500 Calories or Less

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page8040
page8040 Posts: 50 Member
in Recipes
Hello yall, my calorie restrictions are currently set at 1600 per day. I have done a good job so far but am curious to hear people's favorite FILLING recipes with 500 or fewer calories. Breakfast is easy so I'm mainly asking for lunch and dinner ideas. What's your "go-to?"

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  • melaniecheeks
    melaniecheeks Posts: 6,349 Member
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    500 calories is lots!

    For lunch I usually have a home made soup or stew. That'll be around 200 cals. If I needed more, I'd add a ham or chicken sandwich.

    Dinner is usually based around protein and veg - grilled fish with asparagus, chicken breast with leeks in a cheese sauce, prawn stir fry.
  • Casey_Lizbeth
    Casey_Lizbeth Posts: 2
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    Banana with peanut butter, yogurt, fruit slices. Black beans and rice with guacamole, taco sauce, corn. Wheat tortilla or pita with hummus, veggies, and tabbouleh or couscous. Vegetable soup and a grilled cheese with light butter. A big salad with beans, chunks of chicken, lots of veggies, and light dressing. A scrambled egg, fruit, and a slice of toast.

    500 calories or less is really easy. Start with a healthy grain, such as oatmeal, brown rice, wheat bread, amaranth, or whole wheat pasta; a lean protein like tofu, beans, an egg, chicken, yogurt, fish, or tempeh; and a good serving of leafy greens, Brussels sprouts, corn, green beans, strawberries, apple slices, an orange, raspberries, any fruit or vegetable will do. Your meal should be about 1/4 grains, 1/4 protein, and then 1/2 fruit and veggies. Once you have your meal base selected, you can tack on extra calories such as cheese, beverages, dressings, guacamole, sauces, and ect.
  • KariQuiteContrary
    KariQuiteContrary Posts: 274 Member
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    I absolutely LOVE stuffed peppers (with a meat - either low fat beef, ground turkey, or chicken - plus brown rice, blackbeans, fire roasted tomatoes, corn, and a few spices) and mine only top out at around 300 Calories. I figured out that also doubles well as a quick heat and fill wrap for lunch. Sprinkle on a little cheese and sour cream and you're sitting right around 480 calories of QUALITY stuff :). I don't have the recipe right in front of me but you can always message me and ask :)
  • GeorgieLove708
    GeorgieLove708 Posts: 442 Member
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    There are so many options, really. Some of my favorites (won't include recipes, they're easily google-able and we tend to adjust them a little each time we cook them) are:
    We make chili (heavy on the beans and use 93% lean ground beef) it comes out to 325 calories per cup. It's very filling on it's own, but we eat it with a salad and some crackers and it still tends to come in under 500 calories (depending on type/amount of crackers).
    Also many soups are great. Wild rice, mushroom, and garbanzo bean soup is delicious and filling. A cup comes in around 119 calories which leaves plenty of room for other sides. You could make it with chicken (the original recipe I found called for chicken).
    Smoked sausage, kale, and navy bean soup is another delicious and filling soup that I like. 2 cups comes in at 433 calories and that's more than enough to fill me up.
    Our crockpot chicken salsa recipe came in at 311 calories for 7 ounces of chicken plus a bunch of salsa/veggies.
    Those are all of the ones that I still have entered in my recipes section, but some others are pot roast & veggies, baked chicken with roasted veggies and a baked potato, stuffed peppers, taco salad, grilled kebabs.... Really I could keep going. There are tons of options.
  • iammelli
    iammelli Posts: 42 Member
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    soup and crackers, or grilled fish and quinoa :)
  • Audlofitz
    Audlofitz Posts: 4
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    I like low sodium turkey/baby swiss roll ups. (you can even warm them a bit if you'd like) I add a side salad of coleslaw with a tiny bit of "light" dressing and about 6 strawberries. Quite filling...
  • One2Run
    One2Run Posts: 63 Member
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    I often have a hard boiled egg with salt and pepper, low fat Greek yogurt, apple/orange, and either cucumber or carrots.

    It's mostly because I am too lazy to make anything interesting to take to work. ;)
  • writergeek313
    writergeek313 Posts: 390 Member
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    I'm all about soups and stews this time of year. Over the weekend I made a pot of chili with ground chicken, a few different kinds of beans, and lots of veggies, and it worked out to less than 400 calories per serving, even with some tortilla chips and a little cheese.

    This recipe comes in at about 300 calories per serving. It's really easy to make and reheats well, too. http://www.theppk.com/2010/10/quinoa-white-bean-and-kale-stew/
  • Phrick
    Phrick Posts: 2,765 Member
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    I make a taco soup in my crockpot that's only 271 calories per 269g serving, which doesn't LOOK like a lot in a bowl, but it's really filling. Very high in protein considering it's calorie count, good amount of fats, great on fiber. I make it on the weekend and have it for lunch all the following week.
  • Acg67
    Acg67 Posts: 12,142 Member
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    Hello yall, my calorie restrictions are currently set at 1600 per day. I have done a good job so far but am curious to hear people's favorite FILLING recipes with 500 or fewer calories. Breakfast is easy so I'm mainly asking for lunch and dinner ideas. What's your "go-to?"

    This is gonna sound crazy, but take your fav recipes and portion out 500 cals. Done
  • CattOfTheGarage
    CattOfTheGarage Posts: 2,750 Member
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    If your aim is to stuff your face to your heart's content on under 500cal, my vote is for stew. Lean meat, limit the fat, add loads of veg and you'd be amazed how much steamy hot goodness you can get for under 500. Just watch portions on the accompanying carbs (potatoes, rice, bread) as that's where the calories can mount up. And avoid extras like cream, cheese and so on - use herbs and spices to big up the flavour instead.

    Eta also watch the thickeners - flour-and-butter Roux is quite calorific, so are ground almonds and gravy granules. Cornflour/cornstarch is better value. Best of all, just mash in some of the veg to thicken.

    Nothing wrong with any of these things, of course. But they'll make your 500Cal portion smaller, and I'm going for quantity here.

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