Who says clean eating can't be both delicious and fun? When I first made the dietary lifestyle change to eat clean, it was difficult for me to find meals that fit the parameters of my clean eating but were also not boring. They needed to be delicious and also super easy for me to throw together during the week - otherwise, I knew it would make it difficult for me to stick to long term. Now, several years have gone by since I first started eating clean, and I've not only successfully been able to stick to this way of eating 6-7 days a week, but I also love the meals we have (and often crave them more than cheat meals, which I'll have maybe once or twice a week).
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These meals are: gluten-free, dairy-free (with the exception of grass-fed butter/ghee), and I'm sure to use products that don't contain: inflammatory oils, GMO ingredients, artificial sweeteners, excess added sugar, or are overly processed.
When the recipes call for certain ingredients, I'm sure to use:
Meat & eggs that are 100% grass-fed, pasture-raised, free-range and/or organic
Produce and other products that are organic or non-GMO
Avocado oil, coconut oil, olive oil, and grass-fed butter or ghee in place of canola or vegetable oil
Redmond's Real Salt instead of conventional salt
Organic maple syrup instead of sugar
Items in BPA-free lined containers (when applicable)
To check out my other Healthy Swaps, check out this post! And without further ado, here are seven of my favorite, delicious, healthy & super easy go-to week night dinner recipes - one for each night of the week!
This recipe from the One Lovely Life blog has been a favorite for a while and always satisfies my cravings for Chinese takeout! It can easily be customized to be paleo-friendly, and you can serve it with whatever veggies you like.
If you want more of a crispy chicken texture, you can follow the recipe instructions. In order to simplify it for myself during the week, I cut about 1-1.25lbs of chicken into cubes and let it marinate in coconut aminos covered in the fridge for an hour or longer before I'm ready to cook it. Then I throw the chicken in a pan, season with Redmond's Real Salt, and while the chicken is cooking I make the sauce as the recipe calls for. I usually serve this with Trader Joe's frozen cooked organic jasmine rice (heated on the stovetop) and some broccoli or Brussels sprouts. So easy and so so good!!
I don't recommend using Trader Joe's organic coconut aminos for this recipe - every time I've used it, the sauce is very watered down and I have to put in double the amount of coconut aminos. My favorite to use is this Big Tree Farms one. This one by Coconut Secret is good as well, it's just more sweet than savory so I add more salt.
I love how easy this recipe is! I first found this recipe on Damn Delicious about four years ago, and it's been a part of our weekly dinner rotations since then. I omit the ginger because I never have it on hand, but I usually have everything else for this recipe so it's always convenient when I haven't pre-planned dinner. Just cook your ground beef, drain the fat, make the marinade, and pour it over your beef and let it simmer. That's it! I usually serve this with the same organic jasmine rice mentioned above and some oven-roasted Brussels sprouts (lightly tossed in avocado oil, maple syrup, and salt).
Heads up: this is a marinated beef recipe as opposed to one with a thick sauce (like teriyaki). I also reduce the amount of sugar the recipe calls for.
For a while, a go-to dinner for us was seasoned ground beef, greens and roasted sweet potatoes with a side of ketchup, so when I came across this recipe by Paleo Grubs, I loved that it was a way more fun version of our dinner! Even when I don't have the extra veggies this recipe calls for, like bell peppers, I'll still make this sauce and simmer our ground beef in it to jazz things up, and then serve whatever veggies I have on the side. If the organic sweet potatoes at Trader Joe's are too small to make sweet potato "boats," I'll dice and roast the sweet potatoes instead, as shown in the photo. So good!!
One of my favorite foods of all time is a nice big juicy cheeseburger. Of course, it's not necessarily the best meal for our health to eat everyday, and that's where these burger bowls from All the Healthy Things come in! I love how easy these bowls are to make but also how customizable they are. Since I don't eat cheese during the week, I stick with other non-dairy toppings like creamy avocado and paleo bacon, and it's still delicious! As for the sauce, it does come with mayo and as we know with our healthy swaps, the type of oil used in the mayo can make this a clean meal or a cheat for me. Avocado-oil mayo's and different paleo brands are best to use but can be very expensive, so if all I have on hand is an organic mayo made with expeller-pressed soybean oil or something similar, I try to keep my weekly consumption of it to a minimum. For carbs, I like to eat this with some baked sweet potato fries!
5. Chicken Fried Rice
It is a little bit of prep work cutting up the veggies, but I always love how easy and delicious fried rice is. I cook diced chicken breast in a pan (seasoned with salt, garlic & onion powder) and then move it to a plate. I then sauté minced garlic in grass-fed butter until fragrant, and then throw in diced onion, carrots and peas and let them cook until soft. While those are cooking, I quickly scramble up a couple eggs in a separate pan. Then I take cooked cold rice and put that into the pan with the veggies, pour in about 3-4 tablespoons of coconut aminos and mix it all together. Once that's thoroughly mixed, I add back in the chicken & scrambled egg. Sometimes I'll throw in a splash of toasted sesame oil, or drizzle this gluten-free Japanese BBQ sauce on top. Easy & so good!
6. Chipotle Chicken Burrito Bowls
These are my clean version of the Chipotle chicken bowls and definitely one of our all-time favorites!! I bake the chicken in the oven using this amazing recipe by Cafe Delites and the chicken comes out juicy and tender every time (I just add more salt than the recipe calls for). While the chicken is in the oven, I'll sauté my organic jasmine rice with grass-fed butter and garlic and prep the toppings (any salad greens, tomatoes, diced onion, and avocado). I try not to eat cheese during the week, but if I'm craving it then I'll melt some shredded goat cheddar or raw grass-fed cheddar on top of the rice. When the chicken is done cooking, I'll cut it up and add it to my bowl with the rice and toppings, and I'll drizzle taco sauce across the top. I also like to squeeze a lime wedge (or two) over the bowl and voilà! Delicious chicken burrito bowl!
Helpful tip: To mimic Chipotle's rice, you can also add in lime juice & cilantro, but my boyfriend doesn't like either of those things so I don't put them in our batch of rice.
An even easier variation of this dinner is Beef Taco Rice! Fun fact about taco rice: it's a staple dish and can be found in just about every food establishment in Okinawa. So random, right?? Having spent my second half of high school in Okinawa, taco rice is one of my favorite comfort foods and always brings me a sense of nostalgia. To keep it clean and simple, I simmer ground beef in taco seasoning, and serve it on top of organic jasmine rice, shredded lettuce, cherry tomatoes and diced white onion, and then I drizzle some taco sauce on top. If it's a cheat meal on the weekend, I'll also add cheddar and sour cream. Yum!!
This recipe by Salt & Lavender is one of my favorite soups to make, especially when the weather is a little gloomy outside and we want some comfort food. I love the convenience of throwing everything in the Instant Pot and letting it do the cooking for me! It is a little bit of prep work - you need to cook the ground beef and prep the fresh veggies (I do garlic, celery, onion, potatoes and mushrooms in addition to the canned diced tomatoes), but after that you throw it in the Instant Pot, press a button and can walk away until it's ready. If you don't have an Instant Pot, you can still cook it on the stove, you may just need to check it periodically to make sure the veggies are cooked through.
Helpful tip: we love the flavor of Worcestershire sauce with beef, and will add 1-2 tablespoons of it into the batch of soup.
And there you have it! Seven super easy dinner recipes to try that are also fun to make and super delicious! These meals are great for busy nights during the week when I don't have much time to plan or prep, but still want to eat clean. I hope you enjoy these recipes, and maybe even add a few of them to your weekly dinner rotations, too!
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