Quick Healthy Dinner Ideas – 4 Key Ingredients a Healthy Sandwich Must Have

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If you already had a cooked meal for lunch, you will most likely not feel like cooking again for supper. After all, you’ve been working hard whole day. Now, you just want to get some food on the table quickly and then go enjoy your evening. It’s anyways better to rather have a light meal instead of another big one.

Sandwiches are an excellent solution. They make great healthy filling meals but are still light – provided of course you choose low-calorie ingredients. And most of them go really quick and won’t take much of your time to prepare.

There are endless possibilities of what you can put on your sandwich. Be creative! But make sure you choose from the following key ingredients:

  • Whole wheat bread
  • Low calorie spreads and toppings
  • Low calorie sauces and dressings
  • Salad, vegetables, legumes or fruit

Whole wheat bread

Whole grain products have several advantages over processed white foods. On the one hand, they fill you much quicker and for longer because they are high in fiber. That means, especially if you eat slowly, you are very unlikely to eat too much, and you won’t get hungry again quickly.

You can use whole wheat bread, rolls, toast alternating to get more variety. Maybe there are even different types of whole wheat bread available.

Low calorie spreads and toppings

What would a sandwich be without ham or cheese? That’s okay. But choose lean ham and low fat cheese so that your sandwich stays healthy instead of becoming a calorie bomb. Prefer fat reduced margarine to butter and buy low calorie spreads. Low fat cottage cheese makes great spreads when you mix it with some spices. But no matter what you use, don’t put too much of it on as this will add up calories.

Cooked or grilled meat that you still got in your fridge also makes great toppings for sandwiches. For example, slices of grilled chicken breast, or the rest of your meat loaf. I also love to put shredded tuna on (canned in water, not oil!). Salmon slices are a bit pricy but taste delicious on a whole wheat roll topped with sliced onions and sprinkled with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Low calorie sauces and dressings

Sauces and dressings do a great job in making your sandwich special. Choose fat reduced mayonnaise and try to avoid ready made sauces since many of them contain quite a bit of sugar. If you do want tomato sauce on, apply only a thin layer.

Alternately, you can make your own healthy sauces and dressings at home, for example a salsa from canned tomatoes, onion and green pepper.

Salad, vegetables, legumes or fruit

Don’t forget to put some really healthy stuff on your sandwich! Salad leaves are great and quick. If you have cooked or grilled vegetables at hand, mash them and use them as a spread on your meat sandwich. Or slice them. Home made salsa or baked bean salad is also a good option. Sliced onions taste great on sandwiches. And if you like it sweet, why not adding slices of fruit? Or pineapple rings or peach halves?

By including a big portion of these foods, you make sure that you got low calorie toppings with plenty of vitamins and minerals. This will contribute greatly to make your sandwich a healthy and filling meal.

If it comes to preparing the sandwich, you got plenty of possibilities to make it exciting. You can make a burger, grill any kind of sandwich in the oven, use rolls today and toast tomorrow… You can even make a buffet: Just put everything on the table and allow people to make their own sandwiches. Much less work for you and much more time you can socialize with your family.

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