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Recipe Overview
The Game Plan
How Long it Will Take with Kid Chefs
60 minutes
Recipe Yield
Makes 1 tray of nachos
Serves 4-6 as a snack or 2-4 as a meal
Suggested Serving Size
About ¼ of the pan for a snack and ⅓-½ of the pan for a meal. Little kids will likely eat a smaller portion than that.
Grocery List
Ingredient Notes
Sweet potatoes vs. yams
Sweet potatoes vary a LOT in size. Weigh them at the grocery store to get the right amount (1 pound). If you end up with larger sweet potatoes, you may need to bake them slightly longer.
Most grocery stores use “sweet potatoes” and “yams” interchangeably. True yams have a very hard, rough skin, you don’t want those. When in doubt, scrape the end to see if inside is white or orange. While sweet potatoes can come in different colors, the orange color is the easiest way to tell in the produce section that you have a sweet potato instead of a yam.
Refried Beans
Vegetarian or Vegan? Check the label to make sure that the beans do not contain any animal products.
Tools Needed
Grown-Up Tips
Grown-up Pro Tips
This recipe is a “build your own bar,” meaning that kids get control over what they want to put on top. It might be tempting to skip some of the toppings that your kid chef is less familiar with, but he might surprise you if given the chance to try it in a different context (nachos that he made himself!).
You can use a food processor with the disc attachment or a mandoline slicer to slice the sweet potatoes into slices if you want to speed the process, though a knife works well too. We do want to offer a friendly reminder that the mandoline is probably one of the most grown-up only things in the kitchen- no kid chefs should be allowed anywhere near the mandoline.
This recipe is dietician approved!
Videos for Kiddos
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Dietary Needs and Substitutions
Recipe as Written
**Vegetarian only if refried beans are labeled “vegetarian.” Some refried beans contain animal products.
Recipe can be made
To make dairy-free and vegan:
Substitute cheese with dairy-free cheddar-style shreds.
Leave off the optional Greek yogurt or replace with vegan sour cream or vegan Greek yogurt.
To make vegan:
Check label to make sure refried beans are vegetarian.
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