It’s quite common for some children not to eat foods with sauce, even the usual kid-friendly pasta dishes like a simple tomato spaghetti.
It’s often an issue of texture. Wet or saucey food can feel strange in a child’s mouth. It can sometimes even feel sticky or slimey and often contains lots of “bits” which will be unfamiliar to children.
One tip I have for overcoming this is to serve the sauce separately. This may seem overly simplistic and it by no means will solve the issues a child may have with texture, but it does serve several purposes.
It gives a picky eating child control over their food. They are able to control if and how much of the sauce they eat and gives them a feeling of input into the meal, rather than it just being forced upon them.
It’s a great way of encouraging your child to try just a small bit of the sauce, without fear of it spoiling the whole meal. This can remove a lot of the stress and tension surrounding mealtimes and you can gradually work up the amount of sauce that they eat.
Let me know if you try it!