In summer, Chris and I are all over the veggie situation – basically our meal planner reads ‘XX + salad’ every day. After all, it’s really fast and easy to chop a bunch of stuff and throw it in a bowl with some spinach leaves or lettuce. And while I do enjoy cooking, I tend not to want to spend the time needed for complicated dishes, so fast and easy are always my favourite recipe features.

As we move towards more comfort food for winter, I’ve noticed that the vegetable content of our meals is slipping a bit. Instead of salads we’re favouring things like pasta, curries with rice, and hearty stews. But since I’ve realised we’re lacking on the veggie front, I’m finding easy ways to add vegetables to our menu.

Mostly copied from inspired by my sister, here are 5 easy ways to eat more vegetables. Note I’m not talking about disguising vegetables, just easy ways to get more of that good stuff into you!

Dice ‘em

Inspired by the soffritto common to Italian cooking, grab as many veggies as you have and dice them up before throwing them into…well, anything! If you have a good knife it doesn’t take very long at all, and if you are trying to disguise veggies for your kids (or yourself, let’s be honest here) you can cook them and blend them right down to use for a sauce base. Same goes with finely chopped spinach leaves – it just looks like herbs and doesn’t change the flavour.

Blend ‘em

If you follow me on Instagram you might have seen that I’m getting back into smoothies lately (I know, winter isn’t really the best time for a chilly smoothie. Shh!)

The great thing is you can make your favourite smoothie and just chuck in a handful or two of spinach or kale without really affecting the flavour. If you want to get really excited (and your blender can handle it) you can also add carrots, beetroot, celery, or cucumber.

Cauliflower rice

This is a bit of a misnomer; cauliflower couscous would be more accurate. All you need to do is roughly chop cauliflower and whizz it in your food processor until it resembles couscous. Then lightly fry it in a pan (with a bit of olive oil, herbs, soy sauce, and so on) until it’s tender. I was really excited about this because I hate couscous so this is a terrific substitute. Just take care not to over-whizz or overcook because it’ll turn to mush.

Throw in some beans

Ok, these are technically a legume, but they’re really good for you! Grab a can of kidney beans (or white beans or chickpeas or four-bean mix) and throw them into anything Mexican, a casserole, make a warm rice salad – you get the idea.

Have veggies at breakfast

We don’t often think of having vegetables at breakfast, instead going for cereals, toast, or eggs and bacon. If you are having a cooked breakfast, though, it’s really easy to add some veggies – grab some sliced mushrooms and a handful of spinach and throw them into a pan with oil or butter and a touch of garlic. There’s almost no prep needed and it cooks fast. Win!

Bonus tip: If you’ve got some time on your hands, make up a big batch of hearty vegetable soup. Divide it up into individual serves and keep it in the freezer so when you need a quick lunch you know it’s going to packed full of veggie goodness.

Need some ideas? Try:

• tacos – add diced capsicum, grated carrot and kidney beans.
• bolognese or cottage pie – add diced carrot, celery, onion, zucchini, or mushrooms.
• toasted sandwiches – add sliced tomato and some spinach leaves.
• pizza – add tomato, onion, mushrooms, eggplant, zuchini, potato, or spinach.

What are your favourite extra-vegetable tips? Let me know in the comments!