Wondering how to eat more vegetables, or maybe just get your kids to eat them? We all know the importance of proper nutrition, but trying to get 3 to 5 servings a day can seem overwhelming. Let these ten easy ways to eat more vegetables help you meet your goal.
How To Eat More Vegetables
1. Make this salsa. Technically ‘salsa’ is any sauce, but let’s not get caught up in technical details. Instead, think of vegetable salsa as a chance to eat chips! Making salsa is simple: dice some tomatoes, red and green bell peppers, and red onion. Add a minced, seeded jalapeno, some olive oil and a splash of red vinegar or freshly-squeezed lime juice. Stir in some fresh cilantro or parsley then season with salt and pepper and chill for an hour to let the flavors meld.
2. Breakfast for dinner (or breakfast): Saute mushrooms, onions, and kale or spinach then stuff them into an omelet. Or mound them in your skillet and make a few dents on the top with the back of a wooden spoon. Crack an egg into each dent, turn down the heat and cover the skillet until the egg whites are set. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper, and tell your family you’re serving Eggs in the Grass.
3. Smoothies: Blend some canned pumpkin, a banana, some pumpkin pie seasoning and milk to make a delicious smoothie that tastes like a dessert. Feeling more adventurous? Blend 2 cups raw baby spinach, a banana, a small container of vanilla yogurt and some water. No, really: it shocked me how delicious this tasted, and even my son enjoyed it despite the incredibly bright green color!
4. A Salad Bar In Your Fridge Wrap washed and torn lettuce in paper towels and store it in an air-tight container in your fridge. Chop your favorite salad veggies (remove seeds from tomatoes and cucumbers), and stash them in separate containers, too. Serve your “salad bar” before dinner, letting everyone put together their favorite combination. Top with your favorite homemade salad dressing. (Check out these tips for making a salad last all week.)
5. Veggie-intensive recipes: like my vegetarian ceviche and broccoli-cauliflower salad are a nice change from the standard, flavorless steamed vegetables.
6. Serve ’em as Snacks Instead of telling your kids not to snack before dinner why not encourage them in a healthy way? Just mound a platter with celery sticks, baby carrots, sliced radishes, chopped bell peppers, grape tomatoes, and even fresh green beans. It’s a Happy Hour you can feel good about.
7. Do Double Duty With Dips Ramp up the veggies by dipping them in more veggies made into a dip. Try making your own guacamole, homemade hummus or baba ganoush.
8. Homemade Veggie Chips There are recipes all over the internet for homemade kale chips, and I’ve yet to find one I didn’t like. You can make homemade baked chips out of most root vegetables, too. Just slice thinly, toss with a small amount of olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and bake at 375°F for 10-15 minutes until the edges begin to brown.
9. Serve Up Soup Summer is an excellent time for cold soups like gazpacho, chilled beet soup, and even Vichyssoise (cold potato soup). Or try this Lettuce Soup! Want something hot? Carrot and Bacon Soup is always a hit.
10. Put ’em On Pizza Go the mini-pizza route by topping English muffins with pizza sauce, chopped vegetables, and cheese, or make your own pizza dough. Worried your kids will refuse to eat when they see the vegetables? Then put the veg on before the sauce — what they don’t see won’t make them complain. After all, who doesn’t like pizza?
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These are awesome ideas! We always have so many veggies from our weekly CSA and I still haven’t figured out how to use them all in a week!
Thanks! Our garden is in full swing, and I’m having a difficult time using up everything I pick but I’ve been too busy to do any canning. So if you can’t fit all of your CSA veggies in during the week, be sure to check out my entry on Saving Produce: The Master List. 🙂
I’ve started steaming zucchini with our breakfast eggs. It’s an easy way to add a serving to a normally sugar-filled meal.
A great idea!
Personally I love summer and all the fruits and vegetables that come from the garden. I can’t wait for that first tomato sandwich!
I know that feeling! Every morning, I go check my tomato plants in the hope that today will be the day. Not yet, but soon. Soon!
such great ideas! i love veggies, but i’m admittedly bad about getting enough of them in my diet, mostly because it can be hard to only by veggies for 2 people + not have them go back. I’ve started buying a bunch of veggies every couple days (usually zucchini, squash, broccoli, green beans, etc.), getting them home + immediately steaming ’em, then just keeping them in the fridge already cooked. that way, it’s easy to toss them into my breakfast egg whites, add them to pastas for lunch, etc. it seems to be working to help me eat them more frequently once they’re already cooked + tupperwared in the fridge.
Don’t forget you can blanch and freeze them, too. Since we shop at the commissary, I tend to buy a week or two’s worth of veggies at a time and learned the blanching technique after the first dozen or so times I had to toss out rotting produce.
thanks for the tip – i’ll definitely have to try that!
I’m going to make a retro housewife out of you yet, Amy. Soon, you’ll be whipping up a white sauce for everything!
No, I’m just kidding. Don’t do that. It’s yucky. 😉