Phoebe Lapine’s System for Getting Your Kid to Eat More Than 3 Things

Yes, it absolutely includes leaning on store-bought shortcuts.

Feb 19, 2026

Hi there! Thanks for joining us on The Dinner Plan. Lately, I’ve talked to Jerrelle Guy about how to recover from kitchen burnout, Vivian Howard about meals you can transform on a second night, and Coco Morante about “silly-easy” meal prep. Especially if you like olives and capers, do be sure to scroll down to get Phoebe’s recipe for one-pan Provençal chicken thighs with shingled potatoes. For 43 more winter dinner ideas, hit up this list.

Phoebe Lapine helped me shift my thinking about the challenges of feeding a kid.

“There’s so much newness” in the world of a child, she explains, especially if you’ve thrown off their routine in some way, or there’s some developmental leap happening, so it’s not that surprising that there are “times that they will double down on their rigidity just because their nervous system only has so much capacity for change and for newness.”

Our move then, as parents, is to encourage resilience (in general) and flexibility at the dinner table: “I’m just going to try and push against that rigidity whenever possible,” Phoebe says. “Obviously,” Phoebe notes, she wants to give her child “things that she likes and will eat. But, you know, I try and keep her on her toes.”

Phoebe, who has worked as a private chef and caterer, and is the author of several cookbooks, writes Munch Menus here on Substack, sharing ideas for easy dinners that get a toddler trying a variety of foods each week.

In this week’s podcast episode, I talk to Phoebe about how the logistics actually work in her family’s busy schedule, crucial things she learned from her days (and snafus) as a caterer, and how her experience with autoimmune disease has shaped the way she thinks about food for both kids and adults.

There’s helpful advice here on how to strategize using your freezer and store-bought options to add variation to the week without adding a ton of extra work. Phoebe also emphasizes that it probably won’t require drastic changes to stretch our kids a little and encourage a bit more flexibility in their eating.

Scroll down for one of Phoebe’s favorite sheet-pan chicken recipes, and hit follow on the podcast to catch our whole conversation.

Win an annual subscription to Munch Menus

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🎁 To enter, just send in a voice memo for us to play on The Dinner Plan podcast, sharing a few things you’re looking to use up right now from your freezer, fridge, and pantry. Follow the instructions here by end of day Wednesday, February 25, 2026 to enter 🎁

An upcoming cookbook author guest on The Dinner Plan will come up with a dinner idea just for you.

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One-Pan Provençal Chicken Thighs & Slivered Potatoes

Excerpted with permission from Carbivore by Phoebe Lapine (Hachette Go, 2024).

Keeping olives, capers, and sun-dried tomatoes in my fridge at all times is my strategy for packing tons of flavor into my dishes without a trip to the grocery store. In this case, they turn an ordinary weeknight sheet pan meal into something special enough for company.

The potatoes are thinly sliced (use a mandoline, if you have one!) and arranged into an elegant overlapping base for the chicken to rest on. The preserved vegetables get fanned on top and release their brine as they cook, which your potatoes gladly soak up. This dish can be made an hour ahead and reheated in the oven right before you eat. A large cod loin would also work instead of the poultry—just add it to the pan during the last 10 minutes of cooking.

Makes 4 to 6 servings

Extra-virgin olive oil
Grated zest of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
1¾ pounds Yukon Gold potatoes (4 large), unpeeled
1 cup pitted kalamata olives, chopped
10 oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
⅓ cup capers (from one 3-ounce jar)
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 shallots, thinly sliced

Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line a rimmed sheet pan with parchment paper and lightly grease it with oil.
In a large bowl, whisk together the lemon zest, lemon juice, rosemary, mustard, 2 tablespoons oil, 1 teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Add the chicken and toss until well-coated. Set aside to marinate.
On a clean work surface, thinly slice each potato into 1/8-inch-thick slivers using a sharp knife or a mandoline.Keep the sliced potatoes more or less together as you go, then fan the slices on the prepared sheet pan in rows lengthwise, overlapping slightly. Season lightly with salt.
In a medium bowl, combine the olives, sun-dried tomatoes, capers, garlic, shallots, and 1 tablespoon oil. Toss to coat. Spread the antipasti mixture evenly over the potatoes.
Arrange the chicken, skin-side up, on the potatoes. Bake for about 50 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender with nicely browned edges, and the chicken is cooked through with crispy skin. Remove from the oven and serve directly from the pan.

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