9 Ways to Increase Your Daily Intake of Fruits and Vegetables: Veggie Snacks, Dips, and More!
WRITTEN BY LISA GRENTZ, MS, RDN, CD
* To go with our Healthy Highlights series this month, we have a Cookbook Expansion Pack availabe, with nine new recipes that will help you increase your daily intake of fruits and veggies! Find all the info at the bottom of the page.
This month's final blog offers suggestions for vegging out, dips, and enhancing your main course with produce.
Veg Out
Many people find veggies more difficult than fruit to incorporate into the diet, so here are some ideas for maximizing your veggie intake.
· Layer slices of summer squash, bell peppers, mushrooms, and onion on a skewer to make vegetable kabobs for the grill
· Spiralize zucchini and use in place of pasta noodles
· Add lettuce or spinach, tomato, cucumber, onion, or avocado to your sandwich
· Add color to salad by including shredded carrots, diced beets, sliced radishes, chopped tomato, green peas, etc.
· Replace all/part of rice with cauliflower rice
· Sautee some vegetable fritters (How good does that sound? Find this recipe and more in our Cookbook Expansion pack!)
· Blend sauteed carrots, celery, and onion with broth for a veggie boost
Dips
Caloric dips are encouraged during all of our weans. Here are some ways you can help your child get additional calories from a dip while also broadening their repertoire of accepted fruits and veggies in the diet.
· Fruit salsa like pineapple or mango
· Garden vegetable salsa
· Pumpkin dip
· Avocado and banana mixed together and spread on rice cakes or crackers
· Guacamole
· Spinach dip
· Baba ghanoush
· Tzatziki
· Roasted red peppers, beets, pumpkin, or sweet potato blended into hummus
Main Course
You can enhance main dishes by adding vegetables or even substituting ingredients for vegetables in many ways. Some ideas include:
· Stuff a wrap or sandwich with roasted veggies, cucumber, arugula, and tomato
· Make a cauliflower pizza crust and use leafy greens and other vegetables as pizza toppings
· Stuff a calzone with roasted vegetables
· Double the veggies in your soup recipe
· Combine cream cheese, parmesan, and spinach in a food processor for a veggied-up grilled cheese spread
· Mix pureed or finely shredded carrots, onions, spinach, and mushrooms into ground meat for hamburgers or meatballs
· Try making a baked ziti packed with veggies like cauliflower, zucchini, eggplant, mushrooms, bell peppers, and onion
· Bake up some eggplant parmesan
· Try a sweet potato casserole
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