Foods 
When it comes to healthy foods, liver is a powerhouse! Do you cringe at the thought of eating nutrient-dense organ meats? I, personally, can’t stand the sight or smell of the stuff (I’m worse than a kid), but I’ve figured out a way to make it a regular part of my family’s diet. If you’re looking for a sneaky way to make your kids eat liver, you’ve come to the right place.
Why organ meats rock
Organ meats are the most concentrated source of nutrients. Vitamins, minerals, healthy fats, and essential amino acids abound! Organ meats are some of the best fuel sources you can put in your body.
Liver had loads of B vitamins and is the highest source of the important Vitamin B12 (fyi: B12 is only absorbed well by the body from animal products). Copper, riboflavin, vitamin A, vitamin D, zinc, iron, and selenium are all plentiful vitamin and minerals found in liver. If you want to amp up the nutrient value a bit more, be sure to get organ meats from grass-fed animals.
How I sneak liver into our meals
Because organ meats aren’t very popular, those of us who do want to use them in our cooking can acquire them very cheaply.
I haven’t gotten very creative with my liver exploits. No liver pate or exotic recipes highlighting liver in this house. I have, however, become quite the master of hiding liver in our food. I don’t know about your family, but we eat a lot of ground beef. I use it for burgers, and taco salads, chili, meatballs, meatloaf, and many other recipes. The easiest way I’ve found to hide liver, is in meals utilizing ground beef.
- We purchase half a grass-fed cow and half a pastured pig at a time. I always request the organ meats at this time. But, you can purchase your liver at a grocery store or meat market.
- The meat comes to me vacuum packed and frozen. When I’m ready to prepare my liver (and/or other organ meats) I start by taking them out of the freezer and letting them thaw.
- Then I stick them in the food processor and whiz the meat around until it’s a big mushy mess (it looks pretty disgusting, but don’t fret you won’t even be able to tell it’s in your food).
- I then divide the mashed up liver into ice cube trays and freeze.
- After they are frozen I pop the liver-cubes (mmm…num num) out and put them in a zip lock bag.
- For every pound of ground beef I get out of the freezer, I also get 1-2 liver cubes out for use in the recipe. The kids can’t even taste it.
Go! Make liver cubes. Mmm…enjoy livery deliciousness at least twice a week!
What foods do you like to hide in your kids’ meals?
Ok, I am going to try this. I was never a fan of liver growing up.
Liver grosses me out, it grosses me out to even prepare it. But, I can’t detect the liver in our meat. I make sure it’s ground up well and throughly mixed in. I started out only putting it in ground beef recipes that were highly spiced, but now add it to anything with ground beef. Good luck 🙂
have you ever thought of asking the butcher to put the liver in with the meat that gets turned into ground beef? Do you think they’d do that? we’re about due for another 1/2 cow in a few months I think I’ll ask 🙂
I hadn’t, but that’s a brilliant idea! If you do this, you need to report back and let me know how it turned out :). We just purchased 1/2 cow a couple weeks ago. I can’t imagine you’d be able to taste the liver divided up through all of that ground beef though.
Where on earth do you buy all that beef.I am getting ready to move north and since the winters can be harsh I would love to stock up.
I get mine from a farmer who raises grass-fed beef about an hour away from here (in MI). I purchase a half cow at a time and stock up my freezer. Where are you moving? You could check out http://www.eatwild.com/ that is where I found my farmer 🙂
Popping in from the Mosaic Reviews team and I have to say, it looks SO gross, but I’m going to have to try it out.
Yeah, it really does look gross doesn’t it!? But, I’m able to get it in our diets this way undetected, and that’s what counts 🙂
What about chicken livers? Would they work?
Great way to sneak it in and save extra organ meat for future use. I agree I can’t stomach to eat it either, so I’d need a way to sneak it in even for myself.
Feeling a little ill now. Maybe I can buy my liver cubes from you.
I would give you some liver cubes if you’d like to try using them since you are both my dear friend and also have done me countless nice things for me (business cards…blog banner…etc).
That is a great way to sneak them in! Thanks for sharing this on Tuesday Greens!
Very sneaky!! I actually like eating liver and so does my husband {but he only likes it when it’s hot; he does not like reheating it}. I’ll definitely give this a try. Thanks Trisha.
I love this. I also puree up bacon and mix it all up (bacon and liver) and make burgers out of it. My liver comes frozen so when it is time to use it, I have to use it all. I have texture kids & hubby and I also do the same with kitchen sink chili. Every veggie they wont eat in whole form makes it into chili weekly ground up. Non the wiser. Thank!!
Pureed bacon in burgers…now that sounds YUMMY! I’ve never had to hide bacon from my kids :), but it still sounds good to actually put it in the burger instead of on it.
I started dehydrating my kale, then I powder it and add it to meatballs and other foods. Nobody in my family has a clue, lol. So I love this idea as well!!
It sounds like you are thawing the meat and then freezing it again. Isn’t that very unsafe unless you cook it before freezing it again? I’ve always heard you can never freeze something that has been previously frozen (especially not meat)
According to the USDA, “Once food is thawed in the refrigerator, it is safe to refreeze it without cooking, although there may be a loss of quality due to the moisture lost through thawing.”
My mom used to slice it 1/2 frozen into the smallest thinner strips like fingers & roll them in cornmeal. Then bake them. I still can’t do fried food as an adult & she had to find all these ways before it was the “it” thing to figure out how to bake fried food lol. So the other way was to do it over a campfire with pre-boiled potatoes & a cooking (white) onion. Add fresh pepper & serve with whatever else was on the go. That is still my favourite!
As I need to work a non-traditional job due to my health, I tend to put mashed beans into my meat loaf. Its not liver–but heck that works as well! Mashed beans go into our “meat” sauce for spagetti, mixed with cooked meatballs, or even just cooked hamburger meat. A plain bean like navy. It has no real flavour. Kidney beans are good too if you are using garlic OR other herbs!
Anything to add more substance and less meat to foods. Fill the up the kids!! Well 1 kid & 2 friends who we often sit plus a meat hungary husband who complains about food costs. rolling eyes.
I just put three dessert spoons of pureed chicken livers in the kids’ bolognese batch (feeds about 3-4 teenage boys) and they’re gobbling it down – no idea! Yay!
How do you prepare the chicken liver? Do you keep it raw and add to cooking or have it pre- cooked? I’m so new to all this!