kid food

This post brought to you by Campbell Soup Company. The content and opinions expressed below are that of Stuff Parents Need.

A few weeks ago I shared a fun weekend lunch idea with you that included an organic soup only requiring you to heat it up (major score!). Today I want to show you a weeknight meal that requires a little more prep (but only a little, I promise) and that just might get your kids to load their plates full of veggies. It worked for me!

The star of any pasta dish is the sauce, and it’s also usually the most labor-intensive part of the cooking process. Not this time! I highly recommend you check out one of Campbell’s new products, Campbell’s Sauces. There are SO many great flavors and possibilities for helping you get great food on the table fast. For the pasta bar idea, I decided something extra cheesy was the way to go, so I opted for the Cheesy Broccoli Chicken sauce. To make this sauce, simply empty the contents into a sauce pan and heat it up. That’s it! Isn’t that just music to your tired mama ears?!

I chose to offer two different types of whole wheat pasta (we went with shells and penne). Cook those according to package directions. The other offerings can really be as creative as you want. This is also a great time to clean out your crisper drawers of veggies or to use up leftover meats! I cooked and crumbled bacon, and I also steamed some edamame and some broccoli. I also offered up some parm cheese for sprinkling on top.But the options are really unlimited! Being able to get dinner on the table very quickly on a week night is critical for me, and this idea is a great one for my family. You can even cook your noodles ahead of time and store them in the fridge. Same goes for the bacon. There are slight tweaks you can make to the prep so that you can literally get this dish on the table less than 10 minutes after you walk in the door, which is awesome! photo campbells oven sauces 3_zpsn99an7gu.jpg

But now I want to show you what’s even MORE awesome: by giving my kids full control over how they built their dishes, and by offering such colorful and fun options, I noticed that they LOADED their pasta bowls with veggies! #WINNING!!!!

And thanks to the presence of that tasty Campbell’s Sauce in the bowl, my girls ate everything that they put in their bowls. We still had enough leftovers for me to serve the meal one more time, which made me love this concept even more. It was already not much work, and then I got two meals out of it, to boot! 🙂

I think one of the really great things about the Campbell’s Sauces line is that they each come with a recipe idea on the back of the packet, but you certainly aren’t limited to those suggestions. You can come up with a ton of ways to put these major time savers to use in a variety of dishes that can now be that much easier to prepare. Campbell’s Sauces come in varieties intended for the Slow Cooker, Skillet, Oven and Grill. Definitely check them out on your next grocery shopping trip and get some new ideas for saving time in the kitchen on those crazy week nights. And to get some inspiration for delicious Campbell’s recipes, simply follow @Campbells on your favorite social media site.

This post brought to you by Campbell’s Soup Company . The content and opinions expressed below are that of Stuff Parents Need.

With my oldest being away from home during lunch on weekdays, I have really come to value our weekend lunches, and I try to make them as special and fun as I can (without requiring me to spend a lot of time in the kitchen, of course!).

Have you seen the new Campbell’s Organic Kids Soup line? This makes for a super fun surprise for kids who are still into characters (heck, I’m still into characters!) and it’s made with ingredients that I try to serve to my family (organic is my first choice whenever possible). But what is the most exciting to me is to be able to have a fun dish that nourishes my family by providing organic ingredients AND it’s super easy for me to put together. That’s like the holy grail of clean eating, people! And I promise you, it’s hard to find. Big thanks to Campbell’s for creating something so perfect for families like mine!

Here’s the fun meal I put together for my girls this past weekend. The soup is delicious and that tear-away cheese bread is INSANE!!! I promise, it looks a lot more intricate than it actually is; I don’t do crazy-hard recipes!

So let’s take a look at what you need to make this awesome weekend lunch:

1 container Campbell’s Organic Kids Soup
1 loaf of bread, preferably in a round shape
1 cup shredded cheese of your choice (I used a mix of cheddar and monterey jack)
3 green onions, chopped
1 1/2 Tbsp garlic seasoning (combo of garlic salt and garlic powder..diced garlic could work, too)
1 package of bacon, cooked and chopped
4 tbsp butter, melted

You’ll start this recipe by cooking your bacon (unless you buy the pre-cooked stuff! That would save even more time!). I want to show you a little trick for cutting up your bacon: use your kitchen shears! It makes the job so simple, and you can cut 2 slices at a time. Set aside about 1/4 of the bacon pieces to add into your soup.

Next you’ll want to get your oven preheated to 350 degrees for your bread. While it’s warming, you can go ahead and cut the bread. This part is slightly tricky, but with the right equipment (a bread knife) you’ll be just fine. You are going to make slices into the bread that go all the way across the bread and all the way down almost to the crust. But do not cut through the bottom crust! You want your loaf to stay in tact. Your slices should be roughly 1 inch apart. Precision is NOT necessary! Just do your best and imagine this piece of bread turning into a blooming onion. That’s the look we’re going for, here. Once you have made your slices all in one direction, go back through in the other direction.

Now it’s time to add those yummy ingredients. Stuff the cheese in between all the slots, and then do the same with the green onions, and then with the bacon, and then with the garlic seasoning, and finally with the butter. Oh mercy it’s gonna be good, friends!

Now just wrap up your bread in aluminum foil an pop it in the oven for 20 minutes.

While you wait for the bread to cook, have your kids help set the table and then you can get out your Campbell’s Organic Soup. All you need to do is pour out those preservative-free ingredients into your pot and warm it up. Couldn’t be easier!

Your bread is ready to go at the 20 minute mark, but if you want it a bit more browned and crisp, you can remove the foil and broil it for just a minute or two (watch it carefully, though!). Serve up your bowls of soup and add the bacon on top if you so desire.

The soup will be yummy on its own, but now it’s time to wow your crew with an awesome tear away bread that is just begging to be dipped in that soup! I didn’t even have to make the suggestion to the girls; they immediately figured out what a great pairing bread and soup would make.

And then, of course, they were delighted to find little crowns floating in their feast. What a fun weekend lunch that was pretty close to hassle-free, thanks to Campbell’s Organic Kids Soup.

Want more Delicious Campbell recipes? Click on the link to get plenty of great ideas for weekend lunches, or even for busy weeknight dinner ideas! And don’t forget to follow @Campbells on all your favorite social media locations for more inspiration!

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