How to Increase Veggie Intake: Every Meal
How to incorporate veggies into every meal of the day!
If you are aiming for 10 or more servings of vegetables every day, you might be wondering how to eat that much. A serving is about a half cup of cooked green or orange vegetable, or about a cup of raw veggie or salad. If you can get three servings into lunch and dinner, two in at breakfast, and two for a snack, you’ve got all ten covered, and you’ll hardly have to think about it!
Breakfast
Here are three ideas to add an easy two cups of veggies to your morning.
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Smoothies! This is an oldie but goodie. Throwing a cup or two of green leafy veggies into your smoothie is a great way to get extra veggies to your diet. You can try a cup or two of spinach, kale, chard, beet greens, romaine lettuce, or a small handful of stronger leaves like celery leaves or parsley, or a watery vegetable like cucumber. But did you know you can also add cooked and chilled veggies to your smoothie to expand your options and add even more fiber and nutrients? Try steamed or roasted and frozen cauliflower, zucchini, carrots, beets, sweet potatoes, and butternut squash. All of these veggies add sweetness and creaminess to your smoothie. If you’re meal prepping for dinner, pop a few half cup servings into the freezer for quick smoothie making during the week. An avocado or frozen banana adds creaminess as well. For liquids, try coconut water, nut milks, or greek yogurt. Fresh ginger, pineapple, orange juice, lime with mint, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, and cocoa or carob powder are all things that can be added to change up the flavor profiles and give you something different every time. If you like crunch, try a handful of nuts or seeds, toasted coconut flakes, pomegranate seeds, or cocoa nibs on top. Easy to grab and go!
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Hash! Traditionally, hash is made from leftover white potatoes and meat, but you can make hash with many different kinds of veggies. With your starting point as a pan of sautéed onion and garlic, you can try many different combinations of veggies like sweet potatoes and beets, quartered Brussels sprouts with cauliflower, broccoli and carrots, or cabbage and parsnips. This is super fast with leftovers, and not too much slower starting with raw veggies. Add a little salt and pepper and a sliced sausage or a crumbled piece of bacon on top and you have a quick couple of servings of veggies ready to go.
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Eggs! Veggies go great with eggs. You can toss them in with scrambled eggs, fold them into an omelette, or bake them into a frittata. Any kind of veggie tastes great sautéed and added to eggs. If you’re short on time, you can try lightly panfrying a couple cups of slaw mixture from the grocery store. Broccoli slaw, Brussels sprout slaw, or classic cabbage and carrots will all taste great sautéed in a little olive oil with salt and maybe a dash of something spicy (Beriberi seasoning, anyone?) or a handful of sliced olives. Then scramble your eggs right into your pan and that’s breakfast!
Lunch
Lunch is a great meal to incorporate veggies. For lunch, think about these two words: soup and salad. Salads are easy to prepare and take. Three cups of mixed veggies, topped with a healthy dressing, a handful of nuts, and some sliced protein (meat, hardboiled eggs, or cheese) will power you through until dinner. You can also experiment with roasted root vegetable salads, in which case you only need a cup and a half.
Soups are easy to make and freeze in lunch-sized portions as well. Try to experiment with some veggie-based soups such as creamy pureed carrot or butternut squash soups, or green soups. You can also warm bone broth, poach an egg in it, and pour it over three cups of finely shredded veggies for a quick soup. The hot broth will just blanch the veggies, brightening their colors but leaving their crispness intact.
Snacks
For snacks there are always the classic raw veggies dipped in something good. You can try out some new vegetables as well as favorites like carrot sticks, celery, and cauliflower. How about sliced kohlrabi and jicama? Bell pepper strips and pea pods? Watermelon radishes and romanesco?
You can also try kale chips. Wash, dry, and remove the ribs from a bunch of kale. Drizzle with olive oil and a pinch of salt (and cayenne, if you like spice!) and roast at 300 degrees F for 20-25 minutes. Spritz with lemon juice when it comes out of the oven and it won’t take long to eat the whole pan.
Supper
When you're trying to incorporate veggies into supper, try to replace a traditional grain with a vegetable instead. Experiment with vegetable noodles, rices, mashes, and crusts. If you use a vegetable for a base, and then dress it with a vegetable (and top it with a vegetable based sauce for extra kick!) you will have no trouble getting three servings of vegetables into your supper routine. For example, make a stir fry with broccoli, onion, bell pepper, and bok choy. Serve it over cauliflower rice, topped with ginger-carrot dressing. Or serve sautéed peppers and onions with marinara sauce over zucchini noodles (with meatballs — you could even sneak a cup of finely shredded veggies into your meatball recipe and add more veggies that way).
A little extra meal planning and prep will assure that you have veggies on hand for every meal of the day, and they will bring health and vitality to your whole body.