Spaghetti Soup for Picky Eater - Autism Help Studio

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Simple Spaghetti Soup for Picky Eating Autistic children

Let me give you some background information on how in the universe we came up with this spaghetti soup.

Background Story

When my child was diagnosed with Autism at the very early age of 2, we faced many other challenges that were brought our way.

We understand and realise that my Autistic childs picky eating and refusing to eat certain foods and certain textures is down to them being Autistic.

However, that is not to say that I have just let things go. NO!

We have been trying and trying to find recipes that m Autistic child is open to eating.

My child seems to really enjoy soups and many variations of soups.

So we have been coming up with many soups such as this one, and:

Most of my recipes are Vegan because I know Autistic children might have issues with meats and chickens.

My Autistic child also used to be like this.

But recently my Autistic child has been more open to eating eats and chicken so we have made progress in that regard.

During the whole process of trying to get my Autistic child to begin eating food we had to go through 7 months of Food Therapy as well as Trauma Therapy.

Autistic children experience Trauma differently.

So something as simple as choking on food can cause an absolute fear of swallowing and fear of eating food.

(Kind of like that episode in Young Sheldon, where he would only have his meals made into smoothies to drink them after he ended up choking on his food.)

The reason why we had to do this was because my childs’ weight began rapidly dropping.

Their vitals became low and they were lacking in a lot of vitamins and had a lot of deficiencies.

You can read about our food therapy through this link, Food Therapy; Help Autistic child eat food.

I have placed all the information needed in that post to how you can do food therapy at home with your Autistic child.

It is long and it is not easy. However it is worth the journey and knowing that your child can get some more nutrition as well as improve their health.

On a side note, the reason why we had to combine food therapy with trauma therapy was because of Trauma that my child went through during their early years which led them to developing a fear of swallowing.

Should you wish, you can read about the Trauma Therapy session we did with my child and you can do it with your own child at home yourself. (Trauma Therapy for an Autistic child)

I have to say that early intervention and Therapy is something I really believe in and as a result my child can sit and eat almost any meal we present them!

If you wish to read more about why children in general, as well as Autistic children and why they have certain food aversions, I recommend you read this book, ‘Food Refusal and Avoidant Eating in Children, including those with Autism Spectrum Conditions‘.

It is always worth researching and finding out which foods and textures your Autistic child does not like.

And try to work with them around those food issues and texture issues that they have.

It is also worth getting your Autistic child to help out in the kitchen if they are old enough.

If your child is not interested in cooking or spending time in the kitchen you can always also just talk them through what you are cooking and asking them what they like or not.

Part of the food therapy that I did with my child, includes them coming food shopping with me and seeing all the ingredients that I buy. As well as having them involved in the kitchen.

Why ‘Spaghetti’ Soup?

My Autistic child will actually eat this and enjoy it.

And I can promise you it tastes really good.

So its definitely worth a try.

Because when we find something that our Autistic child is actually willing to eat. You best be sure we make this.

This is a recipe my mother in law came up with actually.

And she is an amazing cook!

So rest assured this will taste amazing and delicious.

If your child enjoys pasta and spaghetti then this recipe might be for you to try so that you can get more various nutritions and vitamins into your child.

What you will need.

Ingredients:

1/2 Onion
1 Tbsp oil
3/4 Cup green lentils
1 Tsp Curry
Salt to Taste
1 Tsp Turmeric
Pepper to Taste
Handful of spaghetti, cut into a third or its original. (So each piece of spaghetti is cut into 3)
3 Cups of boiling water

Disclaimer

Have the lentils pre soaked for at least 2 hours before you start this.

Because, doing this will help speed up the cooking time.

You can even pre soak the lentils overnight.

Just make sure that you rinse them before you start cooking them.

The cooking time for this soup, if you presoak the lentils is roughly 30 minutes to 45 minutes.

So to Begin,

Start by finely chopping up the onions. And I mean very finely.

Because unlike the other recipes we will not be using the blender so make sure the onion is extremely finely chopped.

Preheat the oil on low/medium and very nicely brown the onions.

Slow heat and low heat after the ‘frying noise’ begins. But enough to get them nice and brown and soft.

You definitely do not want any kind of onion texture in the soup because from my personal experience, Autistic children do not like the taste or texture of biting down on hard onion pieces.

Although your Autistic child might be different.

As my mother always says, ‘No finger is the same, even though they are on one hand’.

Don’t forget to keep stirring because unless you use a ton of oil, there is the possibility of the onion sticking to the bottom of the pan and potentially burning.

After you have achieved the desired texture and visual/colour of the onion then it is time to add the green lentils to the recipe.

While the onion is still on low heat, add the green lentils to it and heat it up with the onions for a minute or two

Yes, I know the picture has a lot of salt.

It turned out to be slightly too salty.

But, eh, live and learn for next time huh.

This was about 2 Teaspoons of salt.

Keep stirring the mixture, because lentils also have the potential to stick to the bottom of the pan.

Anyway,

It is at this point that you want to boil the water and add it into the pot.

I do not recommend using warm or cold water because it does slow down the speed at which this whole soup will finish compared to using boiling water.

And it is also at this point that you can turn up the heat to high.

Add the spices now.

You want enough water to cover everything at least 1 or 2 inches.

However, you can always add more water to the pot if you think that there is not enough water in it.

If you find that you have added too much water then you can always leave it without a lid on high heat to evaporate some of it.

But that is a step you should really only do at the end I think.

When you have finished adding the water, bring this mixture to a boil of course.

Once the mixture has started boiling, you can begin to break and add the spaghetti.

Disclaimer,

It is worth noting that you should add the spaghetti while not reducing the heat.

When we cook spaghetti regardless, we always place it in already salted boiling water.

This is kind of the same concept here.

Absolutely keep the mixture boiling untill the spaghetti becomes soft.

You will also find that most of the spaghetti, as well as the lentils will absorb most of the water.

That is why I suggested that you wait until this point to see if you need to add more water, or evaporate some of the excess water.

But do keep in mind that it is a soup. So it should not be dry or have little amounts of water.

This was the result of my soup.

I realised that I needed to add slightly more water.

So that is what I did.

A tip when adding the water to the soup:

You still want to only add boiling water to this.

And do not forget to stir.

We know for sure spaghetti likes to stick and in fact does stick if it is not stirred regularly.

Even though you have added boiling water, you do not need to keep the mixture on high heat.

This is the perfect amount of water coverage you should aim for.

Enough water to cover the entire soup but not enough to where you look into it and cannot see any of the ingredients.

Now look. I am not blind! I know how this soup looks.

It looks weird.

But for a spaghetti lover this really does taste amazing.

And it is healthy and nutritious with vegetables and grains in it.

Don’t knock it till you try it!

I Promise you will not be disappointed.

And this is coming from an Autistic person myself.

Just give it a try and see if your Autistic child likes it.

Because you never know!

If you don’t want to go vegan when making this soup!

You can always add very small pieces of sliced chicken breast into the recipe, while you saute the onions and lentils together.

As long as you keep stirring nothing will stick to the bottom of the pan.

But that is up to you as a lot of picky eaters do not eat meat.

Another thing to note about this soup,

You can always replace the spaghetti with noodles if that is what you wish to do.

Noodles will work perfectly fine also and are actually preferred if your Autistic child prefers noodles over spaghetti!

Don’t be too worried about Texture when it comes to this soup,

The reason why I say this is because the spaghetti and the lentils and the onions and everything else becomes very soft and needs to effort to chew.

You could even break it down with your tongue instead of your teeth.

That is how easy and light the texture becomes.