Mini Meals: When You Don’t Have Time
For today’s post, we’ll focus on some mini meal ideas. Mini meals are meals that you can put together quickly when you’re in a hurry or when you’re in a “mood”. The kind of mood I’m referring to is where you don’t feel like cooking, but you do feel like eating!
Often at that point, you don’t want to even think about what to eat. Having these mini meal options already in your mini-meal written on paper on the fridge can make a big difference and reduce the stress you’re feeling at that time.
Mini Meal Ideas
- Low-fat Yogurt with fruit and granola on top.
- Rice cakes – Spread with natural peanut butter and top with banana slices or raisins.
- Apple slices and celery sticks topped with peanut butter and raisins.
- Dried nuts and raisins mix – For added interest, include a few dark chocolate chips.
- Baked tortilla chips and salsa – add canned corn and canned black beans to the salsa.
- Pita bread – Fill with your favorite hummus and fresh veggies.
- Air popped popcorn – eat with canned minestrone soup.
- Whole-grain crackers – Top these with cheese, lean sandwich meat, tuna or peanut butter. Have carrots and an apple on the side.
- Cottage cheese – Eat it plain or topped with fresh fruit. Or fill a green pepper with it and use it as dip for carrots. Eat the “pepper bowl” when done.
- Bran or banana muffins – Eat with a glass of milk and vegetable soup.
- Low-fat string cheese – String cheese makes another great portable snack. Eat it alone or mix it up by wrapping some thin sliced ham around it.
- Edamame (soybeans)– These are soy beans in their shell. Steam them and top with a bit of salt or lemon juice. You can find these in the frozen vegetables section.
- Fruit and Cheese Kabobs – Alternate chunks of fresh fruit and cheese cubes and thread them on a bamboo skewer.
- Cooked Sweet Potato – Just cut it up in chunks and bake in the oven. Add flavor with honey and cinnamon, or salt lightly. They are delicious warm or cold.
- Lettuce Wraps – Take a large leaf of lettuce and top it with raw veggies, ham or turkey and a little low-fat ranch dressing. Wrap up and serve.
– Julie
