Everyone should eat more fruits and vegetables but prepping produce involves so much chopping, slicing and peeling! How can we find the time to prepare produce for quick home snacks and meals?
Preparing fruits and vegetables that are ready to eat or add to a recipe does not have to be complicated. Here are some simple ideas:
- Make sure your knives are sharp. It is hard to cut produce with a dull knife. Even a thin-skinned tomato is challenging if your knife is dull. Using a dull knife is also dangerous because it can slip and cut you.
- Enlist a budding chef in your family to cut up produce. Preschoolers can help by tearing leafy greens like lettuce, spinach and kale. Even young children can use a plastic serrated knife to cut softer items. Take it to the next level and invite your young chef to make this Banana Berry Smoothie.
- The skin of fruits and vegetables has lots of vitamins and minerals and increases nutrition. Some produce has thin skin that can be scrubbed instead of peeled. Examples are carrots, potatoes, apples, zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, and beets. Washing this produce well allows you to eat the outer layer and saves preparation time.
- Many fruits, like watermelon and cantaloupe, are large and difficult to cut. Start by cutting them in half, then cut each half in half, then cut each quarter in half - until you have manageable chunks. Eat the fruit right off the firm outer layer, called the rind, or use a spoon to break off bite-sized pieces.
- Turn vegetables into noodles! Buy a spiralizer, which is a tool that turns firm vegetables and fruits into long strands or “noodles”. Within a few minutes, you can turn zucchini, yellow squash, butternut squash, beets, sweet potatoes or any other firm produce into “noodles”. You can find the spiralizer at the grocery store or dollar store. Try making this colorful, delicious and easy recipe for Rainbow Veggie Salad and spiralizing the carrots, yellow squash and zucchini.
- Buy ready to eat fruits and vegetables. Oranges, apples and bananas are available year round in the grocery stores. They can be kept in a bowl on the counter for an easy snack or to wash and put in your child’s lunchbox. Grapes, blueberries, strawberries, cherries, small tomatoes and snack-sized sweet peppers also are easy to wash and eat.
- Buy canned or frozen produce when it is on sale and keep it on hand in your pantry and freezer. This takes the stress out of getting half your plate filled with fruits and vegetables because you always have a supply ready to eat. You can find easy recipes like 3-Can Chili, using canned ingredients, to prepare a quick dinner.
Now that you have plenty of fruits and vegetables on hand and lots of tips for how to prepare them, how do you get your family to eat more fruits and veggies?
