If you're looking for a meal that doesn't require heat of any kind and that your kids will love, check out these fun kabobs. I honestly didn't anticipate how much my kids would love making these. If you really think about it, the kabobs are like a recipe and craft all in one. Honestly, of all the recipes we've made to date, my kids had the most fun making these kabobs!

My kids and I decided to make 2 kinds of kabobs: Caprese and Fruit.

Caprese Kabobs

While I love a good Caprese salad, I had to convince my kids that the tomato-mozzarella-basil combo would be tasty. I think what sold my kids on the skewers was me letting them add their favorite meat. So, our kabobs ended up having mozzarella balls, grape/cherry tomatoes, small basil leaves, avocado chunks, and lil' smokies. Honestly, it really worked!

Had I made these just for myself, I would have drizzled olive oil and balsamic on the kabobs, but I knew that would be too much of a stretch for the kids. As it was, I had to explain several times that the mozzarella ball was, in fact, cheese, and not something to be scared of. Lol! My kids warmed up easily to the basil leaves because we have grown them in our garden in the past, something which I highly recommend.

Fruit Kabobs

While I made my kids eat the Caprese kabobs first, they were most excited about the fruit kabobs. I bought a random assortment of fruit at the store (cantaloupe, grapes, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, clementines), but you can use almost anything.

The Best Part

The best part of this whole dinner, aside from it being completely no-cook, is that kids have complete agency and can handle the whole thing. All I did was put all the ingredients on the kitchen table, next to the kabob sticks. They assembled the skewers on their own. They played with patterns, symmetry and color. Each kabob looked totally different. The whole meal was prepared on the kitchen table. And, when we ran out of kabobs, we just made ourselves more right then and there. You cannot beat how simple this is! And (it bears repeating) of all the meals I've made with my kids, they had the most fun making this one.

Leftovers

You can totally make extra kabobs and keep them in the fridge for leftovers. The fruit kabobs made for a great after school snack, and I grabbed a couple of the extra caprese skewers during the day when I was running out the door.

How Kids Can Help Make Kabobs:

This salad involves many kid-friendly tasks. Here are some ways for your lil' sous chefs to help out:

Choose the fruit! Kids can decide which fruits to use for their fruit kabobs. Just about any soft fruit will work!
Assemble! Let kids put the skewers together on their own. They can play with patterns, symmetry and color.

Final Tips To Ensure Smooth Sailing!

Modify the meal...

🍅Make it Vegetarian! Easy peasy! Take out the meat. Then the skewers will be, as I intended, in classic Caprese style, anyway.

🍅Make it Vegan! Take out the meat and the cheese. It would be delicious to have salad kabobs with tomatoes, basil, cucumber, mushrooms, small radicchio leaves, sliced radish, red leaf lettuce, and croutons (if you can get them on the skewer without crumbling apart). Then drizzle olive oil/balsamic or your fave salad dressing on top. Yum!

🍅Make it Dairy Free! Just take out the cheese. See Vegan suggestions above too.

Our Kidify Tips...

🍅Kids pick the fruit! For the kabobs, I chose to use cantaloupe, grapes, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, and clementines. But you can use anything that could stay on a stick. Other ideas: pitted cherries, pineapple, pear, apple.

🍅Use favorite ingredients! Like I said above, what made the caprese kabobs doable for my kids is letting them add on lil' smokies, which are their favorite little meat snack. Ask your kids what they would like on the kabob.. It could be another veggie, pepperoni, more cheese, etc.

🍅Put it on a stick! I can almost guarantee that whatever food your kids love, they will love even more on a stick. You could do something as simple as make a PB&J sandwich, cut it up into little squares and stack those on a stick. Or heat up some frozen chicken nuggets in the microwave and stack them on a stick, alternating with cheese cubes. Anything goes!

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