Ingredient Meals
A simple fall recipe that you feel good about.
It can be appealing to follow complex recipes for an ornate dinner together, but in the midst of families, work, extracurricular commitments, and just trying to be a healthy human, meal prep can start to feel like climbing a cliff. The start of the school year and fall is no exception.
An Ingredient Meal contains easily accessible, single ingredients that combine to make a complete, balanced meal. There’s no need to follow complex recipes, create tons of dishes, or spend a ton of money on random ingredients you’ll only ever use once.
A simple ingredient meal, all available at Costco
Ingredients:
Protein: Premade chicken sausage (I like their True Story Italian Chicken Sausage), rotisserie chicken, or frozen shrimp.
Produce: Veggies (Fresh or frozen works!)
Fat: Butter, olive oil, or a fun sauce (I like the Sonoma Gourmet Lemon & Herb Ricotta sauce). Optional sprinkle of cheese
Bonus: Banza pasta
“Recipe”
Make pasta.
Cook/heat meat and veggies.
Stir all of the ingredients together in a large serving dish like a 9 x13 pan. Top with an optional sprinkle of parmesan cheese, and enjoy this nutrient-rich meal even picky kids will love!
Tips:
Eat enough protein to consume 20-30 grams of protein at that meal (1 oz of meat is about 6-7 grams of protein), letting the protein in the Banza pasta complement your total protein intake from meat.
Don’t be shy about the amount of veggies. I shoot for 1-2 cups at most meals. This provides volume, fiber, antioxidants, and SATIETY!
If you have picky eaters, consider serving everything separately, not mixed together. Offer it all, and let them decide how/what they want to eat.
Have a favorite ingredient meal of your own? Meet me in the comments and let me know what it is!
Ingredient Meals are so underrated. I think kids love them most. We love doing pasta, broccoli or zucchini, Trader Joes Pesto and ground Italian sausage or sliced sausage!