Healthy Eating Menu Ideas

Healthy eating starts with a shopping list, and if you avoid the processed food isle, you have won half the battle. Healthy menu ideas start with healthy, whole foods. Your meals don't have to be boring, or take hours in the kitchen to prepare. Shopping, cooking and eating healthy are easy tasks with a little planning. Just remember to keep your ingredient list short and your preparation time to a minimum.

Lunch or Brunch

A healthy lunch or brunch starts with fruit-filled chimichangas. You need fresh diced peaches or pears or both, honey, cottage cheese, cinnamon, nutmeg, chopped pecans and whole-wheat flour tortillas. Sauté the fruit, add honey for sweetness and let cool. In a separate bowl, mix cottage cheese and spices; fold in fruit, set aside. Warm tortillas on a griddle for one minute, then fill with ½ cup of mixture, sprinkle with pecans and fold tortilla around the fruit blend. Place in a glass baking dish and bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit until lightly brown. Serve one chimichanga on a spinach leaf, sprinkle with more pecans and a pinch of cinnamon.

Main Dish

Pecan-encrusted salmon on a bed of brown rice medley is full of essential nutrients. Mix pine nuts, pecan pieces and Japanese-style Panko in a frying pan coated in extra virgin olive oil. Cook until lightly browned and crunchy. Drop in salmon planks and cook until salmon flakes apart. Turn planks and coat with nut mixture while cooking. Prepare brown rice with chicken stock, adding ½ cup of finely chopped carrots, celery and onions to mixture, cook until done. Place three large spinach leaves on plate. Cover with rice mixture and place salmon plank on top. Sprinkle with nut mixture. Serve with wine.

Side Dish Idea

Side dishes can be simple and nutritious, while adding several essential vitamins and minerals to your diet. An easy side dish is a veggie dipping tray. Chose four or five vegetables, Rinse and paper towel dry, and then cut into bite-size pieces. Fill each section with one veggie and add one, two or three choices of dip. Healthy vegetable choices include carrots, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, red, green or yellow pepper pieces, and cherry tomatoes. Healthy dips include black bean hummus, sour cream, and a variety of low-fat salad dressings.

Use What's Left

Don't throw away the leftovers. For tomorrow's lunch or brunch, use the leftover fruit to make a fruit smoothie. Combine the leftover peaches or pears with the leftover cottage cheese, add low-fat or non-fat milk and mix in a blender. Pour into a glass and sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg. Take your left-over spinach leaves and salmon, wrap in a tortilla and eat cold, no need to heat. Use the vegetables from your veggie tray and make a veggie smoothie, using water and your cherry tomatoes as a liquid base. For a little added sweetness, add in a few pears.