If it's one of your goals to eat healthier, a kitchen makeover is going to be an important step in your journey. Once you've cleared your cupboards of the non-nutritious foods and junk food, you will need to restock your kitchen with quality nutritious foods.

Having these on hand at all times means that when you're feeling peckish or you need to create meals, you'll always have healthy options on hand.

Your essential staples

Pick your three favourite:

• Vegetables (i.e. broccoli, carrots, kumara, potatoes, green salad leaves)
• Fruit (i.e. apples, oranges, bananas, grapes, blueberries)
• Lean proteins (i.e. chicken, fish, pork, lamb, beef, tofu, falafel, hummus, lentils, eggs)
• Nuts/seeds (i.e. almonds, cashews, pumpkin seeds, hazelnuts, peanuts)
• Grains (i.e. oats, quinoa, rice, grainy breads, corn, buckwheat)

Add the extras

You'll need additional ingredients to turn your essential staples into flavourful, appealing, satisfying meals. This includes baking ingredients, stock powder, herbs and spices, dairy products such as milk and Greek yoghurt etc.

Creating your shopping list

Now that you know the basics you need, you can create one or several lists based around this and the meals/ingredients you and the others in your household enjoy.

For example:

VEGETABLES

• Carrots (for raw carrot stick snacks, making carrot soup and to use in meals)
• Potatoes (to mash, to roast, and make baked potato chips)
• Green salad leaves (for easy lunches and to have as a side salad with meals)

FRUIT

• Bananas (for smoothies, snacks and baking)
• Berries (frozen, for smoothies and baking)
• Apples (for snacks and baking)

LEAN PROTEINS

• Chicken (whole roasted, or raw chicken to roast for lunches)
• Chicken (breasts, for main meals)
• Lentils (for main meals)
• Eggs (for breakfasts, meals and baking)

NUTS/SEEDS

• Almonds (for snacks and breakfasts)
• Cashews (for snacks and breakfasts)
• Pumpkin seeds (for snacks, breakfasts and salads)

GRAINS

• Oats (for baking and porridge)
• Grainy bread (for sandwiches)
• Rice (for meals)
•  

You'll need to buy quantities suitable for your household. From this you could create meals and snacks like this:

Breakfast options:

• Omelette with roast chicken and salad greens
• Nutty granola (combination of 3 types of nuts topped with Greek yoghurt and berries)
• Toasted muesli with oats and nuts, and sliced banana
• French toast with grainy bread/eggs and sliced banana
• Eggs poached/boiled/scrambled with toast and leafy greens
• Overnight oats layered with yoghurt and berries
• Banana berry smoothie
• Porridge with grated apple topped with a handful of nuts

Snack options:

• Carrot sticks with a lentil dip
• Handful of nuts
• Nut bars
• Oaty bars or muffins
• Banana or apple (whole fruit)
• Trail mix

Lunch options:

• Carrot soup
• Roast chicken salad
• Omelette with roast chicken and salad greens
• Grainy bread sandwich (roast chicken or scrambled eggs) and salad
• Chicken sushi

Dinner options:

• Lentil curry with rice
• Potato and lentil patties with salad
• Oven roasted chicken, potatoes and carrots with salad
• Herb/spiced chicken with oven-baked fries and salad
• Chicken and lentil pot pie
• Chicken and carrot stew with mashed potato

Dessert options:

• Apple crumble topped with oats
• Banana, berry and yoghurt cake
• Banana/egg pancakes
• Grainy bread pudding

See how much you can get out of what looks like a relatively small list of ingredients? Note that you will also need to purchase the ingredients in quantities relative to how many people you need to cook for or serves you need to make (remember that leftovers are great for meal prepping).

Use your imagination and create several shopping lists to use in case of emergency!

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