9 Whole30 dinner recipes & my reviews
- becca
- Jan 21, 2020
- 6 min read
Happy Tuesday, my friends! We are t-minus 9 days until the end of our Whole30 experience and BOY AM I EXCITED. While it's been really rewarding thus far and I've learned a lot about my body, I am BEYOND ready to chomp down on some Doritos and sip on a glass of wine.
A pretty important part of Whole30, though, is the reintroduction phase. I haven't quite decided how I'm going to approach it yet, but just throwing all of that bad stuff you were eating before back into your system is doing yourself a disservice. I'm going to do my best to take it one food at a time so I can *hopefully* determine what may have been causing my health issues prior to Whole30. It's going to be tough considering the first weekend we're off is Super Bowl weekend and THE KC CHIEFS ARE IN IT, BABYYYY!!!!! But I'm going to try my hardest to not completely destroy all the work I'll have done over the past month. Wish me luck!
Over the past 2+ weeks we've tried a slew of Whole30 recipes, some amazing and some just okay. I'm going to share most of them with you here along with my review on each so you can know what you may be getting yourself into if you decide to try one! Here goes:
We loved this one because it gave us enough food to last us two full meals, meaning we didn't have to cook again the next night. It also provided a lot of protein that kept us full. The seasoning was fantastic and I'm always in for a meal that you can stick in the crock-pot to cook all day while you're at work; it makes it SO easy. Prep the night or morning before and just turn the crock-pot on before you leave!
I'll admit that these were SO good the first night we had them, but the second time...not so good. I think it's probably because I'm not a HUGE sweet potato fan...I usually only eat them as fries (lol) and this recipe calls for an entire sweet potato with each serving. If you put enough of the toppings on it, you don't get so much of the sweet potato flavor coming through, which helps. If you're a big sweet potato fan, this is probably your recipe! It really was good, fairly easy, and lasted more than one meal, I just don't CRAVE sweet potatoes.
Also, I had never tried Italian sausage in homemade pizza or spaghetti and it was...seriously...so good. It may become a new staple in my spaghetti recipes once I'm off Whole30. The spices already in the meat just give it an extra little somethin'.
We LOVED this one, but I did make a few edits. We're not huge fans of mushroom, so I completely eliminated those. I added a few potatoes in its place, both red and sweet. We used kielbasa, which probably isn't Whole30 approved (whoops), but it's DELISH. This recipe just calls for regular sausage links. We also didn't have balsamic vinegar, so I used some Whole30-approved dressing I had in the fridge. Personally, I would cut down the amount of onion required in this recipe; it was just a little too powerful for us. I do, though, like the taste of onion here and there...just not in every bite. If you want leftovers, I would probably double the recipe as we pretty much DEVOURED it and had to make something else the following night.
This was a really good one and, honestly, could've been served at some fancy restaurant for $35. Also, pretty easy for the product that came out of it. Only downside is, once again, this recipe didn't last us the four servings it was supposed to; we ate it all that night. So, if you're wanting it to last two, I would double. OR make everything except the fish the night before and then just cook the fish when you get home...because fresh cooked fish is much better than fish that has been sitting in the fridge all day and reheated in the microwave. One more thing - we made some cauliflower rice to eat with this as we knew that just a fillet of fish and veggies wouldn't be enough to fill us up.
This one was kind of a complete fail. Primarily because the recipe called for chicken thighs and we had never made chicken thighs before, so we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into. If I had known, I would've just bought chicken breasts and proceeded with the recipe like normal. But I didn't. I followed the instructions to a T, pulled the chicken out of the oven and it was VEINY and PINK and BLEH. I couldn't eat it and neither could Clint, which is saying something. So...I made Clint go to Walmart and buy us a rotisserie chicken, which isn't Whole30 approved (whoops, again). We served the sauce up on the rotisserie chicken and it was...okay. Definitely not my favorite and wouldn't be something I would make again.
These were a hit and lasted us three full meals. It calls for 2 pounds of ground turkey, which turns out to be a LOT of meat. There's quite bit of protein in it, and turkey tends to be a pretty lean meat, so it fills you up. We skipped the bacon in this recipe because it's VERY difficult to find Whole30 approved bacon, but honestly, it didn't even need the bacon. We added a side of some roasted red potatoes and chowed down!
Just had these the past two nights and...not quite as good as a regular beef taco, but they did the trick! We didn't have any avocado or fresh tomato on hand, so we simply topped with Whole30 approved salsa and quite a bit of cilantro (pile enough cilantro on anything and it'll taste good). We went ahead and made 2 full pounds of ground beef and, like I said, it lasted us two meals. These were also VERY easy to make, which I'm all for.
It says "Instant Pot" but the recipe gives you instructions for stove-top and slow cooker as well! We took the slow cooker route (because I'm a big fan of taking the easier approach) and it worked really well! I took this soup to our family get-together down in Branson and it was a HIT. Everyone loved it, including those not on Whole30. Probably because it doesn't take like a soup that would be allowed on Whole30...
The trick is in the cashews. I'm not exactly sure how cashews make something so creamy, but they do. I don't have a high-powered blender and was still able to liquefy them pretty well, even without soaking them first.
This is likely to be a recipe we keep on hand even after Whole30, it was that good!
This recipe was just "ok" for me. Probably because I'm used to that deep fried coconut shrimp we all know and love...and this wasn't that. Plus, I couldn't get the sauce as creamy as it looks in their photos (shocker, lol). The taste was fine, but probably would've been better had I been able to use honey instead of dates. I also needed something else to go with it; I can't just eat coconut shrimp for dinner. But, I wasn't quite sure what to pair with it. So I just ate a second dinner of fruit later that night. :)
There you have it! 9 Whole30 dinner recipes we've tried thus far and my overall feelings on them! Most were pretty good and filled us up, but just keep in mind that you may need to double a lot of the recipes to get more than one meal out of them.
We still have several days to go in this and we'll be testing even more recipes along the way. I'll be sure to share those with you and let you know how they worked for us.
Thanks for joining me in this crazy adventure
A place to be #unapologeticallyme.
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