Charlotte's Cucumber, Beetroot & Goat's Cheese Salad Sticks

Charlotte’s Cucumber, Beetroot & Goat’s Cheese Salad Sticks

Charlotte Radcliffe RNutr

Featuring:

Effort:

Complexity:

Cost:

Serves: As many as you like!

Prep time: 5 mins

Ingredients:

Cooked beetroot, chopped into chunks

Goat’s cheese cubes (or mozzarella pearls), drained

Cherry tomatoes, chopped in half (I used red, orange and yellow)

Mini cucumbers, thickly sliced (or regular cucumber chopped into chunks)

a couple of handfuls of salad leaves of your choice

Ripe avocado, peeled, destoned, and cut into cubes

Fresh squeezed lemon juice

Drizzle of extra virgin olive oil (optional)

Seasoning of black pepper (optional)

Veg Portions / Serving: 1

Recipe and photography from Charlotte Radcliffe | thenutritionconsultant.org.uk

Salad sticks are a fun, attractive and engaging way to get kids more excited about veg! Perfectly portable, they are great for summer campouts, travel, picnics, lunchboxes and BBQs. Get the kids making these salad sticks this summer – it’s as fun to make as it is to eat. Why not come up with your own favourite combinations and share them with us on social, tagging @VegPowerUK and #SaladSticks.

Method:

Ensure all the salad ingredients are washed and prepared as stated above.

Coat the avocado pieces in the lemon juice to stop them browning and set aside.

Take a few salad leaves into your hands and roll them together. Thread this through the kebab stick.

Then thread a piece of the cucumber, tomato, and avocado, leaving room for the beetroot and cheese.

Repeat step 3 & 4 until all the sticks are done.

Now, add a beetroot piece to each of the sticks. Once completed, wash and dry your hands thoroughly as beetroot colours the skin.

Top each of the salad sticks with a goat’s cheese cube (or mozzarella pearl).

If you are using large sticks, repeat steps 3-7 on each of the sticks.

If you wish, finish the salad sticks with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and some cracked black pepper.

Serve and let everyone help themselves. Enjoy!

Tips & Notes:

Using a serrated or shape cutter can make it more fun and appealing.
Using different coloured cherry tomatoes adds to the variety of colour.
Always be sure to wash your hands after touching beetroot.
You can also swap the olive oil for a drizzle of balsamic glaze.
Perfect for snacks, parties and picnics.

Still got ingredients leftover? Toss the remaining chopped ingredients together for a more ‘traditional’ salad and drizzle with dressing just before serving. To keep it portable, make sure you keep the salad ingredients in a separate container to the dressing and add at the last minute to keep everything fresh and crisp. Add some boiled eggs, cooked meat or cooked pulses, beans for a little extra protein if you like. Croutons or torn bread is lovely in the salad, too.

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

Kids can really take charge here, which is part of why salad sticks are so popular with them! Make sure to prep any chopped ingredients for them, and keep an eye on their fingers around the sharp end of the skewer, but otherwise let them build it themselves. Help them with any harder ingredients.

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.

Charlotte Radcliffe RNutr

Charlotte Radcliffe is a registered nutritionist (RNutr) and director of The Nutrition Consultant Ltd.

Having worked in the food industry for over 20 years, Charlotte has a unique combination of skills. She incorporates solid, evidence-based nutrition, communications and commercial expertise together with an in-depth understanding of food and ingredients. She has a strong food safety and technical background, and since qualifying as a nutritionist in 2007, she has performed many nutrition roles in the food industry (including working as Company Nutritionist for one of the world’s most recognised food brands).

www.thenutritionconsultant.org.uk

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