Please help me incorporate more veg into my diet

[squashyhat]

I am 60, 5' 3" and about a stone and a half overweight with slightly raised cholesterol. I would like to lose weight but my main issue at the moment is trying to eat more veg. There's just DH and me and although I would say we eat well it's not that healthily. We very rarely eat 'meat and two veg' type meals - it's more likely chilli, stir fry, pasta, home made burgers etc - but days can go by without eating veg other than a few salad leaves to go with these type of meals (although we eat a lot of tinned tomatoes in various guises). Apart from being vegetarian, if you eat a lot of vegetables how do you do it?

Add veg to each of those meals! I love veg and pile it into everything!

My chilli contains onion, garlic, peppers, grated carrot (makes the sauce lovely and sweet) and lots of mushrooms and a tin or two of mixed beans.

My bolognaise contains the same as the chilli without the beans plus chunks of courgette.

Stir fry has onion garlic peppers mushrooms carrot brocolli cauliflower kale or spinach

White sauce pasta has mushrooms leeks sweetcorn and spinach

Red sauce pasta has olives spinach courgette peppers onions

So I don't think you need to eat new things, just add to what you already eat!

Surely your stir fry has veg in it? My stir fries are always mostly veg tbh. Easy to incorporate more veg into chilli too - beans, carrot etc in addition to the garlic, onions and tomato you presumably already use. Otherwise try some meals with more veg - we ofteb have lamb steaks or chicken thighs with roast veg couscous.

A large part of my veg intake comes from lunch. I tend to avoid sandwiches etc at lunch time and make a substantial salad (which I take to work if I'm not at home that day - I'm part-time).

Same as above! When I serve burgers or hotdogs I usually add corn on the cob as a side. Or if we are having wraps or sandwiches for lunch I'd have carrot/cucumber/pepper sticks with them. Maybe some sugarsnaps too.

Also, I am not vegetarian but do often eat vegetarian meals - cous cous and roasted veg, courgette fritters, veggie curry with paneer instead of meat etc.

As a way of getting more nutrition into my veg avoiding toddler we started bulking out mince dishes with a tin of green lentils (bolognese, chilli, cottage pie etc).

We still do it now! It’s a good start.

Broccoli with almost every meal. Or cauliflower.

Learn to throw together a soup. Almost all veg - home made veg soup in our house accounts for about two-three meals a week (more in winter - lunches too).

I’m not vegetarian but have done veganuary and various other challenges. It forces you to change the way you cook and break habits. You can then reintroduce meat into those higher-veg content meals.

Also, melissa hemsley eat green book is good with lots of vegetable packed (not vegetarian) recipes.

Traybakes with sausage, aubergines , peppers, red onions, butternut squash, courgette etc all roasted together with some rosemary and nuts are so easy and yummy.

What about eating veggie a couple of days a week or trying out one new veggie dish a week? There are loads of vegetarian meal planning threads.

This is the best veggie chilli recipe…
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/burnt-aubergine-veggie-chilli

Thanks all for the ideas. I agree it probably does just need a slight change in habits. It's chilli tonight so I'll be buying a carrot later on! And we've got a jar of lentils in the cupboard that's hardly been touched. We do eat vegetarian meals every now and then so we can up the ratio of non-meat to meat.

Yes I your chilli tonight fry an onion, carrot, stick of celery and a sweet pepper before adding your mince and beans
You could also make guacamole to go on the side - just blend an avocado with zest and juice of one lime, a garlic clove and some coriander leaves

Chilli could have a salsa, corn on the cob and guacamole on the side. Or serve it with a jacket sweet potato instead of rice.

Agree with adding veg to chilli etc. I have a basic recipe for a curry and I add loads of peppers etc. It also makes it go further so you can freeze a spare portion (it helped us get through the first lockdown when shopping was a nightmare).

Frozen spinach is an easy one to add to curry.

I've started adding salad pieces on the side of everything and I think it's made a big difference too. So I have scrambled egg for breakfast, with a big portion of lettuce, cucumber and tomato. Quiche for lunch (veggie quiche -feta, spinach and red pepper) with a big salad on the side.
It has the added benefit of filling you up too so you needed smaller portions of the main dish.

I make a big batch of vegetable soup and have some each day for my lunch. For example, courgette and cumin, beetroot with cucumber and dill weed, roasted cauliflower with curry spices, lentil with carrot and tomato, chinese leaf with peas and mint.
Once they are liquidised it’s easy to eat a kilogram of courgettes in less than a week!
If you want a creamier soup, stir in some yogurt after reheating that day’s portion.

Like others have said just add stuff in. I’m not even sure my chillis are a chill anymore after I’ve finished adding stuff but they always taste good! Onion, peppers, courgette, kidney beans, sweetcorn, mushrooms are easily added and proper bulks it out too.

Half each of the meals you listed and put veg on the side. I have a different type of vegetable soup (big bowl) and a roll/bread (small roll/two slices) for lunch every day.

I love veg (not so keen on fruit lol) and I just add it to everything. So for a curry I would have broccoli, asparagus, courgette, spinach either frozen or fresh, whatever we have in really. Different coloured Thai curries are good for that. Lots of mushrooms and onions in pasta. Stir fry is an easy one just get a big bag of mixed stir fry veggies. Omelettes for lunch are a good one for chucking in mushrooms, onion, spinach and lots of corriander with some harissa paste.

I stopped having sandwiches for lunch and have a salad instead- from having a few leaves in a sandwich I now have at least 3 or 4 portions of veg at lunchtime often more. Stopped having rice with curries and have cauliflower instead and swapped pasta for courgetti . I probably eat about 10 different fruits/veg a day and have found it relatively easy to lose 2 stone over the last 12 months eating this way.

Well it’s probably not the gold standard, but I buy vegetable juice smoothies (usually a green one) and have a glass every morning. I also make a side of veg with every meal, no matter what we’re having - usually broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, peas or carrots.

I also buy bags of frozen diced peppers, onions etc, so I can just add them to curries and pasta dishes etc without the hassle of chopping things up.

In your usual meals there's veg that can be added with limited faff eg we are red pepper fans so red pepper goes in 90% meals here. Having a chilli, curry etc? We'd add red pepper. Each meal think if there is more veg you can add. Eg a side of sweetcorn with a burger, a carrot in that spaghetti

Our curry's are usually veg based but even ones that are meat (substitute for us) and simple sauce we'd add a courgette, brocoli, peas, red pepper. Spinach like someone mentioned above can go with lots of things.

Eating vegetarian can just be eating good food, it doesn't have to be some sort of penance.
We eat for example roasted veg with pasta, so for us to have sweet potato, butternut squash,red pepper, courgette on its own with pasta.

For us it's really about finding a love of certain veg. For example I think regular brocoli and cauliflower (especially frozen stuff) is limp and dull. Tenderstem brocoli (more expensive though) is amazing, roasting fresh cauliflower (and carrots) was a complete game changer. Theres lots of veg that I thought was bland and a bit mush before but I was boiling it to hell, and finding out how I liked veg prepared (boiled for less, roasted, stirfryed) really changed that

I think having fresh veg is much more appealing but having frozen veg might mean it's much more tempting to throw in a handful of peas for example, or a bit of spinach to more dishes without the worry of it going bad etc.

It sounds really silly but just find the veg that you like, and use them to their full potential, adding some sad string beans to the side of a meal can just reinforce the "veg is dull" narrative

One way to give your diet a kickstart might be to have a recipe box for a couple of weeks- something like hello fresh or mindful chef? It will get you eating more veg. I agree with a PP that you might need to think again about which veg you cook and how you're cooking them. I hate boiled cauliflower but love it spiced and roasted. I also love roast kale and broccoli. If there's any wonky bags of mostly red peppers I always buy them and have roasted peppers with whatever fish we're having that week plus I like mangetout added at the last minute to Thai dishes. Another poster suggested soup- I agree that's a great way to improve veg quantities in your diet

@squashyhat

Thanks all for the ideas. I agree it probably does just need a slight change in habits. It's chilli tonight so I'll be buying a carrot later on! And we've got a jar of lentils in the cupboard that's hardly been touched. We do eat vegetarian meals every now and then so we can up the ratio of non-meat to meat.

Not a carrot, a bag of carrots. Every time you do something with mince start off with a pan full of very finely diced carrots celery onions and garlic. I don’t add lentils to mince but we have at lest one lentil based dish a week. Dal, veg curry and rice or cottage pie made with lentils not mince but the same carrot/ celery/ onion sofrito to start with.

Sorry OP but I kind of lolled at 'I'll buy a carrot', can't explain why really but we get through many a week (only 2 of us in the household) and the thought of buying a lonely single carrot has tickled me.

As well as all the excellent suggestions already mentioned for meals try making crudités to snack on with hummus or other dips? Eg carrot, cucumber and celery sticks.

What do you have for lunch usually? Swap to a big salad, or homemade soup made in a big batch the night before. Or if you have sandwiches, put lots of leaves and cucumber in.

With the kind of meals you already have I'd say that's even easier to add veg to than a 'meat and two veg' meal. What's currently in your chilli? Just beef and tinned tomatoes?