6 Simple & Healthy Meal Ideas

Making simple healthy meals at home is a great way to save on calories and is much cheaper than take-outs and ready meals. However, if you’re struggling to know what kinds of meals you should be eating, here are six quick and easy recipes ideal for dinner or lunch.

So, it’s time to throw away those takeout menus and turn to these tasty recipes for simple, healthy meals to boost your weight loss.

Grilled Chicken

Grilled chicken is a surefire way to provide a simple yet healthy and filling meal. It’s packed full of protein to keep your appetite suppressed for hours and plenty of B vitamins. Grill the chicken at medium-to-high heat until fully cooked, and you’re done.

It can be a little bland, however, so you need to spice things up with some mouth-watering herbs and spices. Take this opportunity to experiment with garlic, rosemary, lemon, caramelized onion—whatever you like! Then, serve on a bed of salad to give even more healthiness to this simple healthy meal.

Quinoa Salad

For a super healthy alternative to pasta, rice, or couscous, try quinoa, and we promise you won’t look back. Quinoa is nutrient-dense and really filling, so it’s perfect for lunch or dinner to keep hunger at bay. Rinse half a cup of quinoa thoroughly before cooking to remove any bitterness, add to a pot with twice as much water, and bring to a boil.

Leave to simmer until all the water is absorbed, adding more water if necessary. When the quinoa is light and fluffy, you can add whichever salad ingredients you like. If you need some inspiration, these great ideas will help you liven up your salads and build a healthy meal full of goodness and flavor.

Vegetable Soup

It sounds simple enough, but many of us still prefer to buy tinned soups. However, with tinned soups, there’s always the risk that you’re consuming too much salt and unnecessary preservatives – both of which should be avoided for your health and your weight loss goals.

By making soup from scratch, you’ll get more crucial weight loss nutrients and less of the bad stuff. Soup is actually really easy to make, and it’s the perfect comfort food for when the cold weather rolls around again.

And, as you’re making it, you only need to put in the ingredients you like! So, chop up whatever veggies you want, heat a tablespoon of sunflower oil in a large pan add onion, garlic and throw in the vegetables.

Stir the mix for around 15 minutes and then add 1 3/4 pints of stock to the pan, season with salt, and bring to a boil, stirring now and again. Leave to simmer then serve with whole grain bread for the perfect winter warmer that will also up your vitamin intake in just one bowl.

Vegetable Frittata

It’s a familiar sight when you open the fridge – eggs, a few vegetables, and not much else. However, this is the perfect opportunity to make a frittata!

This healthy, wholesome dish is packed with protein, which leaves you feeling fuller for longer. Take six eggs and whisk with a pinch of salt and a little pepper, then take a large non-stick frying pan and add a tablespoon of olive oil to heat your other ingredients.

You can add whatever you like, but keep it healthy and try to get as wide a range of weight-loss-boosting nutrients as possible; kale, spinach, and leek all work really well. When the veg is done, pour the egg mixture over the top and cook for 3 minutes, making sure to regularly lift the mixture at the sides to ensure that the egg is well distributed.

Once lightly brown, move the pan to the oven at 446 °F for the eggs to set, which should take around 7 minutes. Serve with a salad for even more goodness, and save the leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch as a great way to save yourself extra work.

Stir-Fry

When you’re short on time, a stir-fry is the perfect meal to whip up in less than 30 minutes. Crisp, crunchy, and brimming with flavor and freshness, stir-fries are tasty, easy to prepare, and a great way to boost your vegetable intake.

Like many of these simple recipes, you can add whatever veggies you like, but good options are broccoli, peppers, onions, garlic, mini sweetcorn, bean sprouts, carrots, and water chestnuts. You can keep it vegetarian, but if you want to add meat, cut up chicken breast or lean beef with scissors into strips and cook in your wok or large non-stick frying pan with a dash of olive oil.

Boil the noodles while the meat is cooking. When the meat is ready, add the veggies and noodles. For flavor, either add a little stock with Chinese five spice or just a dash of soy sauce and serve!

Creamy Pasta

Stick to whole-grain pasta, and you’ll get lots of fiber that keep you full for longer. Plus, whole-grain pasta provides a lot more nutrients and energy than simple carbs like white pasta or white rice.

Making your own tomato sauce also saves your waistline and your wallet. Not only do jars of spaghetti sauce contain a lot of sugar, but they can also set you back between $2 and $6, while the equivalent amount of tomatoes will usually cost under a dollar.

To make a basic tomato sauce for pasta, put crushed tomatoes (either canned or fresh) into a saucepan and stir in some wine or wine vinegar, a pinch of sugar, your favorite herbs, and some chopped onion and garlic. Let this simmer for half an hour, and then add any other vegetables you want, such as peppers, zucchini, and mushrooms, and cook until the vegetables are soft. Lastly, stir in a small, unsweetened, low-fat Greek yogurt to add protein and make it creamy; stir and mix with the pasta to serve.

With these simple, healthy meals, there’s no excuse not to cook filling, nutrient-rich foods that will boost your health and help you achieve long-term success.