50+ Real Life EASY Toddler Meal Ideas

It can feel like you feed your toddler nonstop and between the 3 meals and 2 snacks each day; this is basically the case. Coming up with easy toddler meal ideas can feel especially challenging if you have a picky toddler. So whether you are wondering what to feed your 2-year-old for dinner or your 3-year-old for breakfast – I have plenty of easy, healthy, and real-life approved toddler meal ideas for you!

Tips for Making Easy Toddler Meals

1. Serve the family one meal. – There is no need to cook special food for your toddler. If you follow the Division of Responsibility in Feeding, you can learn how to cook one meal for the family and leave the decision of how much and if they will eat the food offered to your toddler.
2. Plan Ahead – While I don’t necessarily plan breakfast and lunch ahead, I do make sure that I’m stocked on the essentials for the foods I typically offer at these meals. For dinner, it’s beneficial to have an idea of what you can make each night so that you are prepared with thawed meat and appropriate ingredients.
3. Include one safe food. – If you are trying a new recipe or serving something that your toddler does not love, it can help to avoid power struggles by also including 1 item you know your toddler feels comfortable with.

Helpful Toddler Feeding Tools

Here are the basic toddler feeding essentials I love:

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• Toddler Silicone Plates with Lids -Stackable, tons of colors options and includes lids. These are hands down my favorite toddler plates (and I’ve tried many!)
• Elk & Friends Toddler Cups – We use these every day for all kinds of things. They are the best toddler smoothie cup, the best milk/water cup, and just my all-around favorite cup for home use. (We do use these insulated/closable cups for travel.)
• Toddler Learning Tower – Every toddler home needs one! I believe there is no greater way to foster a love for cooking and healthy food than to get your child in the kitchen with you! We love the tower we have, but here are my 5 favorite toddler towers on the market.

You can find my complete list of toddler feeding essentials here.

Toddler Breakfast Ideas

Ok, I’ve written about all my favorite toddler breakfast ideas before, but here are my favorite go-to toddler breakfast ideas. The great thing about these is they can also be used for lunch and dinner when you want to serve “breakfast for dinner.”

1. Overnight Oats – I love this no sugar (banana sweetened) toddler overnight oats recipe
2. Toast – Top with avocado, nut/seed butter, or even cottage cheese
3. Scrambled or fried eggs
4. No-sugar pumpkin muffins (sweetened with dates)
5. Yogurt topped with fruit and/or toddler-friendly granola
6. Pancakes – This recipe is perfect for toddlers and even babies as it is sweetened with bananas.
7. French Toast – A great way to sneak egg into your toddler’s breakfast.
8. Crepes – We make these sourdough crepes served with cream and fruit and our toddlers LOVE them. (It’s also another great way to sneak some egg into their breakfast!)
9. Egg Bake – Cut up broccoli and mix into an egg bake to get in some veggies for breakfast.
10. Breakfast Tacos – Make toddler breakfast tacos with eggs, cheese and avocado. (Also a great lunch option!)
11. Whole grain or sourdough waffles
12. Oatmeal -Here are 10 easy ways to serve oatmeal to toddlers
13. Toddler Cookies – these oatmeal toddler cookies are perfect for breakfast, snack or dessert!
14. Kefir Smoothie – made with plain kefir, frozen fruit, and a little honey
15. Dutch Baby – We love this recipe to use up extra sourdough starter/discard, but any whole grain or sourdough recipe would be great.

Toddler Lunch & Dinner Meal Ideas

For our toddler’s lunches, we do a variety of leftovers and other easy meals. I usually make a family dinner, but I’ve just combined these two categories to give you more ideas for when you need a fast meal for your little one.

My Usual Toddler Dinner = Home Cooked Family Dinner

As I mentioned above, we typically do a family dinner. This could be a home-cooked meal like a soup, a lasagna or casserole-style meal or perhaps most often a Meat + Starch + Vegetable type of dinner. I simply serve my toddlers (and babies) whatever the rest of the family is eating but with modifications made by cutting or separating things to make them more palatable.

However, here are some quick ideas I go to for lunch often and dinner occasionally:

16. Bean & Cheese Quesadillas – You can also use leftover meat and add some taco seasoning to spice them up.
17. Rotisserie Chicken + Roasted Veggie or Sweet Potato Fries
18. Grilled cheese sandwiches + Soup
19. PB & J – You can try other versions as well including adding banana, apple butter, almond butter, or honey.
20. Mini pizzas – You can use an English muffin, bagel, or toast. We like to use either sourdough, sprouted grain, or at least a whole grain option.
21. Chicken Nuggets + Veggie/Fruit – I recently bought Applegate frozen chicken nuggets for a quick toddler lunch when my fridge was running bare. Honestly, I typically just serve leftover meat from dinner, but these can be a convenient option.
22. Pasta with Favorite Sauce
23. Fish sticks + Veggie/Fruit
24. Rice and Beans + Veggie/Fruit
25. Tuna or Salmon Cakes + Potatoes + Veggie
26. Tuna or Chicken Salad – Serve on crackers, toast, or by itself with sides
27. Avocado Egg Salad – We love this easy recipe served on toast, bagels, or crackers.
28. Breakfast for Dinner (or lunch!) – Seriously, choose one of the breakfast ideas above and I guarantee your family will be so excited!
29. Leftovers – toddler portion of whatever you made for dinner the night before

And in case you missed it, I have 2 other articles in this series dedicated fully to toddler lunch and toddler dinner ideas:

Toddler Sides to Add to Meals

You can mix and match these sides to the meals above to add more nutrients and variety.

30. Soft steamed broccoli
31. Sweet potato fries
32. Roasted potatoes
33. Frozen peas warmed up
34. Carrot Fries – Roasted thin cut carrots
35. Fruit – Appropriately cut apples, bananas, berries, and melons are toddler favorites in our house.
36. Cucumber slices/sticks
37. Carrot sticks
38. Green beans – Canned green beans make for the easiest side!
39. Applesauce or another fruit puree/sauce
40. Sliced grapes
41. Cut Berries
42. Cuties
43. Sliced kiwi
44. Yogurt – I recommend full-fat, plain yogurt. If you need a grab-and-go option, Stonyfield organic full-fat kids does only have 4g added sugar.

Healthy Toddler Dessert Ideas

For toddlers under the age of 2, I recommend no added sugar. However, many of these recipes are sweetened with dates and therefore contain no added sugar.

45. Toddler Cookies – These contain no added sugar (sweetened with dates) so are perfect for even toddlers under 2.
46. Healthy Toddler Muffins
47. Homemade whipped cream + Strawberries
48. Bananas + Nut butter
49. 100% Fruit popsicles – these are my favorite healthy popsicle brands
50. Toddler and Baby-Friendly Banana Bread – Again no added sugar (just dates + bananas!)
51. Daniel Tiger’s Banana Swirl

BONUS: Easy Toddler Snack Ideas

I know you came here for meal ideas, but the reality is toddlers need snacks too…and a lot of them. Here are a few of my favorite healthy toddler snack ideas.

1. Yogurt parfait – Layer yogurt with fruit and toddler-friendly granola
2. Fruit/Veggie + healthy whole-grain toddler-friendly crackers
3. Cheese sticks + Fruit or Crackers
4. Veggie sticks (peppers, cucumbers, etc) + Yogurt Dip or Hummus
5. Crackers + Cheese or Peanut Butter
6. Snack bars – see my favorite store-bought toddler snacks

If you need more help with toddler snacks, I have a whole series on the best healthy snacks for toddlers:

And be sure to grab the FREE TODDLER SNACK LIST!

Healthy Toddler Meal Ideas

Healthy toddler meals don’t have to be complicated or time-consuming. In fact, many of our favorite toddler meals are ones that can be made quickly. For our family, we find batch cooking a few quick breakfast options (and mixing them with quick-cook breakfast like oats and eggs) works well. For dinner we make a home-cooked meal about 4 times a week, eating leftovers and quick meals the other nights. Lunches are a variety of quesadillas, PBJ, mini pizzas, leftovers, and eggs.

What are your favorite healthy toddler meal ideas? Feel free to leave a comment below with your toddler meal ideas!

Other Helpful Toddler Meal Resources

If you are looking for more help with toddler meals, check out the other articles in this series:

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