Many people struggle to gain or maintain weight and need to add calories to their daily diets to help them with the process. If your doctor recommends a high-calorie diet, you don't have to sacrifice nutritional value or health as you eat more calories. Instead, choose healthy foods that are naturally rich in calories as well as nutrients, vitamins and minerals.
Nuts
Eat small handfuls of nuts as a between-meals snack, or use them as a condiment on cereal, baked goods and salads. Nuts and nut butters offer a healthy balance of monounsaturated fats, protein and fiber, and they pack a significant amount of calories (almost 200) into each small serving of about 2 tbsp. Try spreading nut butter on toast or crackers or mixing whole nuts in with trail mix or granola.
Beans and Legumes
Use beans or legumes in place of rice or noodles to improve the overall nutrition of a dish. Though rice and noodles are about equal in calories to beans and legumes, the latter offer more nutrients as well as more fiber, which is important to aid digestion. The Mayo Clinic states that some beans and legumes, particularly red beans such as kidney beans or pinto beans, may help reduce the risk of serious diseases such as cancer.
Wheat Germ
Boost the nutritional profile of cereals, casseroles and baked goods by mixing in a couple of tablespoons of wheat germ per serving. It offers a healthy amount of calories, protein, fiber and fat without sacrificing nutrients. According to the Mayo Clinic, each large spoonful of wheat germ contains vitamin E, magnesium, folate, potassium, zinc and phosphorus, among other helpful minerals.
Milk
Stir powdered milk into batters, casseroles and cereals to increase the amount of calories and calcium you consume on a daily basis. If you normally drink skim or low-fat milk, Columbia University Medical Center recommends using whole milk, evaporated milk or condensed milk instead. You can also mix milk with melted cheese to form a tasty, high-calorie sauce for vegetables or meat.
Eggs
Eat eggs plain as a snack or mix whisked eggs into casseroles, batters and sauces. Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford recommends that high-calorie diet patients use eggs or liquid egg substitutes with dishes such as macaroni and cheese or tuna salad. Each large egg adds about 80 calories and a significant amount of protein to a dish.
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