Fuss-free, kid-friendly vegetarian meals the whole family will love

One afternoon last November, while sitting at the kitchen table, my daughter announced she was a vegetarian – and hasn’t touched a sausage or a chicken nugget since. For her, the decision was very obvious: she didn’t want animals to suffer on her behalf.

This wasn’t a surprise to her father or me. After waking, Arya spends 10 minutes every morning in an elaborate ritual akin to a Japanese tea ceremony, bedding in her koalas, teddies and fluffy rabbits for the day before coming down for breakfast. Last year, after hearing that the polar bear’s habitat was in decline, she applied to be on her school’s eco council (and now regularly berates us for not having switched to an electric car).

I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that my children eat the food I cook for my Guardian column. The truth is that both my girls (I have a three-year-old too) find the food too complex.

Arya, in particular, has always had a sensitive palate. To her credit, she will try new foods, but will then tell me, very frankly, what she hates about them. On trying camembert for the first time, she said: “It smells like a cow did a fart then the fart wrapped around the cheese and stayed there for ever.”

I can empathise: growing up, I was nicknamed “chakli”, or “little bird” in Gujarati, because I’d peck at food, rejecting most things. For a time, I would consume only prawns, cornflakes or Heinz tomato soup. But here’s the thing about autonomy and children: it breeds curiosity and so, since turning vegetarian, Arya has eaten more widely than before.

And so on to the vegetarian recipes we’ve been cooking and loving to eat as a family – which, I must say again, spans a toddler and two adults – and a quick but important note: I always leave out fresh chilli and add a pinch of dried at most. I drop spices right down (including fresh ginger) and I substitute whole spices for ground, adding them quarter-teaspoon at a time, until I feel it tastes right.

Eggs | Weeknight tacos, in which a tortilla is placed over wet, beaten cheesy eggs in a pan until set, then flipped and served with ketchup or hot sauce (and chopped coriander), or egg fried rice (see below) or savoury eggy bread.

Pulses | Pinto bean quesadillas! Try these ones by Naturally Ella, which uses tinned pinto beans. My children love a red lentil dal like this Malaysian dal curry although I go easy on the tamarind.

Rice | We all love rice, especially egg fried rice. My recipe is similar to my tofu fried rice, except that I fry finely diced carrot with the onion until very soft, then add a handful of chopped broccoli before I proceed with the eggs and rice. We also eat variations on this pulao regularly and occasionally eat pineapple fried rice or Yotam Ottolenghi’s mejadra.

Curries| My katsu curry (pictured above), this Chinese takeaway-style curry and a variation on this potato curry, sometimes made with chickpeas.

Soup and sandwiches| This pea soup with vegetable stock is simple and fine with a big hunk of bread, while my friend Hannah, whose son recently turned vegetarian, suggested Uyen Luu’s bahn mi, which she makes with tofu instead of pork. I’m sure we’re going to love it, too.

Please do get in touch with what vegetarian meals your young children love to eat at hello@meerasodha.com – I’d love to hear from you.

New cookbooks I love | Ed Smith’s new book Good Eggs is joyful and triumphant, but also absurdly useful. I went to the launch of Radhi Devlukia-Shetty’s vegan book, Joyfull, and ate a very delicious frittata muffin, which I can’t wait to make.

Best meals I’ve eaten | I ate the leeks of my dreams at Acme Fire Cult in Dalston last week: they were grilled, peeled and sat atop a beautiful pistachio romesco sauce. I also popped into Rovi and loved the celeriac shawarma and mushroom congee. Keeping on an Ottolenghi theme, I picked up a slice of this butternut squash quiche from one of his delis and devoured it.

What I’ve been watching | I’m a David Chang fan so watching the great man cook live is a source of happiness for me. I’ve just started his new Netflix series, Dinner Time Live, in which he cooks extravagant and themed meals for celebrity guests. The episode with Seth Rogen was beyond indulgent and very funny.

A revelatory cooking technique I learned this week | Whipped tahini, from Kali Jago, a vegan chef with whom I’m developing recipes. When you blend tahini with water and oil, it emulsifies to form something with the same thickness as mayonnaise. It’s fantastic and I will share a recipe with you soon.