Description
Bring out your child’s inner artist with healthy fruit and vegetable bug snacks! These cute little bugs are a fun and easy recipe for kids. This recipe is gluten free, vegan and low-sodium.
Ingredients
Scale
Vegetable Bugs
- 2-3 Celery stalks, cut into various lengths for different bugs
- 1-2 mini cucumbers, halved lengthwise with seeds scooped out, cut into various lengths
- ½ cup Vegan cream cheese
- 10 cucumber slices
- 1 cup cherry and/or grape tomatoes (various colours)
- 1 bunch chives, cut into 1” lengths
- 5-7 black olives
- 10 whole cashews
Fruit Bugs
- 2-3 celery stalks, cut into various lengths for different bugs
- ½ cup peanut butter (or other nut/seed butter for peanut allergies)
- 1 cup red and/or green grapes
- 3-4 strawberries, sliced
- ½ cup blueberries
- 1 apple, sliced
- ¼ cups mini dairy-free chocolate chips
- ½ cup ball-shaped cereal (We used Envirokidz cereals: Leapin’ Lemurs, Gorilla Munch, Panda Puffs, or Jungle Munch)
Other supplies
- Piping bags
- Large piping tips (optional - for cream cheese/peanut butter filling)
- Small piping tips (optional - for piping cream cheese googly eyes)
Instructions
Vegetable Bugs
- Prepare the googly eyes: Use a straw to cut out black olive pupils. Pipe small dots of cream cheese onto a plate. Top with black olive pupils. Freeze the dots of cream cheese for easier assembly.
- Prepare fruit and vegetables, refer to preparation photos for a visual guide of the many ways you can prepare the ingredients.
- Scoop seeds from mini cucumbers. Cut a flat edge on the bottoms of celery sticks and mini cucumbers to help them stand up once they’ve been decorated as bugs.
- Fill celery stalks and/or mini cucumbers with cream cheese, using a piping bag or spoon.
- Unleash your kids’ imagination! Create your very own bugs or use our reference photos to make snails, caterpillars, dragonflies, and butterflies.
Snails: Start with a fruit or vegetable round for the shell. Stick chilled googly eyes onto cherry tomato heads, cashew heads, or grapes. Insert chives or thin-sliced apples (with skins) into the cherry tomato heads for antennae.
Fruit Bugs
- Prepare the googly eyes:
Version 1 - Pipe small dots of cream cheese onto a plate. Top with mini dairy-free chocolate chips. Freeze to chill.
Version 2 - Stick mini dairy-free chocolate chips onto cereal using a dot of peanut butter or cream cheese. Freeze to chill. - Prepare fruit and vegetables, refer to preparation photos for a visual guide of the many ways you can prepare the ingredients.
- Fill celery stalks with peanut butter, using a piping bag or spoon. These will be the base to all of the fruit and vegetable bugs you make.
- Create your very own bugs or use our reference photos to make snails, caterpillars, dragonflies, and butterflies.
Caterpillars: Stick chilled googly eyes onto cherry tomato or grape heads. Add chive or apple antennae. Make the body with a line of cherry tomatoes, grapes, blueberries, or cereal.
Dragonflies and butterflies: Stick chilled googly eyes onto grape or cherry tomato heads (for fruit bugs using cereal you can put the eyes directly onto the celery filled with peanut butter.) Add chive or apple antennae. Use sliced strawberries or halved cucumber slices for wings. Use cereal, blueberries, grapes, or cherry tomatoes for the body.
Notes
TIP: If you don’t have piping bags, sandwich bags with the tip of the corner cut off will work well for piping eyes.
Keywords: fruit and vegetable bugs, kids, snacks for kids