One Pot Wonders

One Pot Wonders!

Seems like we are all so darn busy these days? It is me or is it so?

With busy schedules– one area of our lives that could suffer is our ability to prepare tasty and nutritious meals at dinner time. Sometimes we get too busy and/or stressed and we might just say “Why bother?” and simply order in for dinner.  But there might be an antidote for this challenge.  Something that might help make dinnertime less stressful.  Do I have your attention yet?  Recently, our nutrition intern, Sam Kalb, took some time to share something WONDERful with us.  It is a breakdown of One Pot WONDERS.  Here is what she shared with us:

What are One Pot Wonders?

One pot wonders are complete meals that you can prepare using only one pot, sheet pan, slow cooker, or Dutch oven. When we say complete meal, this means it includes your protein, carbohydrate (or starch) and vegetables.

• It’s been said that most cultures have their version of the one-pot meal. The Italians stir up creamy risotto, the Spanish steam fragrant paella and the French serve a perfect cassoulet, to name but just a few. Versions of this dish span the globe from nearly every ethnicity, the defining factor is in its name: it requires only one pot. That pot may be a wok, a Dutch Oven, a skillet or tagine, but everything is prepared in that one vessel and the melded flavors combine to produce something extraordinary.

Why are one pot wonders great??

• They make preparing a home cooked meal that much easier, and the dishes much less daunting
• One pot meals can provide easy access to a nutritious meal when someone may otherwise miss out by being “picky” about certain meal components

o Veggies can be cooked into soups, sauces, and pastas, potentially masking their flavor, if this is your goal, while increasing your intake.

o Even if your picky eater doesn’t eat the veggies in the pasta dish, having them cooked in the same pot will allow for some of the nutrients to be consumed with the pasta that they do eat.

• One-pot wonders can provide more nutrition compared to their individually prepared elements

If veggies, meats, and broths are prepared together, adding a pasta or rice will then absorb all of those nutrients and flavor, making the grain or pasta a vehicle for nutrients compared to simply boiling salt water to prepare them.

Increase the opportunity to incorporate vegetables into sauces or within a dish.

Increase nutrition by fortifying the less nutrient-dense ingredients.

Increase exposure to potentially non-preferred foods, which is associated with decreased picky eating and healthier eating habits in the future.

• Preparing a one pot recipe can provide plenty of leftovers, meaning less time spent on later days while still consuming nutritious meals.
• Cooking one pot meals can reduce your stress. We know that too much stress has negative effects on our health, removing the stress of making dinner can support your nervous system which is essential to our overall health.
• Cooking all of your ingredients together can provide a burst of flavor otherwise not obtained when cooked individually.

There you have it—some WONDERful insights into the world of One Pot WONDERS.

Thank you, Sam, for this great information and we hope that you might consider trying try one-pot cooking.  One-pot meals done right are packed with a tsunami of flavor in a nice low calorie package to keep us on good terms with the scale. Plus one-pot cooking seriously cuts down on the time we spend hunched over a sink of sudsy water.

​So many good reasons to give them a try.   ENJOY!