Try These Healthy, Quick One-Pot Meal Recipes This Summer

Here’s a list of 5 super easy dinners, that you can just make in a jiffy.

These easy, tasty and healthy recipes will transform your dinner.

(Photo: iStockphoto)

Having trouble eating a healthy dinner? Don’t blame you.

Summer time dinners are the most difficult to fix. Who wants to cook in the heat, after a long tiring day at work with a grumbling, hungry tummy complaining loudly for company!

There’s a never ending tussle between palate and stomach, while the former wants taste, the stomach yearns for light, easily digestible food thanks to the shooting mercury. 

So while a take away meal (yes again!) is a really bad idea, let’s face it - whipping up just a healthy salad every day is also not such a palatable solution.

But that said, it is important to eat a nutritious meal at the end of the day. Here’s my list of 5 super easy dinners, that you can make in a jiffy. These recipes will also keep your taste buds and gut, happy and sorted.

Remember: Pair up these dishes with a side of salad green every now and then to buff up your fibre and nutrients quotient even further.

One-Pot Pish-Pash

Craving for rich biryani and sweet tehri? Make yourself a pish-pash instead.

What you need:

• 1 cup of rice
• 2-3 chicken pieces
• Sliced vegetables
• Sliced onion and ginger
• Garam masala and oil

Whole Wheat Pasta

Why subject yourself to ready-to-eat meals when heating them often takes the same time as a home cooked supper? Set a pot to boil for whole wheat pasta – all pasta cooks in minutes, not just the 2-minute kinds!

What you need:

• 1 boiled egg
• Green vegetables - spinach, beans, broccoli
• 1 cup of pasta
• Toasted nuts

Moist Fish

Fish is best cooked moist, rather than fried or grilled dry. A good cast iron grilling pan is a good investment, because it saves you oil while giving that fantastic roasted flavour and restaurant-ready look.

What you need:

• 1 marinated fish
• Chopped vegetables like tomatoes, mushrooms, brinjals, zucchini, capsicums

Kadi

Make a lighter kadi minus the pakodi!

What you need:

• Rice flour (in place of besan)
• Curd, salt and turmeric
• Curry leaves and mustard seeds
• 1 teaspoon of urad daal or chana daal
• Dried red chillies and heeng
• Oil

Pair the kadi with boiled rice or couscous or even quinoa, and a nice sabzi or a side of stir fry veggies.

Oil-Free Biryani

Sounds impossible? Try this recipe.

What you need:

• 1 cup of rice
• 2-3 chicken pieces
• Curd
• Sliced vegetables, onion and ginger
• Garam masala and oil

Happy dining!

(The author is a nutritionist, weight management consultant and health writer based in Delhi. She is the author of Don't Diet! 50 Habits of Thin People (Jaico) and Ultimate Grandmother Hacks: 50 Kickass Traditional Habits for a Fitter You (Rupa).)

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