It might seem like cooking a healthy homemade meal takes a lot of work, especially if you're short on time. But you might be surprised how fast you can make a healthy meal at home where you control ingredients, calories, fat, and sodium, plus feel good making something for yourself and loved ones.
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Ingredients for a healthy meal:-
To make a balanced, healthy, quick meal, you need sources of many nutrients your body needs like:- protein, lots of veggies and fruits, some whole grains, and healthy carbs like starchy vegetables such as sweet potatoes.
• Ideas for quick, healthy meals:-
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1- Pasta with sauce:
Pasta with sauce is one of the easiest and fastest recipes you can make without much time or effort. You can prepare your favorite sauce and keep it to serve later with any whole grain pasta.
These sauces are great sources of vitamins and low in calories. You can serve pasta with sauce alone, but to make it a full meal you can add ingredients like tomatoes, onions, peppers, olives, and mushrooms. You can also add more protein like turkey, chicken, or some beans if you want a non-meat option.
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2- Salad plate as a meal:
You might be used to serving salad as a side dish with the main meal, but you can serve the salad plate itself as the main dish if you add more veggies and a protein source. For example, you can make a salad plate from (lettuce or raw spinach leaves, tomatoes, cucumber, olives, and onion). You can top it with a tasty Italian dressing and a little blue cheese sauce. You can add boiled eggs or turkey, and some healthy fats like (avocado, flax seeds, or nuts).
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3- Ready-made soup:
You can grab a can of ready-made soup, pour it, heat it, and serve it , done. But you might not enjoy the taste, it could have high sodium, and might lack nutrients.
So you can add things to the ready-made soup to boost its value. For example, if starting with chicken soup you can add carrot slices for more vitamin A. If you have leftover chicken, add it for extra protein to turn the soup into a hearty meal.
You can add some chopped herbs to the soup for extra flavor, color, and antioxidants.
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4- Healthy sandwiches:
Nothing faster than eating sandwiches as a full meal, but to make it a balanced meal, the bread should be whole grain.
The sandwich should have some lean meat. You can grill chicken breasts and keep them ready for sandwiches, adding lots of veggies like onion and tomato, plus a little mayo. You can also make sandwiches with canned tuna or salmon.
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5- Meats and vegetables with rice:
You might think it takes hours to make a meal like this, but it's actually easy. You'll need some lean meat like beef or chicken.
If you don't eat meat, you can swap it for fish or tofu. It's best to use green and colorful veggies like broccoli, peppers, carrots, and mushrooms.
To make the meal, just heat a little olive oil in a pan and cook the veggies. Then add the meat until done, pour in your favorite sauce, and serve with cooked rice. Make sure to eat brown rice sometimes too.
