You can stack them up, you can knock them down, and you can eat them! These carrot and runner bean towers are great fun for kids to get involved with making, and they’re a fantastically healthy and delicious snack to see them through to tea time.
If you’re looking for ways to get your children involved and enthusiastic about healthy eating, read on!
This is a super fun carrot and runner bean stack, complete with yummy, creamy mint and yogurt dip and building the tower up is almost as much fun as munching it away!
One quick but vital tip to mention before we get started that while carrots are absolutely fine to eat raw, runner beans may contain toxins prior to being boiled and should never be eaten uncooked.
Ingredients
- 3 carrots
- 4 runner beans
- 250g (8.81oz) Greek yoghurt
- 1/2 clove of garlic
- A pinch of fresh mint leaves
Instructions
Prepare the veg
Place the runner beans in a colander and wash thoroughly with water. Do the same for the carrots. This is a fun, easy job for little hands.
Peel the carrots, making sure to use a child-friendly peeler, and helping children to get used to peeling away from their other hand and not towards.
Cut the peeled carrots in half to give two 7cm lengths. From here, a grownup can take over to slice them into 1cm batons with a knife, or you can use a child-safe potato chipper which I love because it only costs a few points and allows the children to take charge as they press down and watch the batons pop out the end.
Run the peeler down the length of both sides of the runner beans and snap off the very tops and bottoms, then snap roughly into 7cm lengths.
You can use a ‘guide’ piece of carrot to help get all of the pieces roughly equal. This is a good chance to about the snapping noise the beans make as you break them up. What do they smell like? Can you see the little beans inside?
If you notice any stringy bits remain after peeling you can remove them by pulling on them.
Fill a pan with cold water, add the runner beans and bring to the boil. A grown up will need to deal with this part as it will get hot, but children can be in charge of timing the 3-5 minutes needed to cook the beans until slightly soft. Drain the beans, run under cold water and leave to dry.
Make the dip
While the beans are drying, peel and grate the cucumber. You can use a standard grater, just be cautious of catching little knuckles. We love to use a child-friendly rotary grating tool as again, it puts the kids in charge.
After grating, squeeze any excess water out of the cucumber over the sink with your hands – do your hands smell different now?
Finely chop the mint and garlic (a job for a grown up, or use a garlic mincer), then add it to a bowl along with the yogurt and grated cucumber.
Mix together and then place into serving bowls.
Assemble your tower
Begin to assemble the tower, with two pieces per layer, alternating between green beans and carrots.
Keep going until you’re six layers high.
Enjoy! Or see how high you can stack your tower before gravity wins!
Look out for more uses for the produce you grow at home: home grown carrot and mango curry and homegrown carrot soda bread egg and cress sandwiches. Are you tempted?
If you’d like to print this carrot and runner bean towers recipe, just click ‘PRINT’ on the recipe card belo
Carrot and runner bean towers with mint yogurt dip
Ingredients
- 3 carrots
- 4 runner beans
- 250 g Greek yoghurt
- 1/2 clove of garlic
- A pinch of fresh mint leaves
Instructions
Prepare the veg:
- Place the runner beans in a colander and wash thoroughly with water. Do the same for the carrots. This is a fun, easy job for little hands.
- Peel the carrots, making sure to use a child-friendly peeler, and helping children to get used to peeling away from their other hand and not towards.
- Cut the peeled carrots in half to give two 7cm lengths. From here, a grownup can take over to slice them into 1cm batons with a knife, or you can use a child-safe potato chipper which I love because it only costs a few points and allows the children to take charge as they press down and watch the batons pop out the end.
- Run the peeler down the length of both sides of the runner beans and snap off the very tops and bottoms, then snap roughly into 7cm lengths.
- You can use a 'guide' piece of carrot to help get all of the pieces roughly equal. This is a good chance to about the snapping noise the beans make as you break them up. What do they smell like? Can you see the little beans inside?
- If you notice any stringy bits remain after peeling you can remove them by pulling on them.
- Fill a pan with cold water, add the runner beans and bring to the boil. A grown up will need to deal with this part as it will get hot, but children can be in charge of timing the 3-5 minutes needed to cook the beans until slightly soft. Drain the beans, run under cold water and leave to dry.
Make the dip:
- While the beans are drying, peel and grate the cucumber. You can use a standard grater, just be cautious of catching little knuckles. We love to use a child-friendly rotary grating tool as again, it puts the kids in charge.
- After grating, squeeze any excess water out of the cucumber over the sink with your hands - do your hands smell different now?
- Finely chop the mint and garlic (a job for a grown up, or use a garlic mincer), then add it to a bowl along with the yogurt and grated cucumber.
- Mix together and then place into serving bowls.
Assemble your tower:
- Begin to assemble the tower, with two pieces per layer, alternating between green beans and carrots.
- Keep going until you're six layers high.
- Enjoy! Or see how high you can stack your tower before gravity wins!
Let me know if you try a tower of your own, and how high your tower got!
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Don’t forget to pin this now to try later!
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Jessi says
What a fun way to keep the kids busy!!! Love this great recipe!!
Cathy @ tips4livingbetter.com says
Really love this recipe !
fashionmommy says
I am so lucky that my lad loves veggies and would prefer a cooked meal with potatoes and veg rather than anything else.
Meenal Ranka says
Great recipe and a way to involve kids
Nayna Kanabar says
What a great idea to get the kids involved and to getting them eating greens and veggies in a fun interactive way.
Healthy & Psyched says
I love how you’ve got your child involved in all of this and the tower game sounds so much fun :)
Angela Milnes says
This looks like a really tasty recipe. We like to buy dip for our veg but I would love to make my own and grow the veg in the first place. That’s a goal for the upcoming season!
Tanya Tracy Brannan says
What a fantastic idea to do with children. I think it is vital to teach children about their food, where it comes from, how it is grown etc. Getting them to cook/prepare gives them something interesting to do and also makes them realise the kind of things they like to eat and cook.
The London Mum says
That looks like such a great way to dish up a snack!
nicol says
love how it makes vegetables more visually appealing. with a great dip, its perfect
Jemma @ Celery and Cupcakes says
These stacks certainly would make dinner time more fun. I think I’m going to try this trick with my toddler.
Elizabeth Brico says
This is so cute! I am going to have to try this with my picky eater! Especially now that we don’t have any more programs in our government to help keep growing food taught in schools.
MELANIE EDJOURIAN says
It looks like a great way to help encourage children to eat healthily. I wonder if it would work on my girls.
Rachel says
I love this and how involved and included the kids are from start to finish x
Lisa (mumdadplus4) says
Love this idea it’s fab, my kids help grandad grown vegetables he has a huge veg patch in his garden.
Rhian Westbury says
The mint yoghurt dip sounds really nice. A good way of getting the kids (and adults) to eat their veggies x
Ladies Pass It On says
What a great way to encourage kids to eat more veg! My boys would love this I am sure.
Helen @ Fuss Free Flavours says
I love your veggie Jenga! It is such a good campaign to get children growing things, and learning where food comes from.
I didn’t know that about runner beans, and have often eaten them raw. Will cook them from now on.
Kavey says
This is such a wonderful scheme. My maternal grandfather was a keen gardener and although the family moved a fair few times because of his job, he always created a garden at each place and he instilled in all five of his children an enormous love of gardening, perhaps none more so than my mum. She’s always loved gardening. She gave that to us too – when we were little, maybe 6 or 7, she gave my sister and I each a small section of the garden, and we picked what to grow and the layout as well, and with her help, we each tended our plots. It was wonderful and gave us a genuine appreciation not only of nature and the beauty of growing, but also of home grown fruit and vegetables too.
Dannii says
What a fun way to get kids to eat vegetables. It might work for my husband too haha
Lynne Harper says
Growing veg is fabulous though I failed last year when the slugs ate my crop lol. Never too young to learn and it’s always great getting little ones involved x