Chili. Meatloaf. Meatballs. Desserts. Chicken noodle soup. Pasta. All of those are crock pot meals kids love. The variety of foods you can make in a crock pot is only limited by your imagination. The crock pot recipes already available are an expansive resource for finding meals children will love. Another plus to crock pot cooking for kids is that they can help more when you use this versatile kitchen appliance. Crock pots are good trainers for future cooking because they are safer than a stove and very easy to use.

Crock Pot Recipes - Ideas for Great Kid-friendly Menus

When making chili on a stove, you must brown the meat before you putting it into the chili sauce with beans, onions, peppers and garlic. With a crock pot, you can put it all together at once, turn on the crock pot and walk away. Have your kids help you prepare chili in a crock pot to make it go even faster and teach them a great recipe in the process.

Homemade noodles are a fun afternoon idea and while they do take longer to prepare than store-bought noodles in bags, they are fun to make and they cook up wonderfully in a crock pot. Get together and make some homemade noodles for chicken noodle soup and watch faces light up!

Crock pot meatballs are another food that is fun. They are a favorite among many children. Roll up, or have your children roll up, some ground meat with a few other ingredients and place them in a crock pot with the sauce. A few hours later, your kids will be ready to eat up the great recipe they helped to create.

If you have a crock pot with a timer, you may want to try making breakfast at night and wake up to a warm, energy-giving meal you can enjoy with the family. There are breakfast casseroles you can make as well as oatmeal with brown sugar or maple syrup. Again, if the children want to get involved, there is much they can do for both options. Oatmeal is an especially easy breakfast. In fact, it is so easy that older kids will be able to make it for you on their own.

Crockpot desserts are usually made with fruit. Cobblers, crisps, delights, strawberry sauces, bread pudding, caramelized bananas Dessert crock pot recipes make great desserts whether it is just you and your family or you have company over for dinner.  If you are having visitors, just start your dessert well before dinner and it will be ready to serve upon completion of your meal. The nature of dessert from a crock pot is nutritious and easy. Let your kids help and then be praised for their delicious cooking.

Loose meat sandwiches made from pork, beef or chicken are another option. You can barbecue the meat or spice it up for a tangy sandwich-filler or filling for pita breads. Kids almost never turn down sloppy joes. Barbecued chicken, whether made for sandwiches or eating with forks and fingers, is a good use for leftovers that might eventually be thrown out otherwise.

Something many of us remember is our grandmothers’ or mothers’ meatloaf. I hope that this is a good memory because meatloaf really can be a great meat stretcher. Kids can mix the meat and all the ingredients and then put it in the crock pot. All they will need from you is some help with cutting up onions and spices. Easy crock pot meatloaf harmonizes with baked potatoes and a crunchy, green salad for a relaxing Sunday dinner.

You already know you can make stews and soups with a crock pot but have you tried making “drop” dumplings for your stew? To make dumplings like these, all you have to do is mix up some biscuits with a mix and add just a little extra liquid to the recipe. Instead of putting them in the oven, drop the dough by the spoonful onto the top of your stew when it is about half an hour from being done. The result will be moist and fluffy dumplings. Making drop dumplings is a simple activity for kids.

Crock pot pasta recipes for kids can include such favorites as lasagna, macaroni and cheese, tuna casseroles and several other ways of making pasta. Macaroni and cheese is a particularly easy kid favorite and lasagna pleases everyone.  Homemade bread or garlic toast is good complements to crock pot pasta.

While there are many recipes for the crock pot that do not appear at first glance to be enjoyable ones for children, there are enough recipes to go around. Besides, some foods just taste better when you have had a hand in cooking them. crock pot recipes for kids are easy. Maybe they will not be bothered so much when you ask for help in cleaning up!

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