5 Healthy and Easy Go-To Meals

4 min readMay 4, 2022

By: McKinley Burnett

I love cooking, but I am very impatient. These quick and healthy meals have been my obsession for years. I am personally gluten and dairy free, so these recipes will accommodate those needs, but you could easily modify them if you want to use dairy or gluten ingredients.

Oatmeal

Every morning I make oatmeal with my go-to toppings and ingredients.

In a bowl, pour 1/2c. of rolled oats, some cinnamon, a pinch of salt, frozen berries, and almond milk (or any milk of your liking). I like my oatmeal watery so I pour the milk til it’s about the same height as my berries. Then, microwave for 2 minutes (or however long your oat package says).

After it comes out of the microwave, I add in:

hemp hearts (for protein, healthy fats, and antioxidants)
cashews (for crunch)
almond butter
sliced banana
vanilla vegan protein powder (makes it thicker and gives good flavor)

Then you’re ready to dig in!

This is another example for some variety with toppings. Pictured here are nectarines, coconut flakes, cashews, hemp hearts, raisins, and a banana!

Pro tip: If your oatmeal is to thick, pour more milk in after cooking.

Brown Rice Pizza

I have been gluten free for a while and one time my mom brought home these brown rice tortillas. For some reason we decided to try to use them as a pizza crust, and it worked.

I freeze the brown rice tortillas, then use a frozen one when I’m ready for a pizza.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Top it with marinara sauce, dairy-free cheese, some lunch meat or chicken, spinach, etc.
Bake for 8–10 minutes.

Boom — you have a mini personal pizza!

This was one brown rice pizza I made. The toppings pictured are: radishes, chicken, arugula, and nutritional yeast (for a cheesy taste).

Chicken Bowls

When I want a filling meal, chicken bowls are my first choice. I’ll share my favorite groupings, but there are so many possible combinations!

I use brown rice or white rice and just make it in the microwave. For the chicken I either make chicken or use the pre-made chicken from Sprouts.

First Combo:

Chicken
Mediterranean flavored rice (turmeric and cumin added to white long grain rice)
Hummus
Cucumbers
Lettuce

Second Combo:

Mexican spiced chicken
White rice
Guacamole
Pico de gallo
Black beans

Protein Pasta

I love Banza Chickpea Pasta. These noodles are made from chickpeas. Chickpea pasta is so good, filled with protein, and gluten free.

I cook up a serving of noodles, heat marinara sauce, then mix the noodles and sauce. The noodles have protein, so you could add meat but normally I just eat the noodles and marinara. For a topping, I add nutritional yeast. It adds a cheesy taste and has a lot of good vitamins and minerals.

I love this recipe because its cheap, quick, and so yummy.

Smoothie Bowls

Smoothie bowls are my favorite breakfast or dinner when I have some fruit on hand.

For the smoothie base, I use 8oz dairy-free milk, a handful of spinach (trust me, you can’t taste it), frozen fruit, half a banana, and 2 scoops of pea protein powder. Depending how much fruit I use, sometimes I add some ice. This combo normally comes out as the perfect smoothie bowl texture.

Next, the toppings. This is your time to be creative. My go-to’s are some form of berries, GF granola, dark chocolate chips, coconut flakes and a banana.

This was a strawberry, protein based bowl! The toppings are some Cheerios, dark chocolate chips, coconut flakes, and a banana.

My favorite thing about cooking is the way you can be creative and make each recipe your own. Be creative, these are meant to be ideas, but add or take away aspects from the recipes to make them your own!