Tzatziki (Cucumber, Mint & Feta Dip)

Claire Wright

Featuring:

Cucumber

Effort:

Complexity:

Cost:

In season now

Serves: 4

Prep time: 2 mins

Ingredients:

1 cucumber

300g Greek yogurt

75g feta, crumbled

1/2 bunch fresh mint (a large handful), leaves picked off and roughly chopped

fresh ground black pepper, to taste

Veg Portions / Serving: 1

Recipe created for Veg Power by Claire Wright. Food photography by Claire Wright | raisingsugarfreekids.com

Claire Wright from addsomeveg.com shares 3 simple ways to prepare cucumber that the whole family will enjoy.

This dip is really easy to make and delicious as a dip or sauce with cooked meat, salsa, raw or cooked vegetables and so much more.

Method:

Grate the cucumber and squeeze out some of the excess water. Stir it into the other ingredients and serve straightaway.

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

Show the kids how to carefully grate the cucumber and squeeze out the excess water over a clean bowl. Get them to crumble the feta, use scissors to carefully chop the mint leaves, and stir the ingredients together.

Activities

While getting kids to interact with veggies for real and using their senses to explore them is best, encouraging hands off activities like arts & crafts, puzzles & games or at-home science experiments can be a great start, particularly for those who are fussier eaters or struggle with anything too sensory. Use these veg-themed activities as a stepping stone to interacting with the veg themselves. We have loads of crafty downloads here, puzzles here, and quirky science with veg here.

Sensory

Once you feel your child is ready to engage a little more, you can show them how to explore the veg you have on hand with their senses, coming up with playful silly descriptions of how a veg smells, feels, looks, sounds and perhaps even tastes. Find ideas, videos and some simple sensory education session ideas to get you started here.

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

Communications Manager: After leaving Exeter University with a degree in English Literature, Claire worked in various fields ranging from youth work and charities to publishing, before starting up a food-focused website when her first child was born. After being asked to project manage the publication of Veg Power's Crowdfunder book, Claire came on board as a fully-fledged team member in 2018 to take on the role of Communications Manager, looking after Veg Power's website and social media platforms.

addsomeveg.com/

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