Diners are getting more aware of their health – with increasing numbers of people choosing quinoa over rice, and stevia over sugar.
How can you ride this wave of health-first food while retaining the delicious taste that your diners enjoy? After all, many diners would like to be healthy – but not at the expense of missing great tasting dishes.
The answer? Create veggie-infused dishes can appeal to everyone. This way, your hungry diners can feel good about their food choices while satisfying their appetites!
Blend veggies into your smoothies
Smoothies are a great way to start the day. Customers can have them with breakfast while dining in, or grab a cup for an energy boost as a takeaway order.
The most popular smoothies are those made with fruit (such as strawberries, blueberries, bananas, mangos, peaches and pears), all blended smooth with ice and milk, yogurt, or water.
What happens when you add vegetables into the mix? You’ll still get that sweet, fruity taste that customers love, while adding an extra shot of vitamins and minerals without the need for artificial ingredients like protein powder, which is an increasingly popular ingredient in smoothies.
For a start, we’d recommend using spinach and/or kale; these veggies blend well into smoothies since their mellow flavours don’t overpower the fruits. You can also include beets, zucchini, and pumpkin puree in your smoothies - these flavours merge well with peaches, mangoes, and other fruits.
Serve veggies in your soup
It’s easy to add more vegetables to your existing soups without changing the tastes and flavours that your soups are known for. Simply chop up vegetables like carrots, onions and potatoes and include them in your soups, or sneak in a few handfuls of frozen peas and corn.
You can also make creamed-style soups with a vegetable base, such as cream of asparagus soup, cream of broccoli soup, or tomato soup. Just cook the vegetables, then puree them with some broth to start the creamed soup.
Although you lose the texture of the vegetables when you puree them, you still retain the minerals and vitamins – which is really what many vegetable-loving diners want.
Add veggies to pizza
Since almost everyone loves pizza, it’s an excellent opportunity to sneak in more vegetables in the form of pizza toppings. Along with the traditional pepperoni and sausage atop your pizza, you can also add onions, green peppers, olives, mushrooms, and spinach.
Want to take this a step further? How about making your entire pizza out of cauliflower? It’s possible! Cauliflower crumbles, mixed with egg and seasoning, can be formed into a tasty, flourless crust that is a delicious (and healthy) alternative to traditional pizza crust.
Hide veggies in your meatloaf
Even hardened meat lovers won’t mind finding some veggies in their meatloaf – especially since the vegetables don’t interfere with the tasty, meaty flavour.
Here’s how you can prepare a vegetable-infused meatloaf. When you mix the ground beef with the eggs, breadcrumbs and tomato sauce, also include shredded zucchini, diced carrots, chopped onions, or minced celery.
The small sizes of the vegetables mean they cook quickly and blend well into the meatloaf. Most diners won’t even know that they are eating extra veggies – until you tell them of course! We actually recommend that you do, because sharing the health benefits of vegetables can entice them to order it again.
