Sauce? That’s a bit vague, Sarah, I hear you say! Any particular sauce, Sarah?

Well, no, just sauce!

Let me explain. I enjoy a whole variety of sauces, depending on what I’m eating, from HP sauce with a bacon roll, to Ketchup in a fish finger butty, curry sauce with chips, Frank’s hot sauce with chicken wings, chipotle sauce with…pretty much anything! I could go on, there are endless sauces available which can add a little something to a meal and to suit all tastes.

I don’t plaster sauce on everything, as not everything needs sauce (unlike my dad who believes that HP belongs with the majority of the dishes he eats – not when he visits me!!), but I have a range available for just that moment when a sauce takes my fancy.

Sauces have another benefit too. They can help get your fussy eater to try something they might not otherwise be willing to put in their mouth. Where we might enjoy sauce to add interest to a dish (next time you’re serving up a ‘safe’ meal and you can’t face bland food again, think about what you might be able to put on the table to perk up the meal), children can be encouraged to eat food if there is a sauce available to dip it into and mask the temperature, taste or texture of that food. They don’t need to drown their food in it, but a small amount of sauce of their choosing (whether you think it goes with the meal or not) could help them get over that initial hurdle of not wanting, or feeling able, to try something.

What’s your go-to sauce? And which sauce might your child like with their food to entice them into eating?