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Healthier Eating

 

One of my biggest downfalls is food.  Healthier food is just hard to pick.  It is always easier to pick the bad ones.  I’ve always been a big stress eater.   And who thinks being a mom is a teeny tiny bit stressful?  (Hands?)  So in the New Year to get a little healthier in my eating habits I decided to go Vegan, Vegetarian or Meat-free at least once a week for dinner.   

 

Last week’s meat-free dish was a pasta salad.  

Mine is made with whole wheat pasta.  You can use gluten-free or whatever else makes you happy.  It’s just good to get some carbs.  To give you some protein I added cheese and chickpeas.  Same goes for the cheese.  If you prefer something else, it’s completely up to you.  I prefer a mild cheese in pasta salad so I pick Colby jack.  

 

Next comes the veggies.  My combination was chosen for color and veggies of my family’s preference.  I choice broccoli, two different color bell peppers, and cucumbers.  They are all really crunchy veggies, which is a must for pasta salad.  You need to wash and chop them into small bite-size pieces.

 

After the veggies chopped they can get combined in a big bowl with the pasta.  Make sure the pasta cool before you add the cheese.  You need to chop the cheese.  Cut the cheese into cubes and add to the mix.

 

Drain and rinse the chickpeas.  Mix it into the rest.  Now you can add the Italian dressing.  Add enough to your taste.  I added about half a cup since this is a lot of pasta.  

 

It should take you about 20 minutes to make this recipe if you need to chill the pasta.  Less then that if you had it precooked and already cold.  Enjoy.

 

[kindred-recipe id=”227″ title=”Meat-free Pasta Salad”]

 

Need some more ideas for this week?  You can also check out my Vegan Butternut Squash Dish or my kid-friendly Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies.