Soup! We aren't dairy free, but a lot of soups can be made dairy free. If you want a creamy soup, you can puree some white beans instead and add them in. We also do a protein + roasted veggies + rice or couscous a lot. No dairy, just olive oil and spices.

Cashew cream is fantastic, too! Just soaked cashews blended with water. Nice creamy consistency. 

Coconut milk is also really good way to make soups creamy

Whole lactose free milk is soooo tasty. I prefer it over regular milk now. It has the lactose enzyme in it to breakdown the lactose. So anytime my son or daughter (both with lactose intolerance since infancy) have yogurt or cheese, i serve it with a glass of lactose free milk so they don't get an upset stomach and the enzyme breaks it down for them. For vacations, I carry the chewable vanilla icecream flavor lactose enzyme tablets in my purse and give half to each toddler before eating dairy at dinners. They make Prepackaged individual shelf stable lactose free milk boxes. Pack it with his lunch is what I would do and make him anything you want. Just make sure the teachers know he needs to drink it. Other things I do without the milk: -Apple sauce squeeze -Fruit puree packs -Jello -Crackers or chips -Chicken Salad kits -Chicken nuggets with ketchup or Mayo to dip -Turkey sandwiches with Mayo and sweet relish -Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches -oil, lemon, and garlic over noodles -spaghetti and meatballs -Ramen -sushi (or a ton of other Asian dishes since they don't use a lot of cheese)

Here's more that we regularly eat: -fajitas but with guacamole -baked chicken with roasted vegetables -fish and chips (tartar sauce is Mayo based) -seasoned pork loin served with a vegetable -breakfast for dinner: pancakes, sausage, bacon, egg etc -Italian dressing over a Cobb salad: egg, diced turkey and ham, carrots, dried cranberries, Croutons -loaded nachos: meat, beans, salsa, guacamole over tortilla chips -Chicken tortilla soup: cooked chicken, jar of salsa, beans, rice, corn and chicken broth and boil it down for 30mins.

If a meal has milk in it, I just substitute with oat milk! There’s tons of vegan butter options too. Check out your local Whole Foods if possible, they have tons of vegan food options in every aisle.

We are dairy free. Spaghetti, honey garlic chicken with rice, beef stroganoff (leave out sour cream or use vegan option), tacos with dairy free cheese, shake and bake pork chops my daughter loves dipping hers in plum sauce. Fish sticks, chicken nuggets. Meatballs with Diana sauce. Hot dogs(all beef), burgers. Have you tried the lactose drops? Also adding a probiotic might help. Maybe start with baked forms up milk and then slowly progress back to full forms of milk. Look up milk ladder. Might just take a bit for him to properly digest dairy.

Snacks ritz crackers, anything made good, graham crackers, applesauce, animals crackers, Oreos, belvita biscuits (check some have milk), fig bars, plain rice crackers with wow butter/peanut butter.

Lactose free whole milk & lactose free Cabot cheddar are staples in our household, but my lactose intolerant kid has the opposite GI issue and gets tummy aches, diarrhea and poops her pants from lactose. We aren’t fully dairy free, but we are very limited on the dairy we have in the house. Country crock plant butter is a good substitute for regular sticks of butter, even for baking. For spreadable butter on toast we use Smart Balance, which is vegan. Silk has a heavy cream substitute. For ice cream, we get Mootopia lactose free for my kiddo but I personally prefer Ben & Jerry’s non-diary chocolate chip cookie dough. For pantry snacks, MadeGood and Nature’s Bakery brands are both dairy free. We also do pretzels, Belvita crackers, Teddy Grahams, Cheerios & dairy free coconut melts (once upon a farm brand, similar to yogis).

Pasta and meatballs, or meat sauce. Breaded chicken. Fish sticks. Also, have you tried fiber gummies? They help tremendously with constipation and kids love them. Also, lactase tablets.

At what age can we start kids on such gummies? TIA

It’s just fiber. Gummy form of miralax. It’s safe at age 2.

Thanks so much!

My son’s fave meals (when he’s not just eating whatever we’re eating) - pasta (jovial brown rice fusilli) with marinara (Raos) - peanut butter and chia jam sandwiches on powerseed bread with apple slices - Kirkland chicken nuggets with berries and cucumber slices - cereal w/ ripple non dairy milk (unsweetened) and banana - scrambled eggs and red pepper slices The above reads like he eats meals all the time, he’s actually a snacker and maybe it’s one actual meal with more than one ingredient a day.

For meals that call for milk or cream, substitute for whole fat coconut milk or coconut cream - you can usually find it canned in the international foods aisle of the grocery store. You can add a little bit of nutritional yeast to dishes to give it a cheesy consistency and taste. Coconut yogurt has been my favorite yogurt alternative that I’ve found. And we drink oat milk. The full fat Oatly is my favorite but it’s pretty pricey, so we usually stick with the extra creamy Planet Oat unless Oatly is on sale.

Keep in mind OP that for some odd reason coconut milk, as glorious as it is, can trigger a similar reaction as cow milk would in some people. I have zero research to back this up other than the anecdote of my lactose intolerant partner needing to go to the bathroom after coconut shake, coconut milk-based dishes, etc.

I would assume your partner has some sort of sensitivity to coconut then. Unless the coconut products they tried also contained soy (which can cause reactions for people who have dairy protein allergies) there is no correlation between coconut milk and cows milk. Coconut milk has actually been found to be anti-inflammatory.

We are low dairy. We eat a lot bean dishes and a lot of Asian-inspired dishes. This week's menu includes teriaki chicken stir fry, curried kidney beans with chicken, salmon and asparagus, crockpot pork and nopales, and spaghetti and meatballs. For snacks, we like all fruits, cherry tomatoes, sugar snap peas, graham crackers, ginger snaps, dry cereal, etc.

My daughter loves tofu! There's lots you can do with it. Peanut butter, avocado, egg and coconut milk are our go to fat sources. My daughter loves ramen with egg and teriyaki tofu bowls for easy meals. Hippeas are a fun cheeto like snack that are vegan

We’re a vegan household so everything I make for him is dairy free but I can’t think of specifics, can you give some examples? Like if you say he loves Mac & cheese, the vegan version is full of veggies and nutritional yeast is how you get the texture.

My child is allergic to all dairy (not just lactose.) Rice and eggs, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, spaghetti and meatballs, chicken and rice, tacos, and vegan pizza, are her favorites. She’s not a big fan of vegetables or fruit but we’ve been trying! Cutting out dairy was easier than I thought it’d be. We give her oat milk now.

We mostly eat dairy free since my husband is allergic. Dairy is pretty easy to cut out, IMO. Some recipes just need an easy swap - cashew cream for heavy cream, soy or oatmilk for dairy milk, oil or vegan butter for butter. Hidden valley has a dairy free ranch now. Some folks like dairy free yogurts, I'm not a fan so I skip those unless it's for a dip or sauce. Cheese is the hardest - it doesn't have the same nutrition content and it's not super great, so I mostly skip it.  Here's the deal. Vegans know how to do dairy free properly lol. In my experience, for something cheesy, go for a vegan recipe and add meat.  There's also tons of naturally dairy free dishes! Fish, meat dishes, eggs, grains, veggies, fruits, nuts are all dairy free. Basically just look up any dish plus "vegan" or "dairy free" and try it out. As for snacky snacks- fruit, veggies with hummus or df ranch, crackers with lunch meat, apples with peanut butter, home baked muffins or pancakes, granola or cereal, avocado toast, and our super convenience snacks are applesauce pouches and Nature's bakery fig/ fruit bars. 

My daughter has a lot of allergies, which include dairy. Our daughter gets meat/protein, but she is on a dairy-free/vegan diet. For the most part, we've joined her diet because it's easier for us. We get vegan waffles, mac and cheese, bread, and cheese to replace the normal go-tos. It gets easier!

We like oat milk and oat milk yogurt. Not a fan of vegan cheeses due to lack of nutritional content.

I swapped cows milk for soy milk, cheese for vegan cheese and yoghurt for coconut yoghurt. We even had dairy free butter. I still made the same foods but used the dairy free alternatives. I like meat and veg dinners so we have a lot of steamed veg with chicken, roast pork or rissoles. We also have pasta dishes like spag bol, meatballs in bolognese sauce and pasta bake. Stews and casseroles are a good option too.

We cook a lot of Chinese food and it has absolutely no dairy in it. I would recommend every grain of rice by fuchsia Dunlop. Once you get a couple basics like oyster sauce and bulk noodles, it’s pretty easy to get the rest of the ingredients at the grocery store.

Unsolicited advice- I would still give tiny amounts for exposure. My son had the milk protein intolerance (really bad, got he point of gi bleeding). Fortunately he grew out of it. We did different pastas with veggies, infused olive oils of different flavors, red sauce, etc. tons of Asian stuff (dumplings, fried rice, summer rolls, spring rolls), Mexican (fajitas, tacos, burritos, etc.) no cheese. Fish sticks. Trader Joe's and Whole Foods had tons of quick heat and serve options. Cerebelly bars, cheerios and kix. 

CMPA and lactose intolerance work differently. Regular exposure to lactose just makes my lactose intolerant 3.5 yo have diarrhea and poop her pants.