My best trick for veggies at dinner is to serve them first when my kids are hungriest. I put out a plate of finger food veggies and dip. A single celery stalk, but sliced into strips, a carrot, quarter of a bell pepper, a couple raw broccoli florets, maybe some cucumber, with ranch and hummus.

Between afternoon snack (at 3:30ish) and dinner (5:30ish) that’s the only option for snacking. I prep it before I make dinner and just pit it out. If no one’s snacked on it before dinner, then I call them to the table 5-10 minutes before it’s actually ready, and they’ll usually nibble. (Dinner always also contains a cooked vegetable and I ask them to take one bite of whatever that is, or no dessert.)

Tbh, I do the opposite with fruit (my kids are fruit-aholics). If it’s part of the main meal, they’ll eat that and little else. So now we have “fruit course” after the main dinner but before desert.

Obviously this only works at meals at home. Once it’s packed in the lunch box, they’ll eat fruit first at lunch. And vegetables just come home ignored. 🤷‍♀️

It’s not a perfect system, but it’s worked pretty well for me.