Best Way To Get Your Greens In?

Soup is one of the best ways to get your greens in daily. I eat a lot of greens and beans mostly in soup, that gives me fiber and protein. You can eat a salad also and add more fruit to your diet. What are you trying to accomplish by adding more greens? If it is fiber there are other ways to get the fiber into your diet.

 

We have the same issue with my youngest. He needs more greens, but isn't a fan. He finds it easier if we hide them in things. Like blending them up in the pasta sauce I make for him, or in smoothies or in soups. In soups, I just blend them up when they're done cooking, so they become creamy and smooth.. he doesn't want to chew even one green veggie! lol. So maybe just keep thinking of ways to hide them on yourself? lol. Anything creamy can hold a blended veggie or two or three lol. It's amazing what you can stuff in there and not notice a big difference. It's ideal to eventually transition though.. the more whole the food, the better for you.. but blended is better than not at all

 

I love vegetables, so eating them isn't a problem with me. I've never had them or other veggies in smoothies, but I'm not a big smoothie person anyway. I love salads, but don't always eat them, since they need to be fresh, and I don't go shopping all that much. I do keep canned and frozen vegetables on hand, and tend to pack them in wherever I can. I add extra to stir fries, pot pies, and stews. I always add spinach to quiche, because spinach is one of my favorites. I had tried turnip greens before and didn't care for them, but I found a can of them in my pantry last week and added them to the dinner menu and they were delicious.

 

Pat suggested soup and I agree with that. Soup is delicious and you can usually throw in as many veggies as you want! Try to avoid canned soup though. Often times canned soup isn't as healthy as it seems. It's best to make your own if you have time.
Also, invest in a crockpot! The crockpot is so versatile and easy, and has quickly become a staple in my house! There are tons of crockpot recipes that are full of veggies.
Every time you eat, just stop and consider how you could make your food a little healthier. Even if it's just one leaf of lettuce, one is better than none! Try keeping a stock of fresh veggies in your kitchen. Even when I don't want to eat veggies, I use them anyway just so they don't go to waste. Check out squashes and seasonal veggies. If you haven't tried spaghetti squash, you are really missing out!
Good luck!

 

Neither one of my kids will eat vegetables willingly. I try to serve them with dinner, sometimes I'm able to hide them in sauces. I can usually get carrots, celery and zucchini finely grated and added to pasta sauce and no one is the wiser. I can finely chop spinach into soups and they will tolerate it. A nice way to get your greens in is to saute them. I like to make spinach with garlic. Bak choy is nice sauteed with garlic and ginger. The garlic and or ginger takes out the green taste of the vegetable. My mom will make Chinese broccoli stir fried with sugar and vinegar so they are sweet and sour. Broccoli is the only vegetable my oldest son likes to eat. He'll eat the tops of broccoli. I like to serve broccoli in a cheese sauce.

 

I think the best way to go about it is to just find a wide variety of good recipes for the vegetables you like, because if you are picky with vegetables and only like a few of them, then it might be helpful to just find a way to change or spice it up. For example, there are recipes where you can utilize the spinach as the wrapper in vegetable rolls, and you could make whatever filling for it that you think you'd like, whether it be cream cheese based or just have some ground meet and some carrots and a few spices. You could also check out some spinach lasagne recipes, or you could find some good vegetables that you can purée and mix into everyday dishes, such as squash in macaroni and cheese or even pumpkin soup, which I know aren't green us technically but at least they are still vegetables.

 

My mother-in-law used to cook a dish called cabbage roll. The big leaf of a cabbage is rolled like a spring roll but the fillings is beef. The flavor is dominantly beef that was first sauteed with in garlic and onion and mixed with raisins before being wrapped. The final cooking is the boiling in a mixture of tomato sauce and soy sauce. With the combination of flavors, the cabbage would lose its vegetable taste. The kids love it.

 

Soup is a good way as many suggest for vegetables, but for greens it really depends on what else you eat. I always add a a portion of petit pois to a meal to add greens, or a spoon into pasta salad. Another way is to make an omelet and add spinach to it and then cook it. If you like kale, make kale chips and then snack on them or add them to salads.

 

@Corzhens I've never made cabbage rolls, but want to. I just keep forgetting to buy cabbage.

I love using lettuce as wraps for Vietnamese type dishes, and also enjoy adding in mint or cilantro whenever I can. I forgot to mention fried rice. I make that at least a few times a month, and it's an inexpensive dinner that is filling and goes a long way. You can add in pretty much any vegetables you want, and don't even have to use meat if you don't want.

Spaghetti squash is getting very popular, so it's becoming more easy to find recipes using it. I haven't tried using it as noodles yet, but plan to. You could also make homemade pasta with spinach and tomatoes. Tri-colored pasta is one of my favorites, and you could have the kids help you make it, which could be a fun family activity. You could also buy it already prepared, but homemade would be more fun and probably more nutritious, as well.

Another dish that's becoming more prevalent these days is mashed cauliflower. Here's a

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, in case anyone's interested.

 

@Diane Lane, there is a Taiwanese restaurant that we go to. We love their fried rice because it is unique unlike the normal Chinese fried rice called Yang Chow. This Taiwanese rice has bits of spring onion, cuts of celery, lettuce fronds and some other green that we cannot identify, yes, green peas also. When you chew, the rice has a crunchy effect because of the greens. It's really a good match with the French beans.

 

The fried rice I buy when I go out to Asian restaurants usually has the sprint onion and I think the curled inside leaves of the celery in them, as well as snow peas. I'm not sure if those are the green peas you refer to, or maybe they use something else there. I love fried rice, and always use egg in mine, as well. I don't use much protein in it other than the egg and a little of usually either chicken or shrimp.