If You Want to Eat More Vegetables, Start With These 5 Nutrient Packed Picks

Eating more vegetables doesn’t have to mean building another salad. Vegetables can disappear into soups, pasta, casseroles, stews, smoothies, and other meals you already make. Dietitians recommend around two to three cups per day, with fiber among the nutrients vegetables can add to the diet. If the produce aisle leaves you wondering what to put in the cart, these five are useful places to start.

Spinach

Spinach makes it easy to add greens without rebuilding the meal around them.

Add a handful to smoothies or fresh juice. Its mild flavor can blend into other ingredients without taking over the drink.

Spinach can also go into soups, pasta, casseroles, and cooked dishes when a salad doesn’t sound appealing.

Avocado

Avocado can add vegetables to breakfast without requiring a cooked side.

Blend it into a green smoothie for a creamier texture. It can also work across meals where you want a soft, rich ingredient beside other vegetables.

That texture makes it different from leafy greens and gives you another way to add produce without eating the same preparation each day.

Cabbage

Cabbage gives you plenty of options beyond slaw.

Slice it into soups or stews, cook it into a casserole, or use thin raw pieces as part of a salad base.

Its sturdy texture also means it can handle longer cooking without disappearing as fast as softer greens.

Zucchini

Zucchini can become part of the pasta rather than another vegetable sitting beside it.

Spiralize it into strands and use them as a salad base, pasta substitute, or mix them with regular noodles.

That can be a useful way to add another vegetable while keeping a familiar meal format.

Add vegetables to meals you already cook

The easiest strategy may have less to do with finding a perfect vegetable and more to do with changing where vegetables appear.

Soups, stews, casseroles, and pasta dishes give vegetables time to absorb the flavors around them. Smoothies offer another route for greens, while spiralized vegetables can change the base of a meal.

You don’t need to turn every lunch into a bowl of raw greens. Start with vegetables you will use, then put them into meals already in your rotation. A grocery cart full of produce only helps when those vegetables make it onto the plate.