I haven’t had time to develop a full week’s meal plan yet…but I wanted to share a few ideas of the things I have been and will be enjoying this month (and beyond)!
Knowing your food options after cutting out white sugar and white flour might just be half the battle…
Breakfast
- Scrambled Eggs with Avocado and Salsa
- Mom’s Best Naturals Organic Multigrain Oatmeal with Unsweetened Almond Milk and Honey (will share my latest grocery store steal tomorrow!)
- Whole Wheat Pancakes, made with 100% maple syrup
- Berry Quinoa Parfait (with unsweet yogurt)
- Cream of Rice cereal
- Sausage, bacon
Lunch
- Salads with grilled chicken
- Dinner leftovers
- Quinoa salads
Snacks
- Kind Fruit and Nut bars, made with honey
- Nuts
- Fresh fruit – nectarines, apples, oranges
- Unsweet yogurt with fresh fruit and honey
- Apple slices with Natural peanut butter
- Popcorn
- Corn tortilla chips and salsa
Dinner
I don’t cook with much sugar, so pretty much any of the dinner recipes will work for the no-sugar part. And I don’t cook with much flour, with the exception of bread bowls, etc.
I plan to make my dinners centered around whole grain bread (which I will be making in my bread machine soon), potatoes, whole grain pasta, sweet potatoes and brown rice…for the starch.
Here’s the complete $5 Dinners recipe index, where I’m sure you’ll find a few sugar and flour free dinner recipes!
I hope you’ll take this list and transfer it onto one of the free printable meal planners and make a meal plan that will work for you!
Heather says
When you say “unsweet” does that mean “sugar-free”? Because sugar-free items always seem to have aspartame which I do not touch and not only bc it’s very unhealthy but mostly bc it is the most disgusting tasting substance I have ever known. If you don’t mean sugar-free, as in the yogurt, where do you find such items? Thanks!
Erin, The $5 Dinner Mom says
haha, yes Heather. I don’t eat much yogurt myself and haven’t spent too much time reading labels, but I know that sugar-free, aspartame free yogurt exists.
And yes…can be disgusting, but if it makes you FEEL BETTER, and it really is what’s best for your body, then you’ve got to go with that. I recommend adding fruit and honey to sweeten it up! You could even cook the fruit in some honey, then let it cool before adding to the plain yogurt.
The new plain Greek yogurt might be a good option to start with…just read the labels.
NMP says
Yes, greek yogurt will rock your yogurt world and once you try it you will never go back to the processed stuff again. Fage Total 0% tastes just like the fattening stuff! It is so rich and flavorful. You can sweeten in up for a treat with berries or you can use as sour cream on mexican food or to top potatoes and it is not bland at all. My husband wasn’t even a yogurt fan until I brought this stuff home and now I can’t keep him out of it. Good stuff and good for you!
Diane says
I also add about 1TBSP of the greek yogurt to my oatmeal along with fresh berries, cinnamon and walnuts, delicious
claire says
What a challenge this is! WOW. I am not sure if we could do that in this house. When your family is used to a certain way it is hard to change. I’ll see what I can do to change a little by little.
Erin, The $5 Dinner Mom says
It is indeed tough Claire. I don’t have everyone doing this…yet.
I’m hoping this is the start to getting rid of as much sugar as possible in the household!
susanne says
Learning better nutrition is definitely a PROCESS!!! I am learning to make small steps and then build from there.
Greek yogurt has no added sugar and I believe it is higher in protein than regular yogurt. I have it with fruit and homemade granola (which has brown sugar but at least I know the ingredients in it!!!). Also great for shakes/smoothies because no added sugar and you can sweeten it with fruit (or honey I suppose although never tried it).
I make a smoothie with greek yogurt, frozen strawberries, milk and a crystal light energy powder (not all would approve, but it replaces my caffeinated, high fructose corn syrup laden soda so that is my trade off!). For the kids, I leave off the CL powder and add fresh fruit or a fruit syrup I have made — yes with a small amount of sugar, but I know everything that is in there so I am happy with that for now.
Teresa says
There are lots of yogurts with no sugar, especially most of the plain yogurts which you can sweeten with honey (preferably raw), agave, sorguhm or maple syrup and fruit. But there are some flavored yogurts that also do not have sugar most of them are the organic or greek or basically more expensive:). If you still cant find it make some its really easy. Then add the sweetner you like.
My mom when I was younger stopped usuing sugar most of her stuff was terrible (sorry mom). Several years ago I decided to cut down on our sugar and first I switched to organic, then to turbinado or succant, now I use mostly raw honey, or maple syrup, I am starting to use sorghum but do not have that down yet. I have found some wonderful non sugar desserts(for my chocolate fix) on raw food sites…..some of it is amazingly good. Some is not as good as the processed, but not bad and much better for you.
I started grinding wheat a few years ago and that has helped with not usuing white sugar and I slowly incorporated other grains into the breads so my family would get use to it without even knowing:)
Do not feel bad when you do use sugar or white flour or even wheat, its a process…. do what you can but if you put a pinch of sugar in a smoothie its ok:) eventually you will be able to leave it out and no one will notice.
Teresa
Chrissy says
I thought that I would pass on some of my children’s favorite snacks.
hummus w/ veggies. There are so many variations.
roasted chickpeas(their favorite)
I also use orange juice to sweeten my pancakes. The kids love it.
Meg says
Plain unsweetened yogurt tastes great if you add frozen berries (you can thaw them or use as is) with some of their juices. Pure vanilla extract tastes great too, just use a drop since a little goes a long way. Overripe bananas are also another great sweetener in muffins, smoothies, yogurt – freeze them when they’re really overripe and then just take them out as needed from what we call the “banana morgue.” Let them get really, really overripe though – black on the outside and completely mushy on the inside.
Erin, The $5 Dinner Mom says
We have a “banana morgue” too! Love that you call it that!
Jamie Brooks says
I would be interest in no flour, no sugar recipes
Debbie White says
I would be interested in no sugar no four recipes…
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