Eating well-balanced nutritious meals is a chore for a picky eater. As you grocery shop for ingredients or look at a menu of a local restaurant, it can seem, at times, that almost every option has something in it that isn’t liked. Some people are the picky eater while others are preparing meals for picky eaters.
If what an eater enjoys isn’t inherently healthy or if they’re missing key vitamins and minerals, sneaking it into existing dishes is one way to try to get more nutrition in. For example, making hamburgers at home can be used to add in cut up veggies, soups and salads can be easily adjusted to incorporate non-traditional foods, and there’s plenty more.
No matter where you find yourself, here are some ideas for healthy meals for picky eaters:
1. Snack bar
A snack bar can offer a few different food options. They’re quick, cheap, and easy. More than ever before, snacks can also be very nutritious with everything from dehydrated fruit to granola bars fitting the bill.
2. Pasta foods
Pasta is an underrated category of food because most people see it as a high-calorie meal. Though it can be, in appropriately-sized and controlled portions, it’s a very healthy meal for picky eaters.
Pasta isn’t just all tomato-based either. There are avocado and olive oil pastas, cold pastas bordering on salads, and others. Try to find a pasta that matches the sort of tastes a picky eater already enjoys.
3. Breakfast oatmeal
Oatmeal is a low-calorie, fitness-friendly healthy meal for picky eaters that can be adjusted to taste like a myriad of things. A lot of people enjoy it plain but you can have it with strawberries and blueberries, or apples and cinnamon, or go the chocolate route. Oatmeal provides fiber to keep you full and enough carbs to get your day started right.
4. Food alternatives
If there’s a vegetable a picky eater doesn’t like or if they don’t partake in meat, switch it out for a substitute. There are a long list of substitute ingredients that provide necessary nutritional building blocks like antioxidants, protein, fiber, and fats.
If you have the assistance of a food processor, there are thousands of recipes you can customize and make at home. Subtract ingredients you don’t like. Experiment with foods that a picky eater does like. Though time-consuming and sometimes hit-and-miss, this will make a picky eater self-sufficient.
5. Meal delivery service
Meal delivery services are a great investment for when you need a healthy meal quick. Picky eaters can select the sort of meals they want and have them delivered to their front door. It doesn’t require much in-kitchen preparation and there’s no compromise on the nutritional content of the food.
If you are living with a picky eater and are concerned about their health, a healthy meal plan delivery service provides restaurant-level, chef-prepared food at a fraction of the cost.
6. Oils, spices & herbs
How we prepare a food matters. For example, some people don’t like fresh green beans, however, they will eat them if they’re covered in oil and garlic and pan-baked. Find tastes you enjoy and try to see how you can blend them into more nutritious ingredients. Bake or fry vegetables. Use a spice mix to flavor a veggie burger. Use low-calorie condiments to make unfamiliar foods more tasty.
7. Shakes
You can pack a shake full of broccoli and spinach and then a single apple is enough to completely cover the taste and make it taste like a sugar-y delight. Shakes are easy to make, highly nutritious, and you can put in unfamiliar foods and cover up the taste with foods you’d much rather have. This is how a lot of picky eaters get their daily fiber and vegetable count up.
8. Sandwiches
Sandwiches are made from a short list of ingredients. It’s bread, a spread, and sometimes that’s it. Though you don’t want to be eating sandwiches all day, as a lunch or mid-day snack, a sandwich is one way to get some carbohydrates into the body as well as provides a way to incorporate ingredients you may not normally eat blended in with flavors like peanut butter, mayonnaise, or jam.
9. Trail mix
The easiest way to eat something a picky eater does not want is to cut it small and blend it alongside foods that they do enjoy. A trail mix is a great example. You can put in nuts, sugars, and more. And then something that picky eater may not enjoy so much. When they grab their handful, the taste of what they do like may be enough to cover the taste and texture of what they don’t.
10. Vegan burgers
Meat eaters can make their own burgers at home with freshly ground beef. Vegans and vegetarians are encouraged to explore the world of veggie burgers. This is a much healthier way to indulge in eating protein and allows you to customize it with herbs, spices, and other food ingredients.
