1. Blended in pasta sauces
Most people love a carb so a great way to increase your vegetable intake is to hide them with your favourite carbohydrates. Hidden vegetable pasta sauces are a regular go-to of mine. There are many different recipes or takes on this. The basis of this is to roast or boil up vegetables and blend them into a yummy pasta sauce.
2. Soups
This one is similar to the pasta sauce idea, but soups are one of the best way to pack in a lot of vegetables, that you otherwise wouldn't eat. Finding a soup recipe you like and having it on a weekly basis is is a great way to up your vegetable intake. Even a homemade tomato soup made from fresh tomatoes will have much more nutrients than a store bought one and its easy to add other vegetables that you blend into the soup, such as carrot or red pepper for an even more nutritious meal.
3. Smoothies
If you dislike the taste of vegetables this would be a good choice for you. A handful of spinach can be added to almost any smoothie recipe without altering the taste. You can also prepare vegetable cubes that can be popped in the freezer in an ice-cube tray and added to smoothies. For example, you can boil up some carrot and/or butternut squash and then mash it with the back of a fork, let cool and add it into ice-cube trays. Then when you fancy a smoothie you can pop the frozen veggie cube into it for an added nutrient boost.
4. Find the right package
Whether it's the taste or the texture of vegetables that put you off of eating them, it might just be a case of finding the right way to pack them into your diet. For example, finely chopped vegetables added to an omlette, or vegetable fritters dipped into your favourite sauce. Getting creative with the way you eat your veggies might be the key to incorporating more vegetables into your day-to-day diet!
5. Sauces/dressings
If a raw salad sounds like your worst nightmare, you might just need a nutritious and delicious salad dressing to help you out. For example, blending up a handful of spinach and basil with some olive oil, lemon juice, salt and a clove of garlic is a delicious yet nutritious salad dressing. This is a simplified version of the recently viral “Green Goddess Salad Dressing”, which I do recommend looking up (it’s delicious!). If having that poured over salad sounds awful, you could enjoy it with some boiled and cooled potatoes as a more nutrient-dense spin on potato salad.