Want to add a cheesy, nutty flavor (think Parmesan!) to your favorite snacks without actually adding a bunch of cheese? Grab some nutritional yeast, called “nature’s Cheeto dust“. Nutritional yeast is an inactive strain of fungi (like mushrooms) that’s grown specifically for it’s nutritional value.
Meal Prep
Halfway-homemade Zucchini Alfredo
Today I’m letting you in on a secret – my FAVORITE weeknight dinner. It’s comfort food meets volume meets leftover veggies. And it is so. easy. Thin-slice zucchini rounds. Mix in some sauce and spices. Toss on cooked shrimp. Consume. Yes, that easy. So what are you waiting for?
Easy No-Tortilla Soup
You know those cool days when all you want to do is curl up with a hot bowl of soup, but all you have in your house is frozen chicken and Lean Cuisines? Well, that was this week in our house. And I’ve learned to keep our pantry stocked with soup basics for weeks just…
Protein On The Road
4 flights, 3 states, 4,990 total miles, 3 days. To call last week exhausting would be an understatement. Travel is hard, and even when you’re not hopping all over the country, and hitting your macros when you’re restricted to airport newsstands and fast food joints makes it even worse. Over the years, I’ve found a few…
Baked Butternut Squash Mac & Cheese
Macaroni and cheese is my FAVORITE food ever. Like as for it for dinner on your birthday kinda favorite. But, let’s be honest – it’s pretty hard to fit all of that gooey cheesy deliciousness into your macros, and it just doesn’t have the same pizzaz on your Thanksgiving table as some of the other…
Simple Chicken Salad
Y’all, I’ve been getting really lazy with my meal prep game the last couple of weeks. Work travel 2-4 days a week has been wearing on me, and it’s easier to just go for a couple of chicken sausages and some frozen sides than make anything from scratch. When I just can’t do frozen food…
Paleo Chicken Lettuce Wraps
I’m always trying to mix up our meal prep because chicken, tilapia, and veggies on repeat is just… ugh. So, a few weeks ago when we were invited to a paleo potluck, I jumped on the chance to try something new – making P.F. Chang’s-style lettuce wraps more macro-friendly.
I started with Cave Girl Cuisine’s P.F. Paleo Chicken Lettuce Wraps recipe and added a few extra ingredients for more flavor + volume {=macro goodness}. The result was so good that we’ve already made it two more times since! The macros for one serving came out to 5f / 15c / 26p for two decently sized wraps with 4oz ground chicken.
Egg White Bake
Let’s be honest. We don’t always have time in the morning to whip up a healthy breakfast, and even on the mornings we do, it may not be top of our priority list. Enter this healthy, hearty egg bake. It packs a HUGE protein punch, and is a great way to use up those spare stir fry or fajita night veggies. Split an entire casserole dish into 4 servings for a breakfast that reheats well {break a slice into 3-4 smaller sections and microwave for 1-2 min, then if you’re like me, smother in hot sauce}. Made per below, it’s only 4f/6c/18p per serving!
Want to mix it up a bit? Swap the ham for turkey sausage or crumbled bacon. Add in spinach and tomatoes and swap the cheddar for mozzarella for a little mediterranean flavor. Mix in some cottage cheese for extra fluffy eggs and even more protein.
Chicken Enchilada Casserole
All this hot and cold weather has me craving Mexican food, totally unsure why. But, flour enchiladas filled with fatty ground beef and dripping with cheese would likely not sit well these days, so I went searching for an alternative that met my cravings without sacrificing dozens of those precious fat grams.
The result: Chicken enchilada casserole. I got the idea from Gimme Some Oven, one of my favorite recipe sites. Unfortunately, 3 cups of cheese still wasn’t gonna do it for me. I swapped the full fat cheddar for reduced fat, cut the amount in half, and loaded up the dish with extra veggies. The result? A HUGE hearty slice of casserole with plenty of kick at just 9f/37c/26p per slice {that’s just 333 calories for you non-macro counting folks}.
Leftover Soup
One of our goals for this year {I stray from using the word “resolution” – more on that another time} was to cook more at home. With our hectic travel schedules and late nights at the office, it became all too easy to pick up Chipotle or pre-made meals from Central Market on the way home. The food was healthy enough, but our sodium intake was soaring and not having food in the house when we were home led us to rely a little too heavily on sugary snacks and protein bars on the weekend.
The one downside of all that cooking – we inevitably have some leftover vegetables in the fridge, canned goods that we accidentally bought two of, and meat in the freezer that we keep forgetting is there. Enter leftover soup. It’s a standard base made of things we typically have in the pantry, mixed with extras from meals earlier that week. Each ladle {I ate 2 per meal} was 3f/17c/12p for our version, which included added veggies and pasta.
Easy Breakfast Options
When I first started tracking macros last July, I ate the same meals. Every. Single. Day. It can really wear on you, and isn’t the whole point of flexible dieting the freedom to mix it up?! Knowing what to swap for what is difficult, though.
Thankfully, some of my fellow Grit Girls have let me into their daily diaries as input to a little data mining/programming project I’m working on {more to come on that}. Armed with data about what a lot of girls tend to eat in the morning, I’ve compiled a sampling of delicious, easy breakfast ideas. They’ve been modified to all hit similar macros targets, enabling easy swaps from one day to the next without jeopardizing the numbers you have saved up for other meals.
Emergency Stash
When I travel places I’m pretty familiar with, I tend not to bring along my Isobag or Six Pack Bag with prepped meals. Both bags are pretty bulky, and sometimes, I just don’t have the bag space {checking bags is highly frowned upon for this girl}. Case in point: My last trip to Boston. The…