Birthday Party Healthy Food Ideas
Looking for the best kids party food ideas? Here are 20 winning dishes guaranteed to please! I can’t tell you the number of kids parties I’ve been to where Mum has created an amazing party food spread only to have half of it left on the plates. To provide a little inspiration, we've come up with 9 low-cost, D.I.Y. Party ideas, complete with simple and affordable wine and food pairing suggestions. Now, all you have to do is start making the guest list.
Kids love birthday celebrations, and parties are a great opportunity to celebrate with amazing food. Party food for kids can be colourful, exciting, and healthy, but sadly kids’ parties have become synonymous with sugary foods that are loaded with saturated fats. However, these great ideas will help you avoid the junk, and make kids’ parties healthier, more special, colourful, and fun – all with minimum fuss.
Keep it simple
To make sure your party isn’t full of kids avoiding the food and getting grumpy, stick to foods with well-loved ingredients and flavours. Think bananas, strawberries, apples, cucumbers, tomato, carrots, sweetcorn, avocado, maybe some peppers, and other straightforward veggies and fruits that you know your kids will dig.
“Make-it-yourself” station
Given the right circumstances, children love getting involved – it gives them responsibility, gets the creative juices going, and is really fun with all their friends there. If you can get kids excited about making their own food, then you’ve thrown them a great party.
A “make-it-yourself” station is perfect for this; set up a table and cover it with pancakes and different toppings, a stack of tacos and a spread of different fillings, the components for homemade pizza, or a big pot of pasta with a few different sauces with which to top it off. The options are pretty endless, and the kids will love it.
Homemade lollies
These lovely lollies are easy to make, quick, and inexpensive. They also give you the chance to get really creative, using lots of different fruits or juices to create your own combination of goodness that the kids will love!
There is no need to spend money on expensive trendy ice lollie moulds, either; I like to use using old yoghurt pots – they work a charm!
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Make food more fun with natural colours
Dye foods with natural colours – think juiced beetroot, spinach and oranges, or blend up fruits with other great colour-boosting choices like blueberries, strawberries, mangoes, pineapple and kiwis. Whether you are dyeing an icing, smoothie, or cake filling, you will be surprised how beautiful natural tints come out!
Be smooth
Get creative with how you market your healthy fare to the kids. A “Shrek” juice or “Princess Elsa” blueberry smoothie will always sound more enticing than just “healthy juice”. A child’s portion of juice comes in at 150ml, and can be diluted with water to taste. Set up your juicer/blender on a table and make them to order – just like in a juice bar! For more smoothie inspiration, check out Jools’ favourite smoothie recipe.
Healthy Birthday Ideas
Chocolate-covered fruits
These are so straightforward, and so exciting for kids. Just melt chocolate in a bain-marie (use dark chocolate to keep the sugar levels down), dunk in a peeled banana, and then roll in chopped nuts (dried fruits and seeds are also winners) and cool on greaseproof paper.
Make your own alternatives to fizzy drinks
When you have a houseful of excitable kids to think about, avoiding sugary drinks is super important. As an alternative, try juicing up lots of fruits and veg in big batches, whizz up your own homemade lemonade, or jazzing up water with fruits, herbs, and maybe edible flowers.
If you don’t want to use sugar in your lemonades there are other great alternatives such as agave syrup, honey or maple syrup.
Hide the good stuff
Healthy dips in different colours and flavours. Sweet or savoury dips are a great way to incorporate “the good stuff” into kids’ tummies. Classics like houmous, butter bean, avocado (this guacamole recipe is the perfect way to serve this) and tomato salsa are all great options.
You can also forget the processed sandwich fillings and go with avocado, tomato, and hummus. Nut butters flavoured with cacao, vanilla, caramelised banana or the classic marmalade are all also healthier options than the ones brimming with saturated fats.
If you have kids with allergies coming make sure you label things that might contain allergens like nuts, dairy, etc – you can even make cute labels that you place next to such food items.
Kids Birthday Party Healthy Food Ideas
For more healthy party food ideas, check out these beautiful healthy snacks for kids from the Happy Pear.