One-pan meals MAXIMUM NUTRITION WITH MINIMAL EXERTION

Chermaine Kwant is a registered dietician who truly understands life with PH. After undergoing a lung transplant due to the condition, she now dedicates her time to helping people with health conditions improve their quality of life through eating well. Here, Chermaine explains how ‘onepan meals’ could be the key to healthy cooking that won’t drain your energy…

A one-pan meal is exactly that – a meal that you can prepare in one pan. You can add all the nutrients and ingredients together, making it very easy to do. These types of meals are good options because they cost you way less energy to prepare compared to ones that require lots of pans and different ingredients. It’s also a good way to batch-cook, so you can prepare lots of portions at the same time and put them in the freezer. Then, on the days that you feel less energetic, you can easily heat up a readyprepared healthy meal.

Some people think a one-pan meal may lack taste, but you can add a lot of flavour to anything you make.

Meals that can be made in one pan include pasta dishes. Make the sauce first, then tip in the uncooked pasta and cook it all together.

Other examples include chilli and stews, and mashed potato too. You could try mashing potatoes with leeks, adding curry flavouring, and serving with codfish, to make a wonderful meal. To make this dish extra nutritious, stir one or two eggs in when making the mash. This will also make it extra fluffy!

When it comes to one-pan meals, you can do a lot with canned beans. They are very easy, pre-cooked, and very cheap.

For example, you could use them to make a rich soup. Add them to root vegetables such as celeariac, or cauliflower, and to add more flavour and nutrition, you could use coconut or dairy milk instead of water. This one-pan soup will give you a wonderful rich meal which will also keep you warm on colder days.

If you want to make something cold with canned beans instead, I recommend stir frying some vegetables and letting them cool before adding them to the beans and some salad.

When thinking about what to include in your one-pan meal, firstly you should make sure you add plenty of vegetables to it. Ideally these would be vegetables that are currently in season.

Include a source of carbohydrate, such as rice, pasta, or potatoes. The most important thing, however, is to include enough protein. This could come from dairy, eggs, fish, meat, or vegan sources such as beans and tofu.

Combining all of these elements with some olive oil or butter gives you all the nutrients you need – in just one pot!