Anti-Inflammatory Meal Ideas

I’m so happy that so many of you are interested in recipes that focus on anti-inflammation. In a nutshell- when preparing meals, I focus on the protein first and how I intend to prepare it, and then I just add fruit and/or vegetables in as much variety and as fresh as I am able. As I mentioned in this post, we’ve done this before, so a few of the foods here (tomatoes, etc) may not really be on an “anti-inflammatory list” but they are fine for us based on past experience. My servings are smaller than my husbands, but other than that, we eat the same meals.

Breakfast

We eat breakfast every single morning, without fail. The last 2 weeks we’ve had the oatmeal I’ve listed here every morning in addition to one of these protein breakfasts. Here are our most recent breakfasts that are more focused on anti-inflammatory foods.

Veggie Egg Scramble

1 egg

Small piece of Scottish smoked salmon

1/4 cup finely chopped onion

1/4 cup chopped mushrooms

1/4 cup grape tomatoes, halved

1/2 cup baby spinach chopped

1 TBS chopped garlic

1/2 avocado or wholly guacamole

1/4 cup of any fruit we have on hand (oranges and berries usually)

sea salt, pepper

sriracha

1 tsp olive oil or avocado oil

Place oil in small skillet on medium heat until oil is just hot. Sautee onions, mushrooms, garlic until onions are soft. Add tomatoes sautee for 1 minute. Add spinach sautee until wilted. Remove from pan. Scramble the egg. Plate the scrambled egg, top with sauteed veggies, add avocado, smoked salmon and a dab of sriracha. Salt and pepper to taste. Add fruit to the side.

Our Oatmeal

One packet of steel-cut oats (this is a pack of 10 for under $3)

3/4 cup of cashew milk or almond milk

1/4 cup fresh blueberries (or rasberries, etc) I’ve been using these containers and they keep the berries SO fresh! No more throwing them out before they get used.

1/4 cup sliced bananas

1/4 cup walnuts (or pecans or almonds, etc)

1 TBS local honey

1/2 TSP cinnamon

Microwave steel cut oats according to package directions. Stir well. Add blueberries, bananas and nuts. Drizzle with honey and then top with cinnamon.

Israeli Tuna Breakfast

1 can of tuna in water, drained

1 boiled egg, chopped

1/4 cup grape tomatoes, halved

1/4 cup pitted kalamata olives

1/4 cup of cucumber, chopped

1/2 avocado chopped

lemon juice

olive oil

sea salt and pepper

Dump the entire can of tuna onto a plate or bowl. Top with egg. tomato, cucumber, olives and avocado. Add lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste and then drizzle with olive oil. (Alternatively, you can just mix this all together salad-style if you prefer).

Lunches

We eat a lot of left-overs for lunch because it’s easy and I don’t have to stop and think too much about it. So, whatever we had for dinner, I’ll usually replate and reheat for lunch. I use these containers to pack leftovers every night and keep them neatly in the fridge.. BPA free and freezer, dishwasher and microwave safe.If we don’t have leftovers (rare since I try to cook enough for that very purpose) here’s a lunch idea from the last few weeks that we loved.

Salmon cakes

1 can of sockeye salmon

1/2 cup almond flour

2 large eggs, beaten

2 tbsp homemade, lemon- dill mayonnaise

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

2 tbsp fresh dill, finely chopped

salt and pepper

Form the salmon mixture into small patties with your hands and place them to the side. Heat several tablespoons of olive oil in a large pan on medium heat and cook the salmon patties for 3-4 minutes on each side. Remove the salmon patties to a paper towel-lined plate.

Serve the salmon patties on butter lettuce with the lemon dill mayonnaise.

Dinner

We ate out for dinner on a few occasions over the last few weeks. We tried to choose the restaurants that prepare the very freshest food to order and went with Mediterranean food or Japanese and had no trouble finding delicious entrees that met our needs. Below are links to some of the other recipes that we cooked at home. If the recipe is protein only- we added at least 2 vegetable sides.

Paleo White Chicken Chili

Garlic and Crushed Red Pepper Stir Fry

Grilled Sword Fish

Easy Baked Cod

Baked Cod with parmesan and garlic butter I used less butter and parmesan than the recipe called for and it was still really good.

Grilled Tuna Steaks– topped these with a horseradish sauce made with horseradish and homemade mayo.

Ground Turkey Spaghetti Sauce (I make my own, and add in as many other vegetables as I can- but I’ve linked a good recipe) over Spaghetti squash.

I hope that this helps give you some ideas on anti-inflammatory meal ideas. I like to keep things as simple as possible while still hitting our goals and eating delicious meals. I’ll write out more things here on the blog as we go along ( prep tips, snacks, condiments, drinks etc). As with anything else, the more you practice something, the better you get at it. Follow me on Instagram and see my stories, where I share more of what the day-to-day looks like.

Results?

We should have our first round of blood work results before the end of the month, so I’ll be interested to see if our efforts are paying off there yet. My husband is one of the 50% of people who had a heart attack WITHOUT high cholesterol (50%!! y’all), so we will be looking at a lot of things in those results. When we first added so many fruits and vegetables back into our diet- our stomachs went a little rumbly for about 7 days. Now, we’ve both lost weight and are starting to feel more steady energy throughout the day instead of the crashes we were both experiencing before. I’ve beaten the bloat this month! Which is a huge plus for me because that was becoming super frustrating and I was telling myself that it was just something that you have to deal with, with age….so YAY! I’d say that those are the biggest physical results we’ve had so far.

If you are looking to make dietary changes- just start. Start somewhere. My kitchen has been a wreck and the sink has been piled with dishes as I get used to cooking all the time again. I’m just rolling with it, because this is super important to us now! This week I’ll do a big food prep on Sunday to help myself be better prepared for the week ahead and start trying to figure out a good schedule for myself getting to the gym. One step at a time.

Thank you so much for reading and I hope that this sort of thing is helpful in giving you some anti-inflammatory meal ideas. I’ll share how I tackle the grocery shopping, etc in an upcoming post as well. As always- if there is anything else specific that you’d like to hear about, just let me know because I love talking about health!