A Simple Guide to Cooking Healthy Meals for Two
Cooking healthy meals isn’t as easy as healthy eating Instagram accounts lead you to believe. It requires a great deal of planning, preparation and creativity. Cooking for two can be tricky—especially if your culinary skills are rusty.
Leftovers sound practical, but there’s only so much mac and cheese you can eat in a week. Eating out isn’t really healthy and it will burn a hole in your wallet if you do it too often.
Simple Healthy Eating Tips When Cooking for Two
You may have your local pizza joint on speed dial, but if you want to make healthy eating your goal as a couple, you need to consider the following tips. They will help you cook healthy meals every day with your girlfriend, boyfriend, BFF or roommate, and bring you closer to making your healthy eating goal a reality.
What are you waiting for? Read ahead and get cooking!
1. Invest in cookbooks and cooking apps.
Learning to cooking is a skill that will be useful throughout your life. Whether you live alone or with a partner, knowing how to cook healthy meals instead of relying on TV dinners will have a big impact on your dietary habits. It will allow you to save money, too.
There are unlimited resources you can access to learn how to cook healthy food. Healthy eating apps, blogs and books are all great options when you and your partner are learning how to cook.
2. Invest in decent kitchen equipment.
If your only cooking tool is a pan, you’re missing out on eating foods that can be prepared in a healthier way. Instead on frying your food, try healthier cooking methods like poaching, steaming and braising. Buy equipment that allows you to make meals healthier such as a steamer to steam veggies, non-stick pans that require less oil, a spiralizer to make noodles from vegetables, and a table top grill to grill your meats.
3. Get a membership to a wholesale supermarket.
This will allow you to buy foods in bulk and freeze them accordingly. This doesn’t mean you should buy a family size tub of ice-cream. Avoid processed and unhealthy foods, and spend your money on fruit, vegetables, lean protein and other whole foods instead.
You can buy a whole package of meat or poultry and divide it into individual portions. Wrap the portions in freezer-safe paper or place in Ziploc bags. Label the packages with the date and contents and freeze them.
4. Make the freezer your friend.
This is one of the best strategies when cooking for two. Don’t scale down—cook batches of food that would last you a week, and freeze the leftovers after your first meal. You’ll save time, money by freezing pasta, soup and extra veggies. Re-heat the meals when you don’t feel like cooking or just need a quick meal. An added plus—these frozen meals are far healthier than the sodium and preservative-packed frozen meals you buy from the supermarket.
5. Embrace frozen produce.
Frozen fruit and vegetables can be just as nutritious as fresh produce. If you freeze them they’re ready to add to smoothies, soups and stir-fries, and you’ll be in no rush to use them before they spoil. This also means you reduce waste and save money!
6. Eat versatile foods.
Foods like eggs, lentils, avocados, sweet potatoes are the most versatile foods in your pantry that can make a meals happen in a flash. For instance—hard boil eggs the night before to have an easy breakfast or eat a whole avocado as a meal. These foods are rich in nutrients and keep you feeling full for long.
Rumana Dsouza
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