An Easy, Toddler-Friendly Picnic Lunch

This post is part of a social shopper marketing insight campaign with Pollinate Media Group®  and Hillshire Farm, but all my opinions are my own. #pmedia #nohasslesavorymeal http://my-disclosur.es/OBsstV

This past weekend, we enjoyed the beautiful weather while it lasted and had a fun, little picnic in our backyard. Growing up, my mom would take me and my sister on picnics, and they really are some of my favorite memories. I definitely want my little girl to have the same fun memories. But as we all know, toddlers  and children can be picky when it comes to eating. In order to make sure we all enjoyed our picnic lunch, here’s what I did to make sure we all had full bellies afterward.The first thing you’ll need is a good meal plan. For our picnic spread, I chose this Hillshire Farm smoked sausage I found at Kroger to kick up the classic hotdog a notch. And right now, between 3/30-4/19/16 you can pick up two of these Hillshire Farm sausages at Kroger for only $5 while supplies last. I’m always a sucker for a good deal. 

Once I had the fan-favorite main dish picked out, I kept things as simple as possible. This is what my entire meal plan and shopping list looked like for our picnic:

• Hillshire Farm sausage
• hot dog buns
• mustard
• fruit (grapes)
• carrot sticks
• celery sticks
• broccoli stems
• ranch dip
• pita chips
• hummus

You’ll want to pick your child’s favorite fruit and vegetables that are easy to grab as you don’t want to have to rely too much on utensils. Everything we ate, we were able to eat with our hands. Just be sure to have lots of napkins on hand.

Also enlist your husband to help out with the hotdogs on the grill to make this picnic a family affair. I cut the sausage to fit the length of a hot dog bun, and then the hubs grilled them. If an outdoor grill isn’t an option, you can pan fry the sausage until it’s heated through, which usually takes me about five to ten minutes. While the hotdogs were on the grill, Charlotte was running around playing with her backyard toys in between snacking on fruit and veggies. Once the hotdogs were ready, we all sat down and dug in!

Now let me backtrack just a bit. The prep time was little to nothing; I had everything cut up, cooked, and set out within 30 minutes. I threw down our big picnic blanket, laid out the trays, made sure we all had drinks and napkins, and we were good to go!  If your little one doesn’t like a full-on hotdog like my little diva does not, you might want to cut up the sausage into pieces. Once I cut the sausage up into slices, she gobbled them up. And she ate the hot dog buns separately. Kids are funny.Everyone was happy so mama was happy. It was fun picnic day, and I plan on having many more throughout the years.For more recipe inspiration using Hillshire Farm smoked sausage, be sure to check out this page.