A healthy, balanced dinner is a goal for many of us. But our efforts often fall apart because of a lack of inspiration and time. Do you feel that a quick and cheap dinner can’t be healthy? Let us prove you wrong! We’ll show you our favourite healthy dinner ideas, which you are sure to enjoy. How do you start eating healthily and what should you make for dinner? 🥗
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How to make a healthy dinner
Do you want to eat healthily but don’t know where to start? Does reading recipes give you a headache because of all the ingredients, so you end up giving up rather than wasting your time? Or have you even started changing your diet, but your weight isn’t moving and you feel you’re struggling for nothing?
A poor diet is one of the possible causes of the autumn tiredness that is troubling you. Perhaps you are making unnecessary mistakes when planning, eating portions that are too large or too small, or your diet isn’t balanced. This simple guide to quick dinners, including several healthy recipes, is just for you! A quick, healthy dinner can be easy to prepare and better for your body than a complicated menu.
💡 Tip: Having enough information can also help you eat well. Healthy dinners aren’t enough on their own, so try reading about more tips for a healthy diet.
When planning dinners, focus on these points:
- Watch both the amount and the timing.
- The cooking method matters.
- Always aim for a balanced portion.
- Healthy doesn’t automatically mean diet food.
- Plan several meals with the same base.
The right amount of food
What does the right amount of food mean, and how much should you eat for dinner? Unfortunately, there is no simple answer. You always need to take into account how active you were during the day, your calorie intake so far, the time of your dinner and what you are actually eating.
By the time of dinner, I don’t mean a rule like “You mustn’t eat after six o’clock!”. Firstly, bans don’t work in healthy eating and secondly, it always depends on how active you are and on your daily routine. For example, if you usually go to bed after midnight and get up at ten, eating dinner at six makes no sense. Equally, it isn’t ideal to eat a big, heavy dinner at nine in the evening and go to bed half an hour later. That won’t help your fitness or how you feel after eating. If you have this habit, try to get rid of it step by step.
Dinner should fill you up. You shouldn’t be hungry, but you shouldn’t feel really full either. It always depends on what time you go to bed, and sometimes it is even a good idea to add a second, lighter dinner. You should eat an easily digestible meal about two to three hours before you go to bed. Your sleep will be better and your body will have time to build up energy for the next day. Different rules apply if you decide to try intermittent fasting.
On top of all this comes a very important variable: your body and your metabolism. Some people digest food very quickly and also have a fast metabolism. On the other hand, there are people who put on weight straight away if they eat more in the evening a few times. So it is important to learn to work with your body. Some people manage this naturally, while others have to turn to strict food diaries, rigid meal plans and counting carbohydrates. But for all metabolism types, it is safe to say that overeating harms the human body in the long run.
On the other hand, there are people with an extremely demanding and active day. Yet at the end of the day they don’t eat anything, just so they don’t accidentally put on a few grams. This usually isn’t good for the body either, and you may feel tired and low on energy.
How to put together a balanced, healthy dinner
Eating only boiled chicken or a leafy salad for dinner certainly won’t do your body any favours. Your diet should always be balanced and, where possible, varied. This means your plate should include the three basic components, protein, carbohydrates and fats, in the right proportions, along with enough fibre, vitamins and minerals.
How do you achieve this? Imagine dividing your plate into thirds. One third should be good-quality protein, another complex carbohydrates and the last vegetables or fruit. Your meal should also include healthy fats. How do you handle each component?
- Protein: Dairy products, meat, eggs, pulses and pulse products, plant-based meat substitutes.
- Carbohydrates: Cereals, pseudocereals and products made from them, potatoes and pulses.
- Vegetables and fruit: Vegetables should make up most of it, so include different kinds.
- Healthy fats: Oils suitable for the cooking method, nuts, seeds, avocado.
Some foods can cover two nutritional groups at once. For example, quinoa is a great side dish and also rich in protein.
Healthy = diet food?
The internet is full of all kinds of superfoods, influencers share all sorts of miracles, and without a photo of avocado toast it’s as if you don’t exist. You buy all the tried-and-tested ingredients, eat them from morning to night and still nothing happens. Why is that?
A salad dinner with two avocados per portion, a generous drizzle of olive oil, and a banana with a hefty serving of nut butter for dessert. Does that sound like the healthy version to you? This example shows a dinner that contains healthy ingredients but also far too much fat, and it doesn’t have a balanced amount of each nutrient.
People often feel that swapping Nutella for hazelnut butter means they’ve won. It is certainly a healthier alternative, but you still can’t expect miraculous weight loss if you eat it by the spoonful. To give you an idea, 100 g of hazelnut butter has about 650 calories.
Dinner ideas with the same base
A great way to save time when making dinner is to plan meals with the same base. What does that mean? For example, if you make a vegetable quiche one day, you can use the same pastry to make another tart, and chop extra vegetables to roast as a side for another meal.
Various bowls work really well. Cook quinoa for several days, then one day add beans, sweetcorn and avocado, and next time perhaps tofu and roasted pumpkin. Or are you making pasta one evening? Cook a double portion and the next day you can make a great salad. Meal planning saves you not only time but also money.
15 healthy and quick dinner recipes
At last it’s time for our 15 recipes. You’ll find warm and cold dinners, meat-free options, diet meals, new ingredients and ones you already have at home. And the best part? The meals won’t take you much more than 15 minutes to make!
1. Red lentil pasta with spinach pesto
It wouldn’t be a proper selection of quick dinners the whole family will enjoy without pasta dishes. But swap regular pasta for pulse-based pasta. It contains much more fibre and, above all, protein. Just a few ingredients and a quick warm dinner is ready. Red lentils are still generally an overlooked ingredient in many home kitchens. If you’d like to know more, take a look at our recommended red lentil recipes.
Ingredients (4 servings)
- 125 g fresh spinach
- 2 garlic cloves
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp almonds or pine nuts
- fresh basil
- 70 g grated Parmesan
- 400 g red lentil pasta
- 100 g cherry tomatoes
- salt
Blend the spinach with the garlic, olive oil, almonds, basil, 40 g of the grated Parmesan and a little salt. Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions, drain it and mix it with the pesto. Finally, stir in the halved tomatoes and serve sprinkled with grated cheese.
2. Chickpea pasta with tomato sauce
There are several kinds of pulse-based pasta available, and another is made from chickpeas. It goes perfectly with your favourite tomato sauce. Chickpeas aren’t very popular in our part of the world, yet they are very healthy and can be tasty too. Add some leafy greens when cooking. Want a vegetarian version? You can always swap minced meat for grated tofu.
Ingredients (4 servings)
- 200 g minced chicken or plain tofu
- 1 onion
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
- herbs to taste
- a large handful of spinach
- 400 g chickpea pasta
- olive oil
- salt and pepper
- grated Parmesan
Put the pasta on to cook and make the sauce. Fry the chopped onion in olive oil in a pan, add the minced meat or coarsely grated tofu and cook with the herbs for a few minutes. Season with salt and pepper and pour in the tinned tomatoes. After 10 minutes, add the crushed garlic, stir in the chopped spinach and finally the pasta. Serve sprinkled with Parmesan.
3. Pasta salad with tempeh
Pasta salad makes a great quick dinner. On the day you eat pasta hot, cook a bigger batch and make a salad at the same time. Use any vegetables you like and don’t forget the protein. Smoked tempeh works brilliantly.
Ingredients (4 servings)
- 250 g pasta (wholemeal or legume-based)
- 200 g smoked tempeh
- vegetables to taste
- olive oil
- salt and pepper
Mix the cooked pasta with the chopped vegetables and tempeh. Season with olive oil, salt and pepper.
4. Baked potatoes 3 ways
Want a warm, quick dinner with potatoes? Try baking them! It won’t take much time and you can come up with dozens of different combinations. Our dinner ideas are:
Baked potatoes with chicken
- potatoes
- pre-roasted chicken
- mozzarella
- pesto
Baked potatoes with goat’s cheese
- potatoes
- goat’s cheese
- walnuts
- spinach
Baked potatoes with curry and chickpeas
- potatoes
- chickpeas
- spinach
- coriander
- curry powder
5. Light potato salad
When someone mentions potato salad, most of us picture the one we eat at Christmas. But potatoes are also great in healthy salads! Leave out the mayonnaise and the salami, use fresh vegetables instead of tinned ones and don’t forget a source of protein. Potatoes are a great source of carbohydrates, but they are not very suitable for people who want to lose weight. So go easy on the potato salad!
6. Wholemeal tortilla quesadilla
A quesadilla can be a great quick dinner for two or for the whole family.
Ingredients (4 servings)
- 4 large tortillas
- 200 g red lentils
- tinned chopped tomatoes
- cheese to taste
- avocado
- onion
- olive oil
- chilli
- salt and pepper
Finely chop the onion and fry it in olive oil. Add the tinned tomatoes, red lentils and chilli. Simmer until the lentils are soft and the mixture has thickened, then season with salt and pepper. Mash a quarter of an avocado onto each tortilla, divide the mixture between them and sprinkle with cheese. Don’t forget to serve with a side salad.
7. Simple burrito bowl
We’re staying with Mexican cuisine, but this time we’re making a burrito. Or rather a version of it that isn’t wrapped in a tortilla but served in a bowl.
Ingredients
- rice,
- red kidney beans,
- lime,
- sweetcorn,
- red onion,
- chilli peppers,
- tomatoes,
- avocado,
- spinach,
- coriander,
- grated cheddar
Cook the rice and season it with lime juice. Divide it between bowls and add the beans, sweetcorn, chopped vegetables, avocado and grated cheese, and garnish with cheddar.
8. Vegetable quiche
Although quiche takes longer to bake, you’ll only spend a few minutes actively working on it. Traditionally, you should use shortcrust pastry as the base, but to save time, reach for puff pastry, and roast the vegetables in a bigger batch so you can use them as a side for another meal.
Ingredients (4 servings)
- ready-rolled puff pastry
- roasted vegetables to taste (potatoes, root vegetables, aubergine, courgette, fennel, pumpkin…)
- 200 g cream cheese
- 4 eggs
- 150 g grated cheese of your choice
- salt and pepper
Place the pastry sheet in a tin, cover it with baking paper and fill with dried pulses. Bake for 10 minutes at 180 °C, remove the pulses and bake for another 3 minutes. Meanwhile, whisk the eggs with the cream cheese, stir in the grated cheese and season with salt and pepper. You can also add other spices to taste.
Spread the roasted vegetables over the pre-baked base, pour over the cheese mixture and bake at 200 °C for 35 minutes. Serve with a side salad.
9. Buddha bowl
A Buddha bowl is an endless source of healthy recipes. It has 6 basic components that you can combine in different ways. What are they and what might they include?
- base (bulgur, quinoa, polenta, black rice),
- leafy greens (spinach, kale, rocket)
- colourful vegetables (broccoli, pumpkin, beetroot, peas),
- protein (pulses, tofu, tempeh, chicken, fish),
- flavouring (sauces, dressings, herbs, garlic) and
- healthy fats (avocado, nuts, tahini, hummus, olive oil).
10. Baked salmon for dinner
Why is salmon such a great quick diet dinner? You can bake it together with the side dish! Arrange salmon fillets, vegetables and potatoes on one baking tray. In 15 minutes, dinner for the whole family is ready. You won’t find much that’s simpler. A cheaper alternative is various kinds of trout, which you usually buy whole, head and all. The so-called salmon trout has also become very popular lately, and its flavour is really somewhere in between.
You can put practically any vegetable on the tray with the fish. Broccoli, carrots, peas, potatoes, asparagus or sweet potatoes all taste very good. You can also improve this recipe with various spices, herb butter, olive oil or slices of cheese laid on the vegetables 2 minutes before taking the tray out. The standard baking time is the 15 minutes mentioned.
If you want to lose weight, leave out the potatoes and replace them with broccoli or the asparagus shown in the picture. Salmon with asparagus and broccoli can even be part of a keto diet meal plan. You can also top the broccoli and asparagus with slices of cheese for extra flavour.
11. Vegetables with hummus
Hummus made from cooked chickpeas is a popular dip packed with flavour and protein. But be careful, it also contains a lot of fat. Spread a thin layer on rye bread and serve with chopped vegetables. Carrots, celery, tomatoes or cucumber work brilliantly. If you want to make this meal lighter, simply cut down on the bread and replace it with vegetables. That way the meal will also suit people trying to follow a keto diet.
12. Avocado sandwich
An avocado sandwich isn’t just a great breakfast, it also works as a quick cold dinner. Spread a thin layer of avocado on rye bread, add vegetables and finally a boiled or poached egg.
13. Chickpea curry
A quick, tasty dinner that’s meat-free too? Go for chickpea curry with sweet potatoes.
Ingredients (4 servings)
- tinned chickpeas
- 400 ml coconut milk
- 125 g baby spinach
- 1 cm grated ginger
- 1 clove crushed garlic
- 2 tbsp red curry paste
- 1 onion
- 200 g sweet potatoes, diced
- vegetable oil
- 1 lime
- salt and pepper
Heat a tablespoon of vegetable oil, add the finely chopped onion and fry for a minute. Add the garlic, ginger and curry paste and cook until fragrant. Add the chickpeas and sweet potatoes to the pan, pour in the coconut milk and simmer for 10 minutes. Finally, add the spinach and season with salt, pepper and lime.
14. Chicken stir-fry
A stir-fry can be a great quick chicken dinner. Serve it with rice or Asian noodles. Authentic Asian cuisine is generally very healthy and often uses fresh ingredients. For more recipes like this, read our article on traditional Asian dishes.
Ingredients (4 servings)
- 300 g chicken breast
- 2 carrots
- 1 small head of broccoli
- 1 red pepper
- 125 g baby spinach
- sesame seeds
- lemon juice
- 6 tbsp soy sauce
- vegetable oil
- 1 cm grated ginger
- 1 tbsp cornflour
- salt and pepper
Mix the soy sauce with a tablespoon of vegetable oil, the ginger and the cornflour. Clean the vegetables and cut them into strips, and divide the broccoli into small florets. Cut the chicken into strips as well.
Heat a tablespoon of oil, add the chicken strips and fry for 4 minutes. Add the vegetables and fry for another 5 to 8 minutes, stirring constantly. Finally, add the spinach and the prepared sauce and simmer everything together for 5 minutes.
15. Savoury muffins for dinner
The last recipe is a quick egg dinner: savoury muffins. Whisk the eggs, thicken with a little flour and add vegetables and cheese to taste. Season with salt, pepper and spices, pour into a muffin tin and bake for about 15 minutes. Serve with a slice of rye bread and a fresh salad.
16. Mediterranean sandwich
The bonus recipe comes from Mediterranean cuisine, which is generally very healthy. If you’d like to know more, read about the Mediterranean way of eating and diet.
Ingredients (4 servings):
- 100 g sun-dried tomatoes in oil
- 3 tbsp olive oil or oil from the tomatoes
- Rosemary and thyme to taste
- 250 g iceberg lettuce
- 130 g Hermelín cheese
- 50 g walnuts
- 150 g tomatoes
- Chives
- Cucumber
- 8 slices of bread
Chop the sun-dried tomatoes and mix them thoroughly with the oil and herbs. Spread the resulting paste on four slices of bread. Layer the iceberg lettuce, slices of Hermelín, finely chopped walnuts and chives on the bread. Finish the sandwich with slices of tomato and cucumber. Then cover with a slice of bread and serve.
I hope you enjoyed our healthy recipes and that they inspire you to try new things in the kitchen. You can find plenty more healthy recipes on my blog Kuchařka na cestě. You can also find inspiration in an article packed with broccoli recipes. What dinner do you reach for when you want something quick, tasty and healthy at the same time?
