Soft-boiled egg with asparagus soldiers

Featuring:

Asparagus

Effort:

Complexity:

Cost:

In season now

Serves: 4

Prep time: 1 min

Cook time: 10 mins

Ingredients:

4 eggs

2 bunches asparagus (about 250-350g)

Veg Portions / Serving: 1

Find out how to make perfect soft-boiled eggs and swap out your toast soldiers for asparagus ones to start on your 5-a-day at breakfast. Breakfast in colour has never been so fun, quick and easy!

Method:

Bring a pan of water to the boil and add the 4 eggs. Set a timer for 5 mins and let it boil until then. Remove the eggs from the pan and run under cold water for a minute to stop the cooking process.

While the eggs are cooking, snap the ends off your asparagus and discard (or use in stock). Place a frying or griddle pan over medium heat until very hot, add the asparagus and allow to char and start to soften for 2-3 mins, turning regularly. Alternatively, you could set a steamer basket over the eggs and steam the asparagus for 2 mins, until just starting to soften, or add to the pan of boiling water after the eggs are out and cook for 1 min.

Take the tops off your eggs and have fun dipping the asparagus “soldiers” into the yolks!

This also works really well with purple sprouting broccoli, or any long thin veg like green beans, leftover roasted root veg fries, or sliced peppers (no need to cook those!).

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

The eventual aim, if possible, is to get kids in the kitchen. Don’t worry, this doesn’t have to mean they are with you from start-to-end creating mess and rising stress levels! It can be as simple as giving them one small job (stirring, measuring, pouring, grating, chopping…) ideally involving veg. They can come in to do their little bit, and have fun with you for a few minutes. Getting them involved, making it playful and praising them plenty for their involvement, perhaps even serving it as dinner they “made”, makes it much more likely they will eat the food offered, not to mention teaching them important life skills. Find ideas, safety tips, videos and even a free chart in our Kids in the Kitchen section here.

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.

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