Add vegetables to popular dishes in combination with old favourites to show pupils a variety of textures and colours.
Prepare vegetables in different ways to vary the texture such as raw, mashed, baked, grated into a main meat, fish or vegetarian dish, as an accompaniment, or blended up as a pasta sauce or soup. Some good examples are:
- Red kidney beans or chickpeas added to popular sauces like Bolognese, chilli or curries. Remember these pulses count as vegetables and are a useful source of iron, zinc and dietary fibre.
- Red or green lentils to casseroles and sauces to thicken and add flavour. Green lentils are also a good source of iron.
- Make meat and fish go further by adding vegetables to traditional meat and fish casseroles, curries, pasta, rice dishes such as .
- Occasionally cook stir fries in front of the students – live cooking is always tempting and creates an opportunity to talk to your customer.
- Incorporate vegetables diced or sliced such as green, red and yellow peppers, grated carrots to popular dishes such as pizza, wraps and sandwiches.
- Serve carrot and celery sticks, florets of broccoli and cauliflower, and strips of red pepper with a bean dip such as hummus.
- Mashed potato with added carrots, parsnips, peas or spring onions.
- Wedges with a difference: cut potato, sweet potato, pumpkin and parsnip into wedges, steam until cooked and serve with fresh or dried mixed herbs and seasoning.
Note: It is good practice to label dishes so it accurately describes the main ingredients so that students know what ingredients are in the dish.
