If you want to do something great for your body then eating more veggies is it. Low calorie, low fat, and packed with essential vitamins and minerals vegetable should make up half of every plate of food you eat. If you’re not a big fan though and you struggle to eat as many as you should here are 8 tips and tricks to add more to your diet.
Smoothies
It’s more traditional to add fruit to smoothies but there are a lot of great vegetable choices too. Let’s look at a few examples.
- Pineapple, pear, mint, cucumber and spinach. Sweeten it with a little maple syrup or honey if needed
- Carrot, orange, ginger and oats
- Kale, avocado, pineapple, banana and lime
- Beetroot, strawberry, raspberry and banana
Cakes and brownies
Everyone has heard of carrot cake, it’s one of the world’s favorites. There are other vegetables you can add to cakes too though. Courgettes are delicious in cakes and come out quite similar to carrot cake. I personally love adding courgette to a cake with sultanas, chopped apple, and lots of cinnamon. Another great option is beetroot. Cooked shredded beetroot adds no real taste to a chocolate cake or tray of brownies but they do add wonderful moistness. You get more veg in your diet and you won’t even notice.
Pasta substitute
If you’re celiac, gluten intolerant or trying to cut carbs you may have already tried this. Instead of spaghetti, tried using spiralized zucchini, carrot, or butternut squash. Instead of lasagne sheets, you can use grilled eggplant or zucchini. It’s a delicious and easy way to add more vegetables.
Vegetable juices
There are lots of juices containing vegetables nowadays. Some are pure vegetable juices such as carrot, others are a mix like beetroot and strawberry. If you want to replace your morning fruit juice to cut sugar and get more vegetables in there are/ plenty of large bottles in the fruit juice aisle at the supermarket. Some companies also make smaller drinks designed to be taken as an energy shot while on the go.
Pasta sauces
If you’re making a marinara sauce it’s easy to add extra veggies. If you use a food processor to chop them very finely then picky eaters in the family probably won’t even notice they’re there! A good combo for marinara is onion, garlic, carrot and celery. If you like them mushrooms are delicious too but they should be left a little bigger. You could also purée down root vegetables with a little cream for a richer, more silky, sauce.
Cauliflower rice
When rice is finely chopped in a food processor the cooked consistency is very similar to rice. If you pair it with a strong-tasting sauce like curry or chilli it’s likely you won’t even notice the difference. If processing a cauliflower feels like too much work then you can but it prepared in most stores. If you check out the freezer section you can buy it in individual microwave bags that are ready in minutes.
Soups
You can add a huge amount of vegetables to a soup recipe. Again, if you have a blender and blend the soup down you can add carrot, pepper, sweet potato and parsnip to a basic tomato soup and your kids/picky eaters won’t even notice.
Loaded peppers
Loaded potato skins are a treat sold in many restaurants. If you swap the potato and use a bell pepper you can still fill it with cheese and onion and bacon but you’ll get some extra vegetables too.
Are you feeling inspired yet? Why not make it your goal to try just one of these suggestions this week? You’ll be getting your 5 a day in no time.
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