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Cut your rut: Spice up your meal plan this week

Healthy Living –

By Clarissa Andersen

Tired of eating the same old meals week after week? You’ re not alone. Family life can get busy and creating a new menu can seem like a daunting task.

While you may fall into a nutrition rut, preparing the same dishes in perfect rotation, there are easy ways you can spice up your meals, and make dinner time fun again.

“Get creative in the kitchen. Take a meal that might be a ‘ go-to’ and switch it up by adding different spices or changing up the application of a key ingredient,” says Kelley Atyeo-Fick, a professional home economist and nutrition communication and marketing expert.

“For example, if your family loves chicken breast and you find you’ re always cooking ‘chicken with a side of’ try making meals highlighting the ingredient in a different way. This will help keep things interesting.”

If fresh Canadian chicken is your protein of choice, Atyeo suggests trying dishes like chicken tacos, chicken Caesar salad, or chicken quesadillas. You’ ll get the same nutrients but with a bit more pizazz.

Putting pep back into meal time can be as easy as getting everyone to take part in the preparation; thus creating family time and sharing the workload.

“Get the entire family involved. Cooking should be a fun experience and something to share with those you love,” says Atyeo. “Try making family meals that involve collaboration. For example, healthy pizza night where everyone gets to make their own personal pizza and you get to work together at selecting the best ingredients.”

If you are wanting to incorporate typical fun family meals like pizza, chicken wings, or nachos into your plan, Atyeo feels it’ s just a matter of making them healthier by getting a bit creative with preparation.

“These are all excellent family favourites. Think about the ingredients that tend to make these ‘ fun’ meals less healthy; it is usually the fact that they contain a lot of fat and are fried,” says Atyeo.

For healthier versions of the fun family meals, Atyeo suggests making following changes:

Pizza:
– Use lots of vegetables as toppings.
– Choose fresh meats like Canadian chicken instead of pepperoni.
– Keep cheese to a moderate amount.
Here’ s a delicious and healthy pizza recipe that incorporates a crispy quinoa crust:
http://www.chicken.ca/recipes/chicken-quinoa-pizza

Chicken wings:
– Cook them in the oven instead of frying them, cutting back on the amount of fat.
Check out this simple and delicious method to make healthier, lower priced “wings” with boneless chicken thighs: http://www.chicken.ca/recipes/boneless-buffalo-hot-wings-with-vegetable-sticks-and-blue-cheese-dressing

Nachos:
– Try making pita chips instead of using regular nacho chips.
– Switch it up by eating them with a hummus dip instead of the traditional sour cream or salsa. It’ s a similar fun snack idea, but with more health benefits like fibre and protein.
Try these easy to make nachos that contain enough protein to be a main dish:
http://www.chicken.ca/recipes/baked-chicken-nachos-with-tomatillo-salsa