If you have trouble getting enough fruit and vegetables into your diet, you’re not alone. It can be both time-consuming and expensive to eat healthier in our busy society. Regardless, getting enough of these foods is critical for maintaining a long, healthy life! Vegetables provide both necessary nutrients and essential disease-fighting antioxidants. They also contain fiber, which helps maintain a healthy weight and regular bowel movements. 

Don’t like vegetables? If you or your child fit into this category, we believe it could be because you haven’t been shown the correct way to prepare certain vegetables or have found a way that works for you. With such a wide variety of both frozen and fresh vegetables available at our grocery stores today, we have endless options on how we can add more nutrients to our meals. 

We never recommend trying to overhaul your entire diet all at once. Instead, the key to maintaining a healthy diet is to take baby steps while slowly introducing these healthy habits into your lifestyle. One of the easiest ways to do this is by “sneaking” vegetables into the meals you already enjoy and love. Here are our tips on the easiest ways to add vegetables into your foods that will be barely noticeable, if at all!

Sneak Veggies into Sauces

Hiding vegetables in a pasta sauce is one of the easiest ways to introduce more vegetables into your diet while barely noticing. When it comes to a meat sauce, add finely diced mushrooms, bell peppers, or zucchini. If you’re making a sauce from scratch, cook down an assortment of vegetables like carrots, onions, leeks, and herbs, then blend them all together. Since you’ll be adding your typical ingredients like seasonings and garlic, it will taste very similar to the original, except packed with nutrients and some extra dimensions of flavor. No time for chopping? Add some canned pureed pumpkin into the tomato sauce, and we’re positive no one will ever notice!

Add Greens to Your Smoothies

While green smoothies and green juices are all the rave, they’re not for everyone. Here’s a tip, you don’t have to pack your smoothie with five different kinds of cruciferous vegetables to get ample nutrients. Besides, we want your smoothie to taste good so you’ll be likely to drink them more often! A little can go a long way when it comes to adding a vegetable or two to a smoothie combination you already enjoy.

Did you find this blog helpful? We’d love to hear! If you enjoyed, check out our other posts here!