Slow-Cook Your Way to a Healthy Meal Plan

Time or lack there-of, seems to be one of the greatest obstacles people face when trying to make healthier food choices and cook nutritious meals. Advice commonly given to those who cannot seem to manage their time include meal preparation and careful planning, but there is one kitchen invention that allows for ultimate cooking convenience: the slow cooker!

The month of January is recognized as National Slow Cooking Month, a time that every busy-bee should take advantage of a kitchen tool that allows you to have your time and your healthy meal too.

If you are someone who has a lot going on at home, with work, a family and never- ending household chores, you may find that spending a lot of time in the kitchen preparing meals is virtually impossible. Owning a slow cooker (also known as a crock pot) is like having a healthy menu planning sidekick. They allow you to put every ingredient from a recipe in one electrically heated pot and let it slowly cook on its own while you go about your day. The wonderful thing about slow cookers is that there are hundreds of healthy recipes out there for you to choose from that require very little time and hardly any cooking skills.

It might be hard to believe that slow cookers can provide you and your family with a variety of balanced meals, given that all ingredients are cooking together, but the possibilities are endless. Slow cookers have the ability to make any meal, including soups and stews, sloppy joes, pulled pork, pasta dishes, flavorful chicken recipes and even desserts. Allowing all of your ingredients to cook together slowly not only makes the meal time friendly, but allows for flavor enhancement and a more tender texture of any meat and/or vegetables in the recipe.

One of my favorite slow cooker recipes combines whole grain noodles, pulled chicken, apples, sauerkraut, carrots, low sodium chicken stock and your favorite seasonings. Talk about flavor!

Investing in a slow cooker, or making it a point to pull it out of your closet, will without a doubt be a meal planning life saver.

Make it a point this month to conquer the cold with a warm, nutritious and convenient slow cooking meal.

Your turn to take action: What is your favorite slow cooker meal?