Many people who are trying to be fitter and healthier use meal prepping as a way to be more focused on what’s in their diet.
Keeping your meals simple and hassle-free to replicate can make meal planning easier to stick to. However, eating the same thing over and over can become boring fast.
For this reason, wherever you can improve the flavours of your foods and change up their composition, you’ll make your meals varied and more interesting.
Here, we’ve put together a number of great tips which will turn your bland fitness meals into flavourful, mouthwatering dishes.
Spices are your friend
Spices can be used on a variety of dishes but they go especially well with proteins, such as chicken, turkey, pork, eggs or tofu.
Most spices are great by themselves and are a simple and quick way to make your bland meals more flavourful. Take it a step further by combining spices to create endless flavour possibilities.
For example, with a few spice combinations, you can make your everyday chicken breast taste like your favourite world cuisine.
How much spice you’ll use is down to the type of food you’re putting it onto and your personal taste. A good rule of thumb is to use less of strong flavours such as garlic and onion and anything spicy than you do herbs such as basil and oregano.
You can tweak and work the combinations until you figure out exactly what you like.
Spices are a good way to change the taste of your food without adding many calories or messing up your macros. Most spices and herbs add zero fat or protein to your meal and only add a gram or two of carbs, even if you use excessive amounts.
For example, garlic powder contains approximately two grams of carbs per teaspoon, which is generally way above what you would use in a single serving.
Be wary of store bought spice mixes such as steak seasoning or rubs, as many of them have fillers and an excess of salt added to them.
Eat seasonally
Flavours can be dictated by season, so look to produce that is in-season to enjoy the freshest varieties.
Grown your own garden of ingredients and crop a personal harvest or travel to a nearby orchard to gather fresh produce, including apples, berries and more!
The fresher the better. Many fruits and vegetables are easy to grow by yourself, just seeds in dirt, sunlight and water. Seeds are simple to buy and are pretty cheap and even if you don’t have much garden space, they can be grown in pots.
Growing your own fruits and vegetables give you a greater interest in eating them and they’ll taste much better for having gone from the garden straight to your plate.
Try different cooking methods
Not all healthy foods taste bad, despite what people might want to tell you.
However, it’s true that plain boiled vegetables, for example, are not the most appetising.
Vegetables can be boiled, steamed, sautéed, grilled and even roasted and still be considered healthy, as long as you’re not drenching them in lard.
Roasting vegetables concentrates the flavour and caramelises the natural sugars, bringing out the sweetness of the vegetable. This can be a great way to ease into vegetables if you’ve overindulged your sweet tooth lately!
Marinade your meals
Marinades can add a real boost of flavour to your meals.
There are some, granted, which are bad for you, but there are also plenty of healthy marinade available too.
Leaving your food to infuse with flavour for 24 hours can make the difference between a meal being bland or being delicious.
