She has also had 16 wellness books published by major publishers including the bestselling Easy GI Diet, The Macro Method, Quit Alcohol (For a Month) and Eat 5. Her books have sold over one million copies.
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Eating healthily can feel difficult if you don’t like many vegetables or simply find them dull – but some tactics can help change how you think about the veggies you consume. Here are eleven excellent ideas that might turn you into a veggie lover (or at least disguise the taste enough to pretend to be one!).
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1. Ban The Boil
Sometimes, it’s the way a vegetable has been served to you in the past that spoils it. I hate boiled carrots, but it turns out roasted carrots are amazing! So, list every vegetable you don’t think you like. Now, try cooking or serving each of them in at least three different ways. It can completely change the way things taste.
If you’re not sure how to cook vegetables that isn’t boiling them. Try…
Raw: Vegetables often taste stronger raw than cooked, which may work for you if you find veggies boring.
Grilling or BBQing: Some veggies taste amazing if you can get them slightly chargrilled.
Roasting: Makes everything taste a bit sweeter
Slow cooking: Tougher vegetables like green cabbage, red cabbage, or kale completely change taste if you cook them on very low heat with some water for a while. Add a little apple or raisins to make them even sweeter.
Stir-Fry: Add lots of spices, flaked almonds, or pieces of bacon and see what happens.
This really can make a difference in how things taste. While boiled Brussels sprouts can be touch and go as to how much I enjoy them, roasted ones, whose edges have gone a bit burned, tossed with some bacon, are a thing of beauty. Find a recipe for Brussels Sprouts and Bacon here if you want to try it.
2. Follow the Five-Year Rule
Our tastebuds become less sensitive with age, so try a vegetable you haven’t liked in the past every few years to see if your preferences have changed.
I used to hate olives, but one day, on a trip to Spain, they were the only thing handy when I was hungry, so I tried them again – and decided they were the best thing I’d ever tasted. Now, I probably have 20-30 a week! And yes, I know they’re technically a fruit, but the principle is what matters!
3. Think Sweet or Subtle
When we think of vegetables we tend to think of green ones – but, of all the different colours of veggies, dark green ones tend to be the most bitter. So, move away from those and instead reach for sweeter choices like red, orange, and yellow vegetables like pumpkin, bell peppers, squash, sweetcorn.
Root vegetables are also often sweeter than other veg – beets, swede, parsnips, carrots etc – as they contain natural sugars.
Also look at the very subtle veggies – cucumber, lettuces like cos, iceberg or butter, mushrooms, peas, courgettes, aubergine. These don’t have strong flavours, so you might enjoy them more.
4. Leave Home
I grew up in England, but my least favorite vegetables are the ones I grew up with—carrots, sprouts, cauliflower, and broccoli. However, once I discovered the world of Mediterranean vegetables, my image of veggies changed—aubergine, red peppers, courgettes, and artichoke I could eat until the cows came home.
It might not be all vegetables you don’t like, just the ones you’re used to – so, try one new one each week.
If you think you’ve tried all the vegetables, have you tried Romanesco, okra, shitake mushrooms, jicama, collard greens, green tomatoes or kalettes?
Depending on where you grew up, these are just a few of the less well-known veggies that you might not have tried yet – head to the supermarket and see what’s on the shelves that you haven’t tried before.
5. Smother and Cover
Just like your Waffle House hashbrowns – there’s nothing wrong with covering vegetables with sauces like gravy, cheese sauce, tomato-based sauces, a creamy Greek yogurt mixed with a little curry powder or anything else you like to disguise the taste a bit.
Spiralised vegetables work particularly well with sauces. While zucchini (courgettes) get most of the attention here, you can spiralise all sorts of things like pumpkin, beets, cucumber, carrot and sweet potato. The book Spiralize Now has some fun recipes to try.
6: Make Them The Star
Vegetables tend to be an afterthought in most meals—just stuck on the side to fill up the plate or accompany the main event of meat and potatoes. If you’re not a fan of veggies, serving them like this will not inspire you to eat them, but jazz them up a bit, and things can change.
If you enjoy cooking, look at veggie-heavy recipe books like Ottolenghi’s Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes. If you’re not a fan of fussy recipes, try experimenting with simple additions.
I quite often use peas instead of carbs to accompany things like chilli con carne and I’ve discovered that simply tossing in some chopped red onion makes them far more interesting. Adding coriander (if you like it) to salad also packs a big punch – and don’t knock putting hot sauce on raw red cabbage until you’ve tried it!
7. Buy In Season
If it’s not so much that you don’t like vegetables, but that you think they are boring – try buying in season. The difference in taste between a tomato in the middle of winter and one eaten at the height of summer is huge.
8. Chop, Shred or Mash
In the same way that the way that you cook a vegetable can change its taste, so can the way you prepare it. Finely chopped broccoli tossed into a salad is a very different proposition than facing up to eating big chunks of it sitting on a plate.
I used to hate the stir fries my partner made when he used huge chunks of vegetables, but once he halved the size, they became one of my favourite meals.
I also absolutely loved the salads on the menu when I was in hospital recently—and part of the reason was that everything was finely chopped. I also analysed what else they did to make the salads taste so good and you’ll find the list in our guide to making salads more interesting.
They also had a veggie soup to start every day. I ate so many vegetables the two weeks I was in there — and I actually missed the food when I left and went home to my normal chunky tomato and cucumber lunch!
Admittedly, chopping vegetables that finely is a pain, which is why I don’t do it at home, so you might want to invest in a vegetable chopper that will cut things into small chunks in seconds.
Also, consider mashing cauliflower, Brussels Sprouts, swede, or carrots. You can even hide them in normal mashed potatoes to disguise some of the taste.
9. Canned Is Fine
Canning and freezing can change the taste or consistency of vegetables—and they might become something you prefer. Canned asparagus, for example, tastes very different from fresh.
There’s no real difference in the amount of vitamins and minerals found in canned or frozen vegetables compared to fresh – the only thing to watch out with canned vegetables is that they don’t have a lot of salt added.
10. Blend Them
Adding a handful of vegetables to fruit-based smoothies can increase your intake without you really noticing. To prevent flavour disasters, keep within one colour family—so, if you’re making a smoothie with apples, you can add green vegetables like spinach or celery. If you’re using peaches, oranges, or bananas, try pumpkin or carrots.
We’ve got a few veggies tucked away in our 10 Gut Healthy Smoothies if you want to get started.
11. Add a Creamy Dip
You’re less likely to enjoy vegetables if you’re what’s known as a supertaster (find out if you might be one here). This means you have more tastebuds than average, which creates a higher sensitivity to bitter compounds in foods like leafy green vegetables – but a creamy dip neutralises bitterness found trials at Temple’s Center for Obesity Research and Education in Philadelphia.
Kids who didn’t like broccoli ate 80 percent more when it was served with a creamy dip – and it will work for adults too.
The researchers used ranch dip in the study, but you might want to try hummus, cheese, sauce, tahini, Caesar dressing, mayonnaise, dips made from low-fat yogurt – or even peanut butter (it’s amazing on top of celery for a quick snack).
So, there are eleven ways to change how you feel about the vegetables you consume. Let me know in the comments if any of them worked for you or if you have any other ideas.
