Hi Teresa,

The "methods" contained in chapter 5 of my first book says exactly how to sneak (see excerpt below). I can already see that there's a lot of information that needs to go into this answer, but I want you and all of my readers to be as best equipped as possible out there!

The basic principles of hiding foods are:

1. Similar colors and textures work well.
2. The healthy ingredient has to either enhance the overall original taste or add no taste of its own.
3. Sneak means don’t taint. You can’t affect the look or texture of the final product any more than the taste.
4. The added ingredient has to be good for you!

Whatever the product, it must meet three criteria: One, it has to have no real taste of its own. Two, it cannot leave too much of a gritty, leafy, or unusual feel or an off-taste in the mouth that will make it distinguishable from the main dish. (As we will see later, there are ways to deal with these effects if they do appear.) Kids are hyper-alert to any differences in their usual foods. In my lab test kitchen, I have also made sure that when these sneaky items are used, there are very few residual flecks of green and no lumpy, grainy, coarse, or harsh texture.

When I tested these products over a period of five years, they had to pass a rigorous test of being bland in taste and virtually invisible in texture. Not only do kids seem to have an unnaturally strong sensitivity to these changes, but they are not in the least bit diplomatic about pointing out their objections. If the words aren’t derisive enough, they usually make a face.

So bland-tasting foods are always chosen over highly pungent ones. No matter how nutritious something is, it will not work if it changes the taste and texture in an obvious way. It was a sad day when I realized I had to reject beets and asparagus because they have strong tastes that cannot be masked. Happily, I found that seemingly smelly cauliflower, which is very nutritious, was one of the easiest foods to hide when pureed.

The third criterion is that the added ingredient must be similar in color to the main dish. For instance, if you want to hide something in macaroni and cheese, you wouldn’t use pureed spinach because it would turn the yellow cheese a sickly color and would impart a “ funny” (definitely a kid word) taste. Ideally, the additive will not appreciably change the color of the main dish because that would be an obvious tip-off to kids that you’ve been sneaky. You have to either match the color of the dish or add a color that doesn’t change it.

In the above example, you could easily introduce White Bean puree into the mac and cheese because it virtually disappears. For a red pasta sauce, you could stir in pureed orange vegetables.

Drastic changes of color do work if the new color is . . . well . . .pretty. For instance, I have added Spinach Juice to color frozen vanilla yogurt a bright green shake for St. Patrick’s Day or Earth Day. I have also, as I mentioned earlier, mixed blueberries into ice cream or frozen yogurt for a delicious bright purple shake.

The experiments were conducted by me to take the guesswork out of it for you. So you can be sure that all of the recipes in this book produce acceptable color changes. I have steered clear of any modifications that incite the “ Ick!” factor.

If you decide to experiment yourself, it is best to use preschool color-mixing guidelines, which dictate that hues that are opposite each other on the color chart will not combine well. For instance, red plus green equals brown. If you try adding spinach puree to spaghetti sauce, you will end up with a sauce the shade of an old shoe. This only works for pizza if you cleverly hide all of the sauce with cheese. You can add carrots though, because orange doesn’t detract from the red. In addition, they cut the acidity of the tomato sauce. Spinach does work well in meat dishes and brownies, though, because brown isn’t affected by green.

I hope this information helps you, and all of my readers!

With healthiest regards,

Missy Chase Lapine
The Sneaky Chef