Cracking the Vault: Family Meal Success

Here's a fun way to engage everyone at your next family meal: make a board! This easy-to-make dinner includes any fresh veggies that can be used as dippers along with some air-fried treats like chicken fingers and oven French fries. Add a few dips and some fruit and you've got an award-winning board!

Here's How to Make Your Own Board:

Find a large, clean cutting board or cookie tray.

Fill it with finger foods.

Protein:

• nuts

• nut butter

• hard-boiled eggs

• air-fried chicken strips

• grilled chicken

Veggies:

(Think fresh, air-fried, or grilled)

• carrot sticks

• fresh cucumber sticks

• celery

• grape tomatoes

• cut radishes

• broccoli florets

• cauliflower florets

• air-fried French fries (we used sweet potatoes and regular potatoes)

Fruit:

• grapes

• berries

• apple or pear slices

• chunks of melon

Dips:

• hummus

• ketchup

• dressings like honey mustard or ranch

• yogurt

• vinaigrette

With this roadmap, it's easy to customize your own meal board. Everything can be made ahead of time and assembled at the last minute, and the leftovers make great stuffers for lunch boxes!

Meal Board - Family Meal Time

Here's the recipe for the meal board shown. It features all of MyPlate’s food groups as finger foods on a meal board and is easy to make, fun to present, and delicious to eat!

• Air Fryer

• large cutting board

• 3 each chicken breasts (skinless, boneless, cut into finger-sized strips)

• 1/2 cup flour (all purpose)

• 1 each egg (beaten)

• 1 cup panko bread crumbs (place in bowl)

• 3 each potatoes (Idaho baking potatoes, rinsed, cut in wedges)

• 1 each red yams (cut in sticks)

• 1/2 pound carrots (peeled and cut in sticks)

• 1 cup grape or cherry tomatoes (whole but stem removed)

• 1 each cucumber (cut in sticks)

• 1 head broccoli (florets)

• 2 cups red seedless grapes (rinsed)

• 2 cups radishes (rinse and trim; cut in half)

• 1 each olive oil spray (1 second of spray)

• 1 tsp garlic pepper seasoning (or something similar)

• 1/4 cup ketchup

• 1/4 cup Ranch dressing

• 1/4 cup vinaigrette dressing

1. Cut all of the veggies and place in a pan or in bags in the refrigerator until ready to serve. Rinse the grapes and keep in bowl in refrigerator until ready to serve.

2. Get the items ready for the air fryer. Cut the potatoes, spray with olive oil. Cook on Air Fry Mode at 400 degrees F for 20 minutes or until done in an Air Fryer. You can also bake them in the oven for 20 minutes at 425 degrees. Set aside.

3. Meanwhile, bread the chicken fingers. Dredge them in flour then the beaten egg then the Panko bread crumbs. Spray with olive oil. Air fry for 20 minutes at 400 degrees in air fryer or oven until crispy. Season with garlic pepper.

4. Arrange everything with the dips on the meal board and serve.

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