OK, so it's time to plan out your meals at Disneyland, but maybe you're worried about what to feed the kids, particularly if you have picky eaters. Luckily, there is no shortage of kid-friendly foods in the park. Gluten-free? Check. Dairy-free? Check. Other food allergies? Check. Your tadpole only eats pizza, pasta or chicken tenders and french fries? Yep, Disneyland's got you covered on that group of the food pyramid, but there are also healthy meals and themed foods your more adventurous eaters will toadally love. There's something for every eater!
We also have suggestions for the best snacks for kids. Feeding a large family on a budget is a challenge, so we’ll cover some money-saving tips, as well. Disneyland is generous about letting you bring snacks and meals into the park with you. Our guide to the top kids' foods at Disneyland covers all of the bases so you can have one less thing to worry about.
Popular Kids' Meals at Disneyland
If your tadpole likes the basic, familiar kids' foods, most restaurants have a kids' menu. You'll find the popular top kids' foods at Disneyland in this category. You can always look up the menu for any Disneyland restaurant in the Disneyland app to make sure your pickiest eater has an option at your dining location. If not, mobile order something your kid will find acceptable from a neighboring restaurant and bring it over to where the rest of the family is dining. Mobile Order is a huge time-saver when managing a lot of different taste buds and makes each family member hoppy. Nobody wants "hangry" breakdowns over food. You need to pick your battles, and Disneyland is not the place to fight.
Here are a few popular kids' foods, and our tadpole, Lily's favorite spots to find them. Many kids' meals at quick-service locations come with a Cuties mandarin orange, applesauce (occasionally) and a small beverage. You can usually sub fries if available. The drink of choice is a small bottle of water or milk, but you can sub out a soft drink.
Chicken Tenders
Our tadpole's favorite spots to get chicken tenders include:
- Golden Horseshoe and Stage Door Café at Disneyland (we like to catch the show in the Golden Horseshoe and also sit in the gazebo-type private table areas on either side of the stage)
- Smokejumpers at Disney California Adventure
- Chicken "fenders" at Flo's V8 Café in Cars Land of Disney California Adventure (with a shake)
- Galactic Grill.
- You can also find chicken tenders at Hungry Bear Restaurant or Red Rose Taverne.
- Plaza Inn
Pasta and Pizza
These are the top pasta or pizza stops for our family:
- Alien Pizza Planet at Disneyland (even if our kids choose plain pasta when ordering Space-getti with meatballs, we ask for the meatballs and sauce on the side because it makes a great snack or addition to our adult meals).
- Boardwalk Pizza & Pasta at Disney California Adventure
- Plaza Inn at Disneyland (kids get pasta and I get my favorite fried chicken — it's a win-win!)
- Mini personal pizzas (cheese or Mickey pepperoni) at Café Daisy in Toontown at Disneyland
At Café Daisy in Mickey's Toontown, we love to mobile order and then take our food to have a picnic in the new green spaces.
The best pizza on property, in our humble opinion, is at Napolini in Downtown Disney. Get a hot signature pizza just outside the parks.
Mac and Cheese
These locations are Frog Family-favorite spots to get mac and cheese:
- Baked mac and cheese kids' meal at Tiana's Palace (you can also get as a side for adults)
- Regular mac and cheese at Jolly Holiday Café and Galactic Grill (at Disneyland), and Flo's V8 Café or Aunt Cass Café at Disneyland and California Adventure
- Toddler meal at Hungry Bear or French Market at Disneyland
- Mac and cheese in a bread bowl at Refreshment Corner at Disneyland and Aunt Cass Café at Disneyland California Adventure
- Mac and cheese dog basket at Refreshment Corner
- Bacon mac and cheese at Cozy Cone Motel in Cars Land at Disneyland California Adventure
- The fried chicken Tip-Yip Youngling Meal at Docking Bay 7 is served over mac and cheese, and it is the most kid-friendly item on the menu. In fact, we adults sometimes order this tasty dish for ourselves (see below)!
- Toddler mini mac and cheesy at Café Daisy in Toontown at Disneyland (and you can take it to eat in the cave or lawn to eat picnic style if your hangry toddler is about to melt down).
Sandwiches, Burgers and Hot Dogs
- Turkey sandwich at Aunt Cass Café
- Basic hot dogs are at Angry Dogs and carts in the park, while corndogs are at Corn Dog Castle, Little Red Wagon and Stage Door Café. Don't overlook the bratwurst at Edelwiess Snacks for hungry kids (or adults). It's pretty tasty.
- Jolly Holiday Combo - This toasted cheese sandwich with tomato basil soup is a classic we can never turn down. We like to dip the sandwich in the soup, but you can also order the sandwich only, without the soup.
- Pym Test Kitchen has a Subatomic Chicken Sandwich, a Bite-sized Grilled Cheese and the PB&J Flavor Lab for which kids can assemble their own sandwiches. Take the red swirled bread (the red comes from red Pym particles, which shrink things) and add peanut butter and strawberry jam.
- Multiple spots sell burgers, including plant-based burgers. Try Galactic Grill, Hungry Bear, Red Rose Tavern and Carnation Café in Disneyland, or Smokejumpers Grill and Flo's V8 Café at Disney California Adventure. All dining locations at Disney's Grand Californian have kids' burgers, but they are slider-size. And don't froget about Black Tap Craft Burgers & Shakes at Downtown Disney.
- Toasted Ham & Cheese Sandwich at Tiana's palace
- Minnie's Mini Corn Dogs at Café Daisy in Toontown at Disneyland. The whole family loves these easy-to-eat nuggets. Better get an order for mom or dad to snack on while you're at it. Hop over to our Mickey's Toontown food post for more options.
Other Quick-Service Options Your Kids May Love
Here are a few of our favorite kid-friendly options at quick-service dining locations. Disneyland has so many fun foods that are unique to the land you find them in. These items may or may not be on the actual kids' menus, but our tadpoles toadally flip for them and yours may, too.
Skewers at Bengal BBQ
You can get meat or veggie skewers at Bengal BBQ. For bigger appetites, there's a rice plate. Our tadpoles like the crispy veggies and trio of hummus that are sold there, too.
Soup in a Bread Bowl
What is it about a bread bowl that makes even ordinary foods more fun? Clam chowder, corn chowder or broccoli cheese soup in a bread bowl are popular with the kids in our life, but you can also get other seasonal options in a bread bowl. You can find these items at multiple quick-service locations in New Orleans Square at Disneyland and at Aunt Cass Café at DCA.
Potato Bites, aka Tots
Find these yummy tots at Pym Test kitchen (at breakfast lunch and dinner). There are fun items on the menu that have been shrunken down to kid-size at breakfast, lunch and dinner. The Quantum Pretzel is a fun giant snack to share with the kids. Red Rose Taverne also has these tasty potato bites.
Fried Chicken
Outside of the standard chicken tenders, there is delicious fried chicken. You can find fried chicken with the bones at:
- Plaza Inn - The kids' meal now comes with a chicken tenders and sides. The adult meal has fried chicken.
- Flo's V8 Café - Chicken fenders are on the kids' menu, but fried chicken is on the main menu.
- Poultry Palace - A box comes with three drumsticks in it.
- You can get a roasted chicken drumstick from Tiana's Palace
Other Fried Chicken Dishes
One of our favorite kids' meals is at Docking Bay 7 in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. This one actually makes a nice small meal for an adult, too. The Fried Chicken Tip-Yip Youngling Meal consists of tasty breaded chicken over mac and cheese with some veggies and a drink. There is also a kids' meal plant-based option with a bao bun and meatless patty. Hop over to our post on the best vegetarian foods at Disneyland for more plant-based suggestions.
In Avengers Campus, the Not-so-Little Chicken Sandwich with potato bites and the kids' version, the Subatomic Chicken Sandwich, are breaded chicken breasts. These dishes are really yummy and not really a sandwich (the bun is so tiny). These are more of a fork and knife meal.
Best Kids' Meals at Buffets and Table-Service Dining Locations
The table-service restaurants in the parks have nice kids' menu options. Lily loves to choose her sides at restaurants such as Café Orleans. The menus change from time to time, but she always finds something she loves.
At breakfast, Carnation Café has Mickey-shaped waffles and Mickey-shaped scrambled eggs (as well as silver dollar pancakes). Get Minnie waffles at the Plaza Inn character buffet breakfast.
At the hotels, you’ll find some great kid-friendly foods. At Goofy’s Kitchen, breakfast or dinner, your tadpoles can help themselves to a buffet that’s just their height. They can fill up on pizza, chicken tenders, mac and cheese and more (yes, even at breakfast!). Breakfast also has Mickey waffles and Mickey pancakes! They can find sweet treats at a giant dessert bar and all of the frozen yogurt and fruit they can eat. Plus, they can see Disney characters while they dine.
Storytellers Café also has kid-friendly food, and more items like chicken tenders are out at the buffet these days. Characters make appearances at breakfast and brunch but not dinner at this location.
These same yummy kid-friendly foods are also available at Hearthstone Lounge and both GCH Craftsman Bar and Grill. Leap has been known to order them for himself when he needs something between a snack and a meal.
Kid Portions and Allergies
You can use the Disneyland app to look up a particular food. Your kid only wants pizza? Type it into the app and places that serve pizza (in the parks and even Downtown Disney) will pop up! You can even find gluten-free and dairy-free pizza. If you have allergies, you can scroll to the bottom of the screen when mobile ordering to order off of the appropriate allergy menu. Our guide to eating gluten-free at Disneyland may be hopful. We also have a complete guide to dining at Disneyland with food allergies to help you navigate finding safe and yummy foods.
In terms of portions, kids' meals are designed for ages 3 to 9. Unless you have a 9 to 11-year-old with a tiny appetite, these meals will not fill the bigger kids up (unless you are hitting the best Disneyland snacks pretty hard), so they may want to order off of the adult menu. The toddler menu items are really for tiny toddler appetites for tadpoles under 3. When Lily was a baby, we usually shared our food from our plate with her, especially at restaurants with decent portion sizes such as Plaza Inn's fried chicken with mashed potatoes. Or she shared the Jolly Holiday Combo at Jolly Holiday Bakery Café with me. But now, she's managing a kids' meal at Disneyland on her own. On the other hand, our tween Tad has graduated to adult meals. The kids' meals just don't fill his hungry frog belly anymore.
Healthy Choices for Kids
You can always choose the Disney Check meals, which deliver three or more nutritious food groups that may include veggies, fruit, whole grains and lean protein (such as the make-your-own peanut butter and jelly at Carnation Café shown above). But there are other nutritious options, as well. Our tadpoles enjoy the crispy veggies with hummus and the meat skewers at Bengal BBQ, as well as the Felucian Kefta & Hummus Garden Spread at Docking Bay 7. We sometimes get it to share as a snack. We find that if we can keep them away from sugary snacks, we have fewer crashes and behavioral issues in the park.
The produce stands have the freshest and least expensive snacks, including fresh fruit, dill pickles, Babybel cheese, veggies, hummus and more. Many restaurants sell Power Packs for kids. These snacks come with a Danimals smoothie, a mandarin orange, carrots, whole-grain fish crackers and a drink.
How to Save Money on the Top Kids' Foods at Disneyland
Here's how to save money when feeding your family:
- Bring your own snacks and small meals. It will save money and time. Plus, the packed foods come in handy when you wait in line or wait for shows and parades. Before showtime, it might not be easy to navigate crowds and food lines while you are trying to save your viewing spot.
- You can bring items from home or order food to be delivered to your hotel. If you can bring some bags of grapes or sliced apples, pouches, crackers (you can get Mickey Goldfish crackers), Lunchables, Uncrustables or homemade PB& J, you’ll save a lot of money in the park. Plus, you know you’ll have food that your kid likes with you. A loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter cost about the same as one kids' meal but can feed your whole crew for a meal or two.
- Stay at a hotel that includes breakfast. We love the Homewood Suites by Hilton for the free breakfast and the kitchens so we can store and make our own meals.
- Bring refillable water bottles and use the fill stations, or ask for free ice water at the restaurants rather than purchasing beverages in the parks.
- Share ice cream – At Gibson Girl or Clarabelle’s, get a double scoop over two singles and share (ask for an extra cup if you want to divide it). One double scoop costs $5.99. A triple (not on the menu, but you can order in person) is $6.49. Two separate single scoops will cost you $10.58 and three will cost you $15.87. But it’s the same amount of ice cream, either way!
- If you have to purchase drinks, get them at the restaurants rather than the stands, which are a little pricer and not subject to discounts.
- Get a free snack at Disney California Adventure. Hop by The Bakery Tour in Pacific Wharf for a free sample of sourdough bread.
- Buy your Mickey pretzels at restaurant locations rather than the carts to save money. Not only are they cheaper at the restaurants but you can apply any discounts you have, as well. Find Mickey pretzels at Refreshment Corner and Bayside Brews.
- Hop over to our post on the cheapest foods at Disneyland to find items that fit your budget.
Overall Frog Family-Favorite Kids' Foods and Snacks at Disneyland
Here are the top foods that our kids love when we visit Disneyland Resort:
- Soup in a bread bowl
- Mac and cheese in a bread bowl or bread cone
- Jolly Holiday Combo (grilled cheese and tomato soup)
- Fried chicken at Plaza Inn
- Corn dogs (and mini corn dogs in Mickey's Toontown)
- Corn on the cob
- Ronto Wrap (some prefer to order without slaw or the peppercorn sauce)
- Sliders or grilled cheese at Grand Californian Hotel dining locations
- Pasta and pizza, especially mini personal pizza in Toontown
- Dill pickles, fruit or items from the produce stands
- Free sourdough bread snack at Boudin Bread Factory Tour
- Mickey ice cream bar
- Mickey pretzel
- Minnie or Mickey waffles at buffets and Carnation Café
- Pasta
- Ice cream, churros and popcorn
- Skewers or veggies and hummus at Bengal BBQ
- Mickey Beignets and Mint Julep
What are your top kids' foods at Disneyland? Let us know in the comments below. One way to save some money to increase your food budget is to purchase discount Disneyland tickets through Undercover Tourist.
Related: The Best Disneyland Snacks (and Where to Find Them!)
Related: The Coolest Disneyland Ice Cream for a Hot Day (or Any Day)
Hoppy planning!
