Starting this fall, school cafeteria food could taste more like home cooking under a Department of Education initiative that encourages parents to choose the recipes and ingredients served in their children’s schools.

The initiative comes after a band of health-conscious parents at the New Explorations Into Science, Technology and Math school on the Lower East Side began campaigning this winter to persuade the education department to serve more vegetables and tofu, and fewer french fries, at the school. Their campaign didn’t last long.

The department’s response to their requests was a definitive yes, and the parents have since been invited to take charge of the school menu — much to their surprise. Changing the food served in a school system so large is often a glacial process and can be controversial. Recently, the department’s decision to replace 1% chocolate milk with a skim version resulted in protests and City Council hearings that dragged on for months.

The parent who organized the NEST campaign, Michelle Nordberg, a nutritionist, began discussing strategies to improve cafeteria food with two other members of the school’s PTA health committee last fall. By February, the department had given them permission to hold tofu- and spinach-tasting sessions in the cafeteria and to develop recipes for homemade soups with the school cooks.

“It happened very quickly,” Ms. Nordberg said. “It can be done. Now, we’re putting together this model program.”

Department officials in the school food division say they are planning to replicate the NEST program citywide starting this spring. Besides inviting parents to work with principals in choosing what foods and recipes they think their children will like best from a preset list of options, the department will allow many schools to choose a “bar” for their cafeteria from a range of options, including deli bars, salad bars, burrito bars, and pasta bars.

“We can be flexible within the many selections we have, and we can work together,” the executive director of school food, David Berkowitz, said. “Our bottom line is how do we feed more kids.”

At NEST, the initiative has had the added benefit of helping to mend a rift between parents and the principal, Olga Livanis, whom former PTA officials accused of blocking parental involvement in the school.

“They were maybe surprised that I said, ‘Sure, I’ll work with you on this.’ … They weren’t sure I would,” Ms. Livanis said. “It’s the beginning of positive involvement. … It’s a huge difference from my beginning in the fall.”

On the citywide level, the department’s effort to invite parental input on school food could also help alleviate criticisms coming from parents who say the Bloomberg administration has left them out of education policy decisions. During the past month a group of parents, along with the teachers union and some City Council members, have launched a campaign against the mayor’s plan to reorganize the schools, saying parents have been excluded from the process.

To the students, the politics behind what goes on their cafeteria trays is irrelevant. Taste is what matters, and at NEST, the new menu has fans and critics.

As a compromise to younger taste buds, Pizza Fridays were created under the new cafeteria regime, but last week several students said they were mourning the disappearance of french fries, mozzarella sticks, and crunchy fist nuggets.

“I don’t want to be a health nut,” an eighth-grader, Melvin, said. “I still like the junky food.”

The menu’s fans included a table of sixth-grade girls scooping up hummus with pita bread, a new offering. They praised a sushi tasting held the week before.

“And the tofu is good, too,” Skye, 11, said as her classmates nodded.

Others hadn’t noticed the changes.

“That would explain why they’re trying to put broccoli on the pizza,” Michal, a 13-year-old eighth-grader, said.

Despite some grumbling, the number of students eating in the NEST cafeteria has gone up 20% since the changes went into effect, the Manhattan coordinator for School Food, Stephen O’Brien, said.

“Now we’re ready to take it to the next level — citywide,” he said.