The Best Way To Trick Yourself Into Eating More Leafy Greens If You Absolutely Hate Them

Among childhood habits that are hard to break, the refusal to eat a decent amount of daily vegetables is a common one. Fortunately, if you're not the biggest fan of leafy greens but wish you had a more reliable way to blindly incorporate them into your daily diet, there is one effective solution that works just about every time. Simply buy a few varieties of highly nutritious salad greens, wash and chop them, and store them in resealable plastic bags in your refrigerator for easy use. Then, you can easily reach in and mix them into your meals throughout the day. It only takes a few seconds to incorporate them into whatever you're making.

Start by creating a meal plan and when food shopping, choose mildly-flavored greens that can be included in both hot or cold dishes. For example, if you plan on having cold dishes every day for lunch like European-style tuna salad or sandwiches with cold cuts, buy crisp romaine or green leaf lettuce. Conversely, if you're making a slew of warm meals for dinner, grab one or two hearty greens that hold up well in cooking, such as kale or Swiss chard.

Then, just before another long week begins, do the washing and chopping. (But leave a handful of lettuce leaves whole and intact for adding to everyday sandwiches.) When greens are in easy reach, you'll be surprised at the amount of meals you can upgrade effectively.

First, when it comes to chilled meals, crisp chopped lettuce is easy to add to versatile dishes like cold pasta salad or Dolly Parton's three-bean salad (which is made with canned beans, green onions, and Italian dressing). You can also serve creamy salads like chicken or tuna with handfuls of fresh cut romaine or butter lettuce. All you need to do is mix the lettuce directly into your dish before serving. 

In terms of hot meals, pre-chopped greens like spinach, kale, collard greens, and arugula are easy to add to all sorts of casseroles, stir-fries, and creamy or tomato-based pasta dishes. Just add one or two handfuls of greens to your simmering pasta sauce a few minutes before serving. Also, quick meals like canned tomato soup taste better with leftover greens and fresh herbs.

That being said, even if you work extra hard to incorporate more greens into everyday meals and recipes, there will be a time or two when you miss your veggies' prime consumption window. But you can save wilted salad greens from the trash with a hack that involves your microwave. All you need to do is heat your wilted greens in a microwave-safe bowl for a minute or two with some garlic-infused olive oil. From here, you can mix these flavorful greens into simple, fully-prepared meals like scrambled eggs, soups, and rice bowls.