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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3732 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 18, 2024

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What are the laziest healthy foods I can make. I'm fairly picky about what foods I like, but reasonably unpicky about what foods I'll tolerate. I don't have a clear concise way to list out all of them other than to say I have the palate of a five year old. Probably literally, I don't think my food preferences have changed substantially since I was a child other than an increased ability to tolerate foods I don't like.

I don't like cooking. I'm bad at it, it takes too long. I make simple things like soup or pizza, especially if I can make a bunch at once which increase the amount of food per effort, but foods which require less prep time are preferred. My go-to lazy healthy snack is raw vegetables. I will happily munch on whole tomatoes or baby carrots, which is just as easy as opening a bag of potato chips. But I need more variety, and something slightly fancier and slightly less lazy is acceptable. What are your thoughts and suggestions for maximizing health and taste per effort?

It depends on what tools you have or are willing to get.

Got a microwave? Literally stab a potato, put it in the microwave, and press the POTATO button. Baked potato comes out. Add whatever fixings are in your fridge.

If you like vegetables, get an air fryer. Toss your raw veggies in olive oil and seasoning, and then roast them in the air fryer.

Or, get a hand-powered food processor. Drop in some chunked tomatoes, onion, cilantro, peppers, garlic, salt, and lime juice, and process. Delicious salsa comes out.

Or, get a small rice cooker. Add rice and water, dump in other veg or meat as you feel like, and start. When it is done a little while later, you have a meal.

Or, get a countertop sandwich grill (i.e., George Foreman style). Grab a boneless chicken breast or pork chop, season, and put it on the grill for 5 or 6 minutes. Eat while hot.

Combinations of chicken, fish, or lean ground beef with veggies and yogurt based sauces.

Frozen vegetable mixes w/ rice or some other starch like quinoa paired with a protein, also frozen or refrigerated pre-prepared foods. Just heat in the microwave and eat. There are several all in one offerings in the frozen section as well. Minimal effort. Watch the sodium levels in some of them though, certain brands are particularly bad. You'll figure out which ones are the bad ones pretty quickly when reading labels.

Ground beef with spices/sauces. Throw ground beef in the pan, add any spices/sauces you want. Eat with rice/pasta or put it in a tortilla.

Greek yogurt + honey + banana/any other fruit.

Grilled cheese sandwich, sometimes with chicken, usually with some quick spices and sauces, was my go to in university.

Spinach- you can buy spinach based salad mixes and snack on that the same as potato chips. Much less astringent than kale, much more nutritious than lettuce based. Speaking of which, dried fruits in small doses.

Frozen vegetables and ground beef with mashed potatoes on the top- easy cottage pie, makes multiple servings at once. Cook the ground beef in a pot, pour frozen veggies in and mix it well, then put mashed potatoes over the top and put the whole thing in the oven.

Oatmeal- literally cooks in the microwave or with a hot water kettle.

I will happily munch on whole tomatoes or baby carrots, which is just as easy as opening a bag of potato chips.

Almost as lazy but much tastier, buy some humous to dip your carrots into. You can make baked potatoes in 10 minutes in the microwave too, slice them open once they're cooked and fill the hole with butter, cheese and pepper.

Every time I see these posts, I'm tempted to go revive my dead food blog meant for lazy men who refuse to cook.

My suggestions:

  • Parfait - Greek yogurt (plain), blueberries and very small amount of unsweetened cereal/granola.
  • Baked chicken drumsticks - Literally get some chicken drumsticks with bone and skin on. dap them with paper towels. Put some salt and pepper. Pop them in an oven.
  • not fried rice - rice with veggies. boil washed rice with lots of pre-diced veggies (peas, carrots, green beans and corn set) for 15 minutes. Pop an omlette on top. Some lao-gan-ma. Bam. Done.
  • Chili beans. Get the canned chili beans. Add the pre-diced veggies and some spice mix. Add onions if you're feeling good. serve over rice.

Hummus. Blend up a can of chickpeas with some garlic and tahini, then you'll have something to dip your raw vegetables and pizza crusts in.

Speaking of pizza crusts, flatbreads like pitta and naan are really quick and easy to make too.

For ease of cooking and decent healthiness, you can't go wrong with chicken and rice. Takes 12 minutes from start to finish. Slice the chicken breast pre frying so that it's evenly thick. Add some spice powder once done.

Get a baguette. Slice it lengthwise and observe the spreadable area. You'll need that much of the following.

Some butter. Some brown mushrooms. An avocado. A thing of garlic. Salt, pepper. Cheese, if you dare.

Chop the mushrooms so fine it's like they're no longer mushrooms. Chop the garlic almost as fine. Throw this into a pan of sizzling butter. Sauté. Not too terribly long.

Cut open the avocado into two halves. Depends on what kind you have but I have only ever really had Haas. Use a spoon to scoop out the halves into a bowl, where you then mash it all up. If the avocado is unripe or overripe, crack a beer and order Chinese. Otherwise continue.

Spread the avocado over the baguette flat parts. Spoon the sautéed mushroom mixture onto it, spreading evenly.

Put shredded cheese on if you want. I do.

Toast this under a broiler until the cheese is bubbly. If no cheese, wing it. Give it a few.

Salt and pepper it. If you have olive oil (which you should) drizzle some of that on.

Eat.

You said healthy and this isn't particularly healthy, arguably. But it's good even if you don't particularly like mushrooms, and I'm guessing you don't. Neither do I.

Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter. Like you, I don't like mushrooms (I hate them really) - it's a texture thing for me. There's this way they squish when you eat them that's just so off-putting. If you cut them super fine, do they still have that unpleasant texture?

I find chopping them to hell and back and sautéeing them with garlic in butter an effective strategy to banish all mushroom associations. There is still an earthy taste but in this medley it works.

In addition to carrots, I like to keep a small reserve of butter and bread, apples, cans of tuna, eggs (just crack them in a pan and collect your slightly burned omelette 10 minutes later), beef if my wallet is healthy (just throw it in a pan and collect your rare pseudo-steak two minutes later), and maybe a sausage or little bit of ham or bacon. You can throw it in a pan with the aforementioned eggs or just eat it as-is.

Oh, and a favorite breakfast of mine is oats, microwave-thawed berry mix and water. A whole bowl of the stuff. Can be prepared in about 30 seconds.

Rice + protein of choice, especially if you have a crockpot or rice cooker, probably tops the chart in terms of nutrition to effort ratio. Just add ingredients to pot and walk away, returning to stir occasionally.

The trick is finding a mix of spices, veggies etc. that you like, and making sure that you have it ready ahead of time.

Same principle also can be applied to beans.

When you say you "make" soup or pizza do you mean that you make them or do you heat prepared meals, like canned soup and frozen pizza? Just wondering what we're dealing with.

If it's the first I would say that there is absolutely nothing wrong with soup and pizza.

It is actually making them (usually, though occasionally I get canned soup or takeout pizza). My issue is partly that doing those repeatedly gets repetitive and boring, and partly that that's too much effort to do on a whim for a snack if I haven't planned it ahead of time. Though I have been experimenting with freezing soup so I can make a whole bunch at once and then thaw some when hungry. But that only works for certain soups.

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