Healthy dinner suggestions?

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LovahLaura
LovahLaura Posts: 43
in Food and Nutrition
I live by myself so they need to be suggestions for just one person. I'm really bad at thinking of healthy things to eat. I sometimes think I'm doing okay but I never lose any weight. :(

Replies

  • atag2011
    atag2011 Posts: 45 Member
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    How about soup? Some brands have lower sodium and are organic like Amy's!
  • DizzieLittleLifter
    DizzieLittleLifter Posts: 1,020 Member
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    Why not any meal and make smaller portions or freeze the left overs?
  • littlejellies
    littlejellies Posts: 12
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    salad toped w/ sliced chicken & lots of veggies w/ a light vinaigrette
  • ahmpierce1
    ahmpierce1 Posts: 221 Member
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    Hi there -

    I usually do either:

    chicken breast (with low calorie honey mustard)
    green beans (with 1 garlic cloved chopped and 1 tablespoon light butter)
    grilled green peppers and onions with seasoning to taste

    or

    turkey burgers (with weight watchers american cheese)
    roasted asparagus (with 1 T of olive oil per "bunch" and salt/pepper)
    grilled green peppers and onions with seasoning to taste

    sometimes I'll add corn as another side if I am extra hungry. plus a glass of wine ;)

    These tend to be good staples for me since they are relatively quick and don't take culinary skills to complete (I am NOT a chef!). Problem is, eating the same two meals everyday tends to get boring....so any other suggestions are welcome!!
  • kristilovescake
    kristilovescake Posts: 669 Member
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    Batch cooking is awesome and something that I really need to do more of. There’s only two of us, but I love batch cooking and putting the leftovers in the fridge for easy lunch/dinners.

    Some of my favorites that are easy to make smaller or larger quantities:
    Pasta (whole wheat noodles, add veggies and some skinless chicken breast)
    Soup (made from scratch in the crock pot – full of veggies and chicken)
    Chicken breasts (I bake them with no butter and season the heck out of them)
    Rice.. can add stir-fry on top or just chicken breast
    Huge salads (full of lettuce, spinach, peppers, mushrooms, carrots, etc) – top with nuts or chicken for protein

    Or you can just get canned soup or lean cuisine, but they’re all full of sodium.
  • cherryObebe
    cherryObebe Posts: 189
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    I am not a fan of premade or prepackaged foods for a number of reasons, but mainly because of the sodium content, preservatives and price!

    I find that when I am cooking for one, I will cut my favorite recipes in half and have leftovers for a couple of nights. With my busy schedule this works great and I eat nice home cooked meals. There are some recipes that are even better leftover and others that freeze well. There are a ton of things you can do.

    My personal favorite healthy recipe sites are:

    Canyon Ranch Recipes - they are indulgent tasting but are totally healthy. BY FAR my favorite!
    http://www.canyonranch.com/community_connection/recipes/

    Rodale Recipe Finder - highly suggest the Pot Roasted Chicken. It is amazing!
    http://recipes.rodale.com/homepage.aspx

    SkinnyTaste - newer to me but it seems great!
    http://www.skinnytaste.com/2008/03/recipe-index.html

    Skinny Crock Pot - I use my crock pot a lot more lately and found that most recipes are high in sodium! This site has a really good foundation on healthy Crock Pot-ting.
    http://www.skinnycrockpot.com/

    I hope some of this helps. I was never a fan of leftovers, but found that if I made things that were delicious, I didn't mind eating them again! :smile:

    Another thing that I do is always have sweet potatoes on hand and have some frozen veggies & frozen, marinated fish in my freezer. I have found this to be one of my favorite meals! I will scrub a sweet potato, pierce and pop in the microwave for a few minutes. Then, spritz its skin with olive oil and put it and a piece of fish in the oven. In the last few minutes I will boil some frozen veggies or steam fresh ones. I typically have salad fixings in my refrigerator too. In 30 minutes, I can have a salad, fish, veggie and a sweet potato and it is truly delish! I personally get marinated salmon filets or a sea salt and roasted garlic Mahi. You can do the same thing with chicken breasts. I will marinate 2 breasts (Zesty Italian is amazing) in a container all day. I will remove one to grill that night and leave the other in the marinade overnight for the next day.

    Good luck!
  • alapoint89
    alapoint89 Posts: 632
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    im making sautee chicken with french beans and mash potatoes
  • melelana
    melelana Posts: 122 Member
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    Get yourself some tofu and play with it. Firm is probably the most versatile.

    Here's how I make a "sloppy joe" :

    Cut it into four equal pieces, put three in a ziploc or tupperware full of water for later. With a paper towel or cheesecloth, squeeze the moisture out of the tofu over the sink. Then, in a bowl, crumble the tofu so it looks kind of like ground beef. Get garlic and onions going in a pan with a little olive oil (bell peppers too if you're into that,) add the tofu, salt, pepper, and tomato sauce. Put it on a bun, and you've got healthy sloppy joes.
  • TheGlen
    TheGlen Posts: 242 Member
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    My suggestion would be to get an indoor grill. These are great for making small meals quickly. Toss some chicken, or steak and asparagus on the grill, steam some broccoli or other mixed veggies (yum).

    Make sure you do extra chicken/steak and use it the next day for lunch (since I saw you had another post on what to have for a healthy lunch). Cut up the extra meat, and toss it on spinach or mixed greens, with some cherry tomatoes and chopped onion. Add some olive oil and vinegar to a small container and take it all to work.

    The days I don't make enough for leftovers to take to work, are the same days I end up buying lunch or making bad decisions.
  • fitplease
    fitplease Posts: 647 Member
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    bump. Great topic!
  • Jewels211
    Jewels211 Posts: 184 Member
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    My suggestion would be to get an indoor grill. These are great for making small meals quickly. Toss some chicken, or steak and asparagus on the grill, steam some broccoli or other mixed veggies (yum).

    Make sure you do extra chicken/steak and use it the next day for lunch (since I saw you had another post on what to have for a healthy lunch). Cut up the extra meat, and toss it on spinach or mixed greens, with some cherry tomatoes and chopped onion. Add some olive oil and vinegar to a small container and take it all to work.

    The days I don't make enough for leftovers to take to work, are the same days I end up buying lunch or making bad decisions.

    Exactly what I was going to say. :) You can cook a lean hamburger patty from frozen done in like 8 minutes on an indoor grill, or thaw a chicken breast and in cooks in about that time. And if you cook like 3 breasts at a time, you can have it as is one meal, sliced to top a salad another (or two), and sliced and added to stirfried onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, etc. another. Btw, stirfries are another good suggestion. And your imagination and likes and dislikes are the only limits--any veggies you want plus chicken strips/chunks or frozen pre-cooked shrimp, or chicken or turkey smoked sausage slices or leftover beef of some sort. It's easy to change the taste of basically the same ingredients just by switching up the seasoning--soy sauce for oriental (and serve with boil-in-the-bag brown rice), Cajun spice to kick up the heat level, and think about serving with/over black or red beans, season with taco seasoning or chili powder/garlic/cumin wrapped in a tortilla to make a fajita.
  • LovahLaura
    LovahLaura Posts: 43
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    Thanks for the yummy tips and ideas everyone!!! I'm going to print out this topic for reference! :)

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