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Trainer Tip- Family Dinner

Alright my Lee’s Summit fitness friends.  Life Transformations Personal Training has another trainer tip blog post.  Family Dinner can be a struggle, hopefully these tips can help make it easier.

Do you struggle with picky eaters, healthy and quick dinner options?  Guess what, my hand is up.    These are all struggles in our household.  Everyone wants something different, but I’m not making multiple dinners.  My kiddo is sometimes picky, but I want him to eat the dinner I make.  Let’s face it…the dinner struggle is real.  Here are some tips and recipes that work for me.

My kiddo goes through stages of being picky.  But, the biggest one is eating meat.  He likes it, he eats it, but I have to make it work for the both of us.  He would be just fine eating chicken nuggets, turkey pepperoni, deviled eggs, etc for his protein. But, I am not okay with these foods all the time.  He needs some real food.  Serving a piece of chicken, potato, and veggie would take him all night to eat; but, if I mix it all into a casserole, it goes down faster and without a complaint.

So I set out a few years ago to come up with some healthy casserole ideas.  I call it “healthy up” a recipe.  Most casseroles have cheese, sauces, etc (extra calories).  So I like to find substitutions.  The best option I have found is Greek Yogurt.  I buy the Natural Greek Yogurt in the 3 cup container and keep it on hand.  It goes in many recipes.  Greek yogurt can replace ricotta, sour cream, cream cheese, some cream based soups.  It’s some pretty good stuff.  Bonus, it has fewer calories.

 

Here are a few of our favorite quick, easy, healthy-ish casseroles.   

Penne Pasta Bake

Tuna Casserole

Creamy Chicken Casserole

Enchilada Pasta Casserole

Chicken Enchiladas

Burrito Bowl- Cube or shred 2 chicken breasts, 1 can black beans, 1/2 c salsa, 1 c corn. Mix together. Serves 4.

 

Next time you have a recipe, see what you can substitute in to “healthy it up.”  I will admit, sometimes it is a fail.  But usually you can fix it for the next time.  Don’t be scared to change a recipe and see what happens.  Also, keep Greek Yogurt in your fridge.  You never know when you may need it!

Happy Cooking!

Molly Wichman

Life Transformations Personal Training

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