Getting supper on the table after a long day of work or school may be the last thing you want to think about when you are tired. Unfortunately, grabbing a bite to eat from a restaurant or heating up commercially prepared meals often means you’re getting low quality food or more calories than you might like. Today I’d like to share some concepts for making easy, healthy, low cal meals for supper. It needn’t be that time-consuming or hard if you have a system. Cook Easy Healthy Meals Quickly What you will need to do is get a general sense of how it might work and then over time fine tune the process so you can look forward to simple, satisfying, and low calorie meals without it taking a lot of time or fuss. Here’s some of the things you might want to keep in mind 1. Have a well-stocked pantry Earlier this year I wrote a 5-part series on easy healthy meal preparation. I covered the importance of planning ahead and having a well-stocked pantry. I will refer you back to that article for lots of tips on how to go about getting a small but necessary pantry started. There’s no need to have a specific room or closet as a pantry if your kitchen is tiny. I know. I had an unbelievably small kitchen for over 20 years; even so, I came up with a system that worked. (Read about how I set up a healthy pantry) 2. A Few Basic Utensils, Pots, Pans, and Appliances Matter The number of items you need to have for a simple working kitchen is less than you might imagine. It’s possible you already have many of these items but you haven’t put them to the best use. On the other hand, if you are lacking some of the basic utensils you may want to consider investing a little. There is no need to buy the top of the line cookware but some measure of quality can make things easier and possibly shorten the time you spend in the kitchen. I’ll just touch on the essentials now because this topic deserves to be an article of its own. Here are the items I would not want to be without. -A set of quality knives -Kitchen scissors -Indoor Grill Pan -Wooden spoons, measuring cups and spoons, heat proof spatula. -Microplane grater for grating hard cheeses (A little parmagiano reggiano adds so much flavor to food for very few calories. Try it and you’ll never go back to grated parmesan cheese in a jar!) -A basic set of pots and pans -Freezer proof containers for stocking your freezer with your own “heat and eat” healthy meals! In addition to these there are a few appliances I would not be without. -Immersion blender (We use this for pureeing soups and making dips and sauces. It works like a charm and cleanup is a cinch. I can’t begin to tell you how much time it has saved us!) -Microwave Oven (This is another must have. I don’t use it that often to cook a whole meal BUT I can’t imagine not having one for defrosting meat, fish, poultry; reheating “planned overs”; cooking my morning oatmeal; steaming vegetables; and more.) - Food Processor (A good food processor can be used for chopping, blending, and shredding. You can keep the cost and the space for storage to a minimum by investing in a smaller model. A small food processor should be fine for most quick and easy meals unless you have a big family.) 3. Cook More Food Less Often What do I mean by this? I suggest you consider choosing the best 1-3 days a week to do the bulk of your cooking. But don’t worry. It needn’t be significantly more involved than the effort you put in to prepare a single meal. After all, if you are cooking anyway, preparing a double batch or more requires very little extra effort. The additional food will provide you with “planned overs” for later in the week or to freeze for easy to re-heat meals later on. I’ve never been a fan of the cook once and eat all week or all month! for that matter. That requires too much planning, a large block of time for cooking, and overall coordination. I prefer simple. Easy to prepare meals that allow for quantity cooking include soups, stews, casserole dishes, lasagna, chili, and burgers. Something else we like to prepare in quantity are delicious spinach meatballs made with lean turkey. We make up a big batch and then BAKE the meatballs. (Easy!) When they are done we use some to make a meal of whole wheat spaghetti and meatballs with a vegetable side dish and a salad. AND we freeze the extra meatballs for many easy meals down the road. This is one of my husband’s favorite meals and time saving techniques. I also like making my own whole wheat pizza dough in quantity in just minutes. No waiting on the rising and no kneading required if you plan ahead. Want the recipe? Just ask. When the dough is ready after being refrigerated overnight, I cut it into pieces big enough for individual pizzas and freeze the dough in freezer quality ziplock bags. In my family we like to do the extra meal preparation when preparing supper for the weekend meals. My husband often prepares one meal one evening and I prepare the other. That way I typically only have to prepare one more meal in quantity during the week when I am more tired and less than enthused. The other nights we eat quick meals, planned overs from the current week, or choose a frozen meal from our well-stocked freezer. 4. Quick to Prepare Meals Some quick to prepare meals include spaghetti and meatballs (see #3), fish fillets, tuna or egg salad (easy to do if you’ve cooked hard-boiled eggs in advance), frittatas, omelets, and chef salads of all kinds. If you need some inspiration for awesome salad ideas then sign up to receive updates from Salad Pride (a new salad idea every day)! Something else you can prepare in minutes is pizza made with whole wheat English Muffins or Pita bread. Make enough and you can save some in the fridge for easy reheating later in the week. If you have a bit more time defrost one of your own frozen pizza doughs and make pizza easily with healthy low sodium pizza sauce, chopped and/or sauteed veggies, and shredded low fat cheese. If the pizza is big enough or has too many calories for enjoying all at once, save back some for lunch or supper the next day. 5. Easy to prepare Veggies: The Ticket to Weight Loss Success If you allow for enough quality protein foods and maybe a little low fat dairy, whole grains, and fruit then you can and should eat as many non-starchy veggies as you want. (Limit corn and white potatoes). Veggies are low calorie and tend to be a good to excellent source of many essential nutrients and dietary fiber. The catch for the veggies is deciding which ones you are willing to eat and how you will work them into your meals without a lot of time or fuss. Fortunately there are oodles of ways to get creative with veggies. Here are some ideas for you. Clean, wash, and chop up fresh veggies over the weekend. I will eat and enjoy cut sweet peppers, celery, carrots, and the like with my meals and snacks, if I have taken the time to slice some up ahead of time. But they tend to sit in my refrigerator vegetable bin if I don’t. While you’re at it why not chop some veggies up and freeze in zip lock bags to have available for making soups, stews, casserole dishes, and more. Or add some to a commercially prepared soup to make it more nutritious and filling. This is a great idea for when local and fresh vegetables are available in abundance in the summer and fall from farmer’s markets. Other easy ways to enjoy veggies throughout the week can be to make up a large batch of sauteed veggies to include in salads, sandwiches, or to complement the rest of a meal. Instead of sauteeing you might toss washed and chopped veggies with a little olive oil and seasonings and then roast in your oven or grill on the stove top. This method will caramelize the little bit of natural sugar in veggies making them sweet and appealing. 6. Switch up your meals Who says you can’t eat breakfast or lunch for supper. For example, if you like having scrambled eggs, a muffin, and a piece of fruit for breakfast, why not have the same for supper? Or switch out the fruit for lots of low cal veggies. Typical lunch type meals such as soup and sandwiches are endless and just as good for supper as for lunch. 7. Whole Grains for Supper Choose easy to prepare whole grains for a quick side dish for supper. Some of the fastest cooking I’ve found include quinoa*, whole wheat couscous, and microwaveable brown rice (I haven’t actually tried the brown rice but I’m aware it exists. Have you tried it?). Quinoa is by far my favorite whole grain for a side dish or salad . Barley and oatmeal are favorite whole grains that I use in making other things (oatmeal with baking, barley in soups and stews, etc.) I have lots more ideas but I feel like I am beginning to write a book! Hopefully some of these ideas will get you started cooking more of your own suppers for better nutrition and calorie management! Would you share some of your easy healthy low cal meal ideas for supper? Thank you! *Botanically speaking, quinoa is not actually a grain but in a culinary and nutritional sense it is similar.
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