Quick & Healthy Dinners For Busy Nights
It’s our final day of quick and healthy dinner recipes! We’ll take a look at some more involved recipes that require a bit more time in the coming days, but each of the options below can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.
40FRESH was founded in a suburb just outside of Portland, Oregon. Our city is well-known as a foodie mecca and today we decided to toss in a recipe from one of our renowned food carts. Enjoy!
Today’s Checklist
If you’re following along with the 40FRESH Challenge, here’s your homework for today:
Read this post
Make Friday’s dinner menu
Add ingredients you need for Friday’s dinner to your shopping list
The Whole Bowl
Estimated Time: 15 minutes
The Whole Bowl – Tali Sauce Recipe {naturally Gluten Free}
Portland, Oregon is known for its iconic food cart scene. Although some carts offer a myriad of food options, some simply serve up a single meal that they do best. The Whole Bowl is one of those carts that specializes in an absolutely drool worthy healthy bowl option topped with the legendary Tali sauce.
Fortunately, it’s possible to replicate this amazing meal at home using this recipe from Sweet Phi. However, there are a few things you’ll have to watch out for to keep your meal 40FRESH friendly. The two ingredients that can veer into Nope territory are sour cream and the pico de gallo (or salsa).
It’s pretty easy to find sour cream that falls into the Always category. The ingredients list should have one item: cultured cream. We use the Daisy brand sour cream, but feel free to pick whatever brand you like best.
If you visit a Whole Bowl location, they’ll top your bowl with a salsa like Pace. This brand and brands like it, as well as many brands of pico de gallo contain “natural” flavors, preservatives and other ingredients that land them on the Nope list. Make sure you’re checking before you buy. Or better yet, make your own.
One suggestion we do have for this meal is to use a Meyer lemon in place of a regular lemon. In our experience, you’ll get a more authentic flavor in your Tali sauce with this substitution.
Sheet Pan Chicken Fajitas
Estimated Time: 25 minutes
If you’re already making pico de gallo for the Whole Bowl recipe, you may as well save some for this simple and savory chicken fajitas recipe from Tastes Better From Scratch. Really, the only thing that can get you into trouble with this recipe is the tortillas. Store bought will generally be a Nope.
A simple tortilla replacement that doesn’t require additional cooking is to use lettuce leaves. Iceberg holds up well and is fine to use, but it doesn’t contain a lot of nutritional value. Consider using romaine, green leaf, or even butter lettuce noodles instead.
On the other hand, if you’re feeling a bit more adventurous, try making your own tortillas. They do take a bit of time (about 35 minutes), but nothing beats fresh tortillas!
Shrimp Stir Fry
Estimated Time: 15 minutes
Weeknight cooking doesn’t get much easier than this straightforward and quick shrimp stir fry recipe from The Modern Proper. Not to mention delicious! There are a couple of substitutions you’ll need to make in order for this meal to be 40FRESH.
The first substitution we’ve talked about in previous posts and that’s the soy sauce. A lot of recipes call for low sodium soy sauce. Unfortunately, when they remove the sodium, they add in preservatives. That makes the low sodium variant a Nope whereas the regular stuff is fine to use as a Limited ingredient.
Our other ingredient needing a replacement option is the sambal oelek. If you recall from yesterday, this is something that you can whip up in about 10 minutes using this recipe from Dwell by Michelle.
With both of those ingredients replaced, all you need is some rice! Add in equal parts water and white rice to your Instant Pot and pressure cook on high for 3 minutes with a 10 minute natural release. Voilà!
Your Dinner Menu
You’ve reached the end of the week, so it’s time to open your food journal and write in your final weeknight dinner. Hopefully you’re getting excited about your meal plan! Once you have your Friday meal picked out, remember to add all of the ingredients you need to your weekly shopping list.
Up Next...
We’re days away from starting your dinner habit! Hold strong on your breakfast, snacking, and drinking habits and don’t forget to add another X to your string of success on your accountability calendar.
You can always wait until we start our dinner habit, but now is the perfect time to start experimenting and finding out what you like. If you make one of the meals, let us know what you think in the comments below!