City officials say they’re bringing back popular school food menu items after receiving criticism when school menus were slashed earlier this winter.

That included criticism from students, who noticed something changing in their school cafeterias.

“I noticed that the dumplings disappeared because I really liked those,” Ksenia Yehorysheva, a freshman at the Manhattan Center for Science & Mathematics, said.

The education department cut out popular items earlier this winter, including some new additions it had touted to NY1 just a few months earlier, like those chicken dumplings.

Other items on the chopping block: French toast sticks, chicken thighs, seasoned wedge fries and cheese and bean burritos.

Schools also nixed chicken tenders and packaged salads from food court style cafeterias.

Now, city officials say they’ve heard the criticism and are bringing many of the items back.

“It’s really important to know that we listen. We listen, when something is not right, we do our best to fix it,” Kate MacKenzie, executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy, said.

The menu cuts were first reported by Chalkbeat NY.

The city has offered shifting explanations for why the cuts were made. Some education department officials tied them to the agency budget cuts mandated by City Hall. The Program to Eliminate the Gap, known as a PEG, outlines a $60 million reduction to school food programs.

But Office of Management and Budget Director Jacques Jiha insists that was backfilled with federal money, and the PEG document notes: “Federal food revenue exceeds budgeted level.”

At a council hearing this week, Jiha insisted there was no budget cut, and offered another explanation: 

“The city made some significant investment in school cafeterias. So you have a lot of children hanging out in the cafeterias now and eating more and more and more and more,” Jiha said. “So, therefore, what they did was they basically cut some of the items.”

MacKenzie said the menu reductions stemmed from a 9% increase in student participation.

“When we’re feeding more kids, it’s going to cost us more money. So in partnership with OMB, we’re bringing the money to the table,” she said.

Asked where the city was getting the cash to restore the axed menu items, MacKenzie pointed to federal funding the city receives for each meal it serves.

NY1 pressed her on why, then, the increased participation required cuts in the first place.

“You know, the fact of the matter is that we had one month of putting out a menu that didn’t get a good response. And within that month, we were able to say we gotta make a change,” she said.

Asked further about the funding being used to restore the cut items, she said the participation boost had exceeded the city’s own expectations.

“Making sure that then we’re given the revenues and directing those revenues to support the program just took a minute,” she said.

In addition to being panned by kids, the cuts raised concern that children might skip meals if there was nothing appetizing on offer.

“We’ll be watching very closely, looking at menus, looking at budget documents. But I know the administration is listening. I know they made this change very quickly. And they want to make sure more kids are eating,” Rachel Sabella, director of No Kid Hungry, said.

“I think it’s important for people to listen to students because [of] their lunch — like some students are not able to eat at home. So I think it’s definitely good to cater to what they would like to eat,” student Aliah Garcia told NY1.

Not every menu item will return. Bagel sticks, sweet potato muffins and packaged salads won’t come back. However, bagels, other muffins and salad bars are available.