipes to big batch, make ahead and easy last-minute recipes, these family friendly meals will save the day. And maybe your sanity.