Claire Wright
Serves: 4
Prep time: 2 mins
Cook time: No cook
Ingredients:
1x 400g tin of chickpeas or any bean of your choice, drained
1 lemon, juiced
1 clove of garlic, grated
4 tbsp olive or rapeseed oil
3-4 ice cubes or a splash of cold water
Salt and black pepper, to taste
Optional: roasted sweet potato/ shop-bought pre-cooked beetroot (unpickled)/ a handful of baby spinach
Need a quick and super simple dip to add to a snack platter for an after school hanger attack? Try our very adaptable hummus using what you have on hand!
Method:
Put your bean of choice in a blender, along with the lemon juice, oil, garlic, salt and pepper, and the ice or water.
Blend until smooth and serve with vegetable batons, breadsticks, or pitta bread.
For a flavoured hummus, add one of the following before blending:
Engaging Kids
Kids who engage regularly with veg through veg-themed activities, such as arts and crafts, sensory experiences, growing and cooking are shown to be more likely to eat the veg they engage with. Encouraging kids to engage and play with veg is the handy first step to them developing a good relationship with veg and life-long healthy eating.
Kids in the kitchen
Let your child take charge of this recipe – helping you add the prepped ingredients to the blender and pushing the buttons. They can decide which beans and veg go in, and which colour they want it to be!
Find more ideas, safety tips, videos and even a free chart in our Kids in the Kitchen section here.
Activities
Why not get a selection of different dried or cooked beans and lentils and try and capture the different colours, textures and shapes with colouring pencils? Or make a rainmaker with an empty, clean lidded crisp tube or milk bottle – pour in some dried beans or lentils, decorate them and seal the lid tightly before shake, shake, shaking!
Kids more interested in science? You can find at-home science fun with veg with our videos from Stefan Gates’ here.
Sensory
Why not explore beans through touch and sight? There are so many different kinds of beans and lentils. Get a few types that are a good mix in size/shape and colour, dried vs cooked, etc. and see if you can and your child can describe them. What do they look like? What colours, shapes and patterns can you see? What do they remind you of? What do they feel like? Are they rough, smooth, slimy, hard?
Find more sensory ideas, tips and videos here. If you get stuck and need a little help with describing words, we have a selection for you here, too!
Serving
The moments before food is offered can be a perfect opportunity for engagement that can help make it more likely a child will eat it! Giving children a sense of ownership in the meal can make a big difference to their feelings going into it and the pride they take in it. You know your child best, but if you aren’t sure where to start, we have some fun and simple ideas for easy roles you can give them in the serving process over here.
Claire Wright
Claire has been working with children, food and communications for over 15 years, and is our Editor at Veg Power, helping translate expert advice into small, practical steps for busy families, and creating recipes that are actually simple.
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