Easy healthy meals may sound like wishful thinking, but you can throw together something nutritious faster than you think with the right approach.
Check out my tricks for having quick and easy healthy meals every night of the week!
- Stock your kitchen with healthy staples: Make sure you keep the basics on hand for healthy cooking. Plain frozen chicken and fish fillets, canned beans, frozen vegetables, brown rice and whole wheat pasta are great to keep on hand.
- Consider precut foods: If you’re really pressed for time, take advantage of precut and prewashed healthy foods like chopped broccoli and salad mixes. Yes, they’re slightly more expensive, but it’s still cheaper than takeaway – and much healthier!
- Embrace the slow cooker: It may cook slowly, but the time investment on your part is quick with a slow cooker. Toss in your ingredients, then set it and forget it for a fast, healthy, homemade meal.
- Keep frozen healthy meals on hand: When cooking a healthy meal that doubles nicely like stew or chili, make an extra batch and freeze it for those days when you don’t have time to cook anything, healthy or not!
- Use more eggs: Considered by some to be nature’s perfect food, eggs are super nutritious, fast and easy! They’re also super filling and make the perfect foundation for a range of dishes, from scrambled eggs on toast and frittatas to hard-boiled eggs sliced up in salads and on sandwiches.
- Get familiar with healthy sauces: Pair a quick protein (grilled chicken or fish) with a sauce and a healthy grain like quinoa, and you’ve got a healthy meal ready to go in record time. Find some easy healthy recipes for sauces you like, such as tomato or pesto-based sauces. Make and freeze in batches, and you’ll always be ready to make a healthy meal.
- Get creative with leftovers: Learn new ways to use leftover cooked vegetables or scraps of fresh vegetables that are starting to turn. For example, you can use them to top baked potatoes, toss on a pre-made wholewheat pizza crust, make a frittata or turn into quesadillas.
- Consider tinned fish: Fresh fish cooks up quickly, but you also have to factor in the time it takes to go buy it as it generally doesn’t keep for long. Tinned fish is a great way to get more fish in your diet when you’re between grocery store trips. You can drain it and then add it directly to salads, sandwiches and wraps with whatever other healthy ingredients you have on hand.
- Preserve nutrition in produce: Many vitamins are water-soluble and can be destroyed when cooked. Pay attention to the food preparation methods you use. Steam your vegetables instead of boiling them, and scrub your vegetables instead of peeling them. Many nutrients are found inside or closer to the skin.
- Meal prep: Find a time to prep a few things you’ve just bought from the store, and making dinner will go much faster throughout the week. Wash and chop your vegetables and store them. You’ll be far less tempted to get takeaway when you get a late start on making dinner. If you can’t see meal prepping fitting into your schedule, do what I do: ‘meal prep as you go’. Anytime you find yourself prepping, make a little extra. Making an omelette? Make two. Slicing an onion? Slice an extra one. Prepping some barley? Make an extra batch. Easy, right?
As you can see, easy healthy meals don’t have to be a struggle. Incorporate these tricks into your routines, and you can transform your family’s eating habits with surprisingly little effort!
Love,
Nakita xxx
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