Home cooked kid friendly Korean barbecue for family fun night!
Once upon a time, in a land far far away, the dining room was an area to gather as a family. The dining room table is where you would enjoy a healthy meal, and spend time with one another.
Fast forward to modern time and you’ll likely see the dinner table stacked with papers or junk acting as the first available flat surface, or completely unused as sitting in front of a tablet or TV is the more preferred option.
Busy family schedules are taking priority over eating meals together.
Why Is Eating Family Meals Together Important?
Studies show that families who eat dinner together benefit in many different of ways:
- Builds kids confidence both emotionally and socially
- Helps kids achieve better communication
- Help build stronger relationships
- Increases your child’s vocabulary
- Helps children do better in school
- Can even reduce the chances of your child becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol
I am 100% in favour of getting people back into the kitchen cooking home cooked meals. Using the Nutrigrill is one way you can get back into the kitchen, and bring the family together for a fun healthy meal!
A Little Nutrition has partnered with Nutrigrill to show you how you can use their appliance as a fun way to cook a family meal.
Let the GRILL’N begin!
My husband and I decided to use the Nutrigrill for our weekly family fun night, and it was a hit with the kids! Anytime the kids get to do some of the cooking, they are thrilled!
So you might be asking, what is the Nutrigrill? The Nutrigrill is a unique tabletop Korean barbecue, similar to a George Foreman Grill, but a bit different. It has a two-tier design with ceramic-surface electric grill for cooking meat and a lower-level moat that you can cook vegetables simultaneously with your protein.
My little ones are certainly not shy in the kitchen, and more so they love to be involved in the cooking experience when it comes to family meals. They were very excited that they were going to be allowed to cook their own supper this week!
So how do you use the Nutrigrill? No worries, the Nutrigrill is very easy to use!
Step 1: Add the broth to the mote
Step 2: Add the vegetables and let the cook for a few minutes (3-5 min’s)
Step 3: Add your protein like meat or tofu
Here are the vegetables we used for our dinner:
- Sliced carrots
- Cut asparagus
- Brown Mushrooms
- Bell peppers
- Broccoli
The grill is very versatile and you can pretty much cook any vegetable you want.
We like to expose our kids to a lot of different flavours. To be honest, they seem to change their mind on what they like and dislike on a weekly basis. For this reason, I decided to go with four different meats and marinades. It’s kind of hit or miss these days!
Protein options that we made:
- Thinly sliced steak: Low sodium soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce & fresh garlic
- Fresh shrimp: Lemon juice, honey & fresh garlic
- Thinly sliced pork: BBQ sauce and fresh garlic
- Salmon: Low sodium soy sauce, maple syrup, and fresh garlic
What I like about the Nutrigrill is that you can cook your vegetables in the broth mote at the same time as your protein on the grill. The vegetables don’t dry out or get overcooked when cooking in the mote. The temperature seemed to hold perfect for cooking tender and juicy vegetables.
My kids loved cooking their own meal. It was very easy for a five and seven year old to manage. However, I had to keep reminding them that the grill was “HOT” 🙂
Everyone was able to serve themselves with their choices that they put on the grill. I served brown rice as a side dish, but you can skip the grains if you are going low-carb!
Overall, I found that Nutrigrill was a great way to bring the family together and get everyone engaged in the cooking process. It was also really easy to clean! Bonus!
I think that the Nutrigrill will be a great appliance to bring to the cottage for a weekend family gathering dinner! I look forward to using it again with my family.
Other meal ideas that I found on the Nutrigrill Facebook page that could be fun with the family
- Jambalaya
- Srilankan curry chicken
- Delicious bbq’d meals
- Grilled meat like steak and chicken
- Modified lasagna
- Monster burgers with veggies
If you struggle with getting dinner on the table, or figuring out how to have family meals together, consider working with one of our nutrition experts to help you improve your nutrition!
*We accept insurance
In the spirit of full disclosure, I was provided free product and compensation for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this post are those of Susan Watson, RD and are not influenced by the company I completed the review for.
Sources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25676655
https://www.bbc.com/news/education-23502947
