Healthy recipes to make your food last longer
5th May 2020
With the current coronavirus lockdown, older people and those with underlying health issues are being told to stay at home. As a result, many people are finding ways to occupy their time with some people taking part in quizzes and others looking to exercise at home.
Something else that lots of people have been doing during the COVID-19 outbreak is cooking and baking a lot more. People who are avoiding going to supermarkets and are waiting for their next online shopping delivery have been finding ways to make their food last longer.
If you’re an older person who has health problems or you struggle to get to the supermarkets because you need mobility aids such as stairlifts, mobility showers and specialist walk in showers and baths, then there are lots of ways you can make your food healthy and last longer.
People often forget what food is in the back of their cupboards and this article will look at some easy and healthy meals you can make to ensure your food lasts as long as possible.
The top recipes to make your food last longer
Vegetable soup
With soup, you can make a big portion in one go and then separate it out and freeze it so you can have it days, weeks or even months down the line.
One of the basic ingredients for soup is stock and this is really simple and easy to make. The food site, The Daily Meal, believes vegetable soup is a great option if you are looking to make your food last longer.
“If you notice your veggies and herbs are starting to turn, freeze them in a plastic bag and then repurpose them for some home-made vegetable stock. Avoid using starchy vegetables like potatoes and turnips for the stock, but know carrots, onions, garlic, leeks, thyme and parsley all make for flavourful options.”
Check out vegetable soup recipes here
Beef Stew
Stew is another classic meal that can be cooked once and eaten over multiple days/nights. Stews are generally full of vegetables and are healthy meals that you can fill your freezer up with.
Once you’ve made a few batches of stew you will need to let it cool before you pour them into ziplock bags for the freezer. You can then lay them flat so they don’t take up much space and eat them as and when you want to.
A Beef Stew is something that Jenn Segal, a classically trained chef and Cookbook Author, recommends on her Once Upon A Chef website.
She says: “This classic French beef stew is the ultimate cold weather comfort food. After a few hours in the oven, the meat becomes meltingly tender and enveloped in a rich wine sauce.
“It takes some time to make but I promise it’s well worth the effort. Aside from being delicious — it is my all-time most popular recipe — it’s a one-pot meal that feeds a crowd. You can also make it a day ahead; in fact, you should because the flavour improves the longer it sits.”
Check out the Beef Stew recipe here
Fajitas
Something that might not spring to mind immediately is fajitas, but it is something that older people can cook and eat for the rest of the week.
You can pack them for lunches, have the leftovers for dinner or even make a fajita salad with the remaining sour cream or salsa. The leftover ingredients could also be made into nachos.
A Fajita recipe that Ciara, a food writer who runs the My Fussy Eater blog, recommends is a slow cooker chicken fajita.
“If you’re trying to eat healthily but looking for a really tasty recipe, then you’re not going to want to miss these super delicious Slow Cooker Chicken Fajitas! Perfect if you want a super nutritious but also a family-friendly recipe that everyone will love!”
Check out the fajita recipe here
Roast pumpkin and spinach lasagne
This is a great dish that vegetarians can make which is not only healthy but can keep you carb-fixed throughout the week.
This rich creamy lasagne is well-known for its sweet, earthy flavours and taking only 25-minutes to prepare and two hours to cook, it is well worth the effort.
The Healthy Chef recommends this lasagne as it gives your body a big hit of antioxidants. Teresa Cutter says in her blog: “Pumpkin is high in immune-boosting vitamin A, which is important for eye health, protein synthesis, reproduction and a healthy immune system. It's also high in fibre to help lower cholesterol and has good amounts of potassium which helps to regulate fluid and mineral balance in the body.”
Of course, the lasagne can be made with different ingredients as another popular choice is butternut squash and spinach.
Whichever ingredients you decide on for your lasagne, you can make up a big baking dish and either enjoy it over the next few days or freeze it to make it last longer.
Check out the pumpkin and spinach lasagne recipe here
Baked ratatouille
Victoria McGinley runs her own food blog and a dish that she loves which is a healthy recipe that can be made to last a long time is baked ratatouille.
On her blog, she talks about the dish and says: “Ratatouille is traditionally made by stewing together tomatoes, onions, peppers, eggplant, squash and herbs. There’s much debate about the ‘proper’ way to make it, and like many French dishes, it seems like the right way to make it is the way your grandmother did.”
In this dish, you can enjoy a few of your five a day and by cooking it in a big dish you can enjoy some on the day you make it and keep back batches that you can eat throughout the week.
Check out the baked ratatouille recipe here
For older people with mobility problems that need to use aids such as walk in showers, stairlifts or mobility scooters, and those who are advised not to go out, these healthy recipes are just some ideas for the type of healthy meals which can be made in bulk.
This news article is from Handicare UK. Articles that appear on this website are for information purposes only.
