Meals with vegetables are an essential part of a healthy diet. This sheet pan cauliflower and butternut squash meal is flavorful, filling, and full of nutrients to fuel your body.
Adding Vegetables to Your Diet
With a recommendation to eat two portions of fruit and three portions of vegetables per day, this dish would certainly help with your target. Vegetables provide the body with essential nutrients in the form of vitamins and minerals, including iron, vitamin C, and potassium. Furthermore, eating a sufficient number of vegetables will support your gut health, enabling you to digest food efficiently and preventing constipation and other issues linked to digestion. Plenty of fiber in your diet will also reduce the risk of bowel cancer.
Around half of Americans suffer from high blood pressure. Sufficient vegetable intake can help lower blood pressure, reducing the risk of suffering from a number of debilitating conditions. Vegetables are low in calories and fat, so they are a necessary addition to any diet, helping people to stay full for longer as well as helping to lower blood sugar. Found in many vegetables, Vitamin C is essential for maintaining a decent immunity. Your immune system can help your body to fight off incoming illnesses.
But how can you add vegetables to your diet when you hate them? You can do it, you just have to find HOW you like your vegetables. I promise, if I can learn to like more of them, so can you!
Sheet Pan Meals
Sheet pan meals are becoming increasingly popular, particularly with full-time workers who have a family to feed, too. Hate doing dishes? Hate mess in the kitchen? Hate not having enough time to split between all of your duties at home? Most of us feel the same way and this is why sheet pan meals tick so many boxes for so many people. Using a sheet pan recipe means that you will cook everything in the same pan, reducing the amount of washing up, the amount of mess, and the amount of fuss. Investing in good-quality sheet pans is advisable to ensure that they last longer, particularly if you are using them regularly. It’s a great way to get vegetables for dinner or other meals too.
This makes a great meal on it’s own or a wonderful side for something like this easy 2 ingredient tilapia as well.
Butternut squash sheet pan dinner
Sheet Pan Cauliflower Butternut Squash Meal
Ingredients
- 1 head cauliflower
- 1 med butternut squash
- 1 lg red onion
- 1 can cooked chickpeas
- ¼ c olive oil
- 1 ½ tsp harissa spice blend
- ¾ tsp salt
- 1 lg lemon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375° F. Line a large baking sheet with aluminum foil.
- Break cauliflower into large florets. Using 4 or 5 angled cuts, remove the stem. Break off the larger florets. Then cut the top pieces into larger groupings about the same size as the larger florets.
- Cut the ends off the butternut. Using a peeler, remove all the skin. Cut the squash into rounds, then into 1 – 1 ½” cubes. You can remove the seeds using a large spoon, before cutting the rounded portion into cubes.
- Slice onion in half, peel and remove top end. Remove just the roots of the base, so that there is still the white portion holding most of the layers together. Slice into ½”/12mm slices lengthwise.
- In a large bowl, toss florets, butternut, onions, and chickpeas with olive oil and spices until thoroughly coated.
For another yummy way to enjoy butternut, check out this lemon butternut squash soup. I love the flavors in it!
For more ideas for other meals with vegetables besides sheet pan cauliflower and butternut squash, that help you eat the rainbow every day, check these out:
- Farro salad
- Lettuce wraps
- Poblano enchiladas
- Steak salad
- Rainbow pasta
- Greek pasta salad
- Chicken burrito bowls
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