Take 5, make 10!
Put these five food staples on your grocery list for your next trip to the grocery store. Then mix and match them, add a few extra ingredients or seasonings, and you'll have the recipes for 10 delicious dishes that are heart healthy and easy on your budget!
Whole-grain pasta. Dried pasta is one of the most useful staples for stretching your food dollar in a delicious way. It's economical and it keeps for several years in your pantry if stored in an airtight container. To keep it interesting, try a different shape of pasta each time. Use penne in Pasta with Greens, rotini for Potluck Pasta Salad and farfalle to make Bowtie Pasta Toss.
Becel margarine or oil. A little bit of margarine or oil goes a long way in adding flavour to food. Each of our budget-friendly recipes calls for Becel margarine and/or oil, which is a heart healthy way to include a small amount of unsaturated fat in your diet every day.
Canned beans. Just open, rinse and pour! Adding a can of beans is one of the fastest and easiest ways to boost the fibre count of any dish. Rinsing helps to wash away some of the sodium and gassy substances found naturally in beans. A can of beans can stay in your pantry for up to one year, but once you've tried our mouth-watering Braised Chicken with White Beans and Kale or Vegetarian Chili, we'll bet they won't be sitting on your shelf for long.
Carrots. This wonderful root vegetable is incredibly versatile, available year-round and can keep in your veggie crisper for several weeks. With a bunch of carrots, you'll easily have enough to make a pot of Bean and Corn Chowder and Hearty Italian Tomato Soup or a simple side dish of Maple Dijon Carrots.
Spinach. You can't go wrong by adding more vegetables to your diet, and spinach is a nutritious leafy green that is featured in this fibre-filled Penne with Spinach, Tomatoes and Feta. You can also substitute spinach for Swiss chard in other recipes such as Farfalle with Tuna, Lemon and Swiss Chard.
Bookmark the Becel website for more heart healthy recipes.