Nutrition is the most difficult part of my health and wellness journey. I have no problem and actually look forward to being in the gym or working out every day! The whole eating healthy thing, on the other hand, not so much. I’m quick to get into a routine with “healthy” options, but then can also get bored very easily. When I’m bored with my food, I’m more likely to go off the rails and have ice cream for dinner! So, I’ve been trying to be more active in looking up easy and exciting recipes to try to spice things up. The ideas that I have here are some that I’ve found, tried, and would absolutely recommend!
Firecracker Chicken with Rice
I found this recipe recently on Pinterest from this website, and tweaked it a little for my own liking. First of all, making the firecracker sauce at home is A MUST! There’s no way this recipe turns out as good otherwise. I used ground chicken, but using ground beef or turkey would also be an easy substitute or change to switch things up. Another really great hack this recipe has is to mix cauliflower rice with regular white rice to keep the vegetable taste down and make it more palatable. I loved that idea and really enjoyed how it all turned out!
Here’s the original recipe with ingredients:
One change that I did make to the firecracker sauce recipe is I added a couple healthy shakes of cayenne. That helped add just a little more heat to really bring it all to life! The chicken, beef, or whatever protein you use for this recipe is also great to keep refrigerated and use for tacos, another rice bowl, or other options as left overs!
Stuffed Bell Peppers
There are about a million ways to do stuffed peppers. If you do a search on Pinterest, you could spend all day filtering through options. The way I’ve found recently that is the easiest for me is to do them in the air fryer! Here’s the link to this original recipe. It’s a little tough to follow, but I’ve got it summarized down below!
I’ve said before I am not a cook at heart, so any time I can use the air fryer for something I’m in! Using the air fryer also adds a great crisp, which is perfect for a recipe like this. What I use is pretty simple, including seasoned ground beef, white or brown rice, cheese, and any other toppings you might want to add into the peppers.
Here’s the original recipe with ingredients:
Aubrey usually doesn’t like to eat these types of things with me, so I almost always cut the recipe in half. Tweaking this recipe, I only use a splash of tomato sauce; just enough to keep the ground beef from drying out. I have also kept this cooked and seasoned meat in the refrigerator for left overs throughout the week and it does really well! You could always go back to the store and grab another fresh pepper for more later on if you really love this one.
Pesto Chicken Salad
Sticking with the theme of easy, delicious, and great for left overs our final recipe is for pesto chicken salad! I have always loved chicken salad, tuna salad, egg salad, whatever. I also have a serious love affair with pesto! Again, these recipes are great for someone like me that doesn’t feel comfortable cooking anything super complicated but wants to have fresh, healthy, and tasty meals! Here’s the link to the original pesto chicken salad recipe, and it also shows 3 other fun varieties!
Here’s the original recipe with ingredients:
Aubrey and I have just about perfected our own homemade pesto recipe, so I used ours instead of the one they suggest. But, other than that, this recipe was pretty much right on the money for me! I can eat this chicken salad for a couple of days and be more than happy.
Final Thoughts
None of these recipes are rocket science, and that’s why I love them so much! At this point in most of our lives, we’re pretty dang busy and don’t have 3 hours a night to put dinner together. I have really started to enjoy searching for and trying new recipes to keep myself engaged with staying on track nutritionally. Take these recipes and tweak them to what you and your family enjoy! I hope if nothing else this will get you excited to try some new recipes soon.
If you have any favorite, go-to recipes that you love leave them in the comments section!