The Things I Love Most

Tips To Enjoying Life With Your Family

The Bean Test – Repost

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My kids detest beans. I mean, just to look at them they want to dri heave. I on the other hand LOVE beans. Black beans are my favorite, but I will eat almost any kind. My children are a different story. I have tried over and over to put beans in things and they will not eat it at all. It is funny because as babies they love them and will eat them up, but after they turn one, beans are gross. A few weeks ago I asked for some suggestions from Amy over at Super Healthy Kids. She did a bean week in honor of my question and gave her readers some great ideas to help sneak beans gradually into kids food! So I took on the challenge and decided to try it. I tired a new bean recipe a week and had great results.
The first recipe I tired were the Chick en Nuggets. These are SO good, and the kids ate them up. I even told them after words what they were made of and they didn’t even care. {YEAH}
They are made from Chick Peas and bread crumbs mostly.
Look at my happy bean eating boy!!
The next thing I tried was Roasted Chick Peas. They were really good and the kids enjoyed them for an evening snack! The recipe is…
  • Open a can of chickpeas{aka Garbanzo beans} drain and rinse them and pour them onto a baking sheet with tin foil on the bottom. Pat dry with a towel. Spray with canola or olive oil, sprinkled Parmesan cheese and salt Bake of 400 for 25-30 mins. {sorry no picture}
Next was Black Bean Burgers. My four year old could eat a Cheeseburger every day. He is obsessed with them. I wanted to see if they would notice these were any different. They did, but really liked them and ate them all up! I also really liked them, and would much rather make these then make my own with ground beef!
Black Bean Vegetarian Burger
  • 2 cups black beans, mashed up
  • 1 cup bread crumbs
  • 3 TBLS salsa
  • 1 egg
  • 1 Cup cooked rice (brown or white)
  • Mix all ingredient together and make patties. Cook on griddle or pan until brown on top. Add lettuce, tomatoes, and other hamburger condiments to finished patties and bun.
We tested out the White Bean Cookies next with pureed white beans. The kids knew about the beans because they helped me make them. They were really good. We doubled the recipe and froze a bunch {but those are also all gone now- my husband is a cookie monster, and I was also!}
Flower Tacos
Tonight for dinner I put the beans to the ultimate test and made this mixed with this. Flower Tacos is what we called them. I used corn tortillas which we usually don’t like, but baking them made them really good. Then I made the Bean Dip and used kidney beans. My kids still will not eat an actual bean so I did have to puree them. Then we baked them and topped them with meat, cheese, lettuce, baby tomatoes and ranch! They were delicious, but I am sad to say my boys did NOT eat them. I will try again and again until they do though!! My next goal is to get them to like tomatoes. I think that is one of the reason they didn’t want to touch these.
All in all it was a successful couple of weeks testing out bean recipes. I think if I do it gradually the kids will really start to like them! Thanks Amy for all your great ideas!

Comments

  1. I’m so glad you tried this! I love that beans are so inexpensive, and can literally last forever on your shelf.
    I also wanted to agree to your most recent post. I can’t afford to craft and bake every day either. (nor do I really want to spend my money in that way even if I had the money 🙂 And my kids are turning out just great 🙂

  2. I’m really not a bean fan either, but I’m trying to do better. But I actually found a black bean burger recipe that I LOVE.
    Do you read Nie Nie’s recipe blog? You should try her black bean burger with lime-cilantro mayo.