School lunches. Sigh. For six years, my kiddo went to a school that did not serve school lunch, which meant that I have packed well over 1000 school lunches in my lifetime, and let me tell you—that ish gets old quick. Especially when you are dealing with an exhausted body and brain thanks to chronic illness, disability, or other energy-limiting condition.

But what are you gonna do? Not feed your kid? Of course not!

Like everything else in my kitchen (and in my life), as my illnesses impacted me more, I learned to adapt when it came to packing school lunches. Out went…basically anything you’ll find on Pinterest, and in came easy, simple, drop-in foods that I can put together on autopilot.

Before I get to the specific ideas, I do want to give you a list of tips for making school lunch packing as pain-free as possible—especially when you are in the middle of a flare or particularly struggling:

• Buy pre-cut everything. Baby carrots, sliced apples, cubed or cracker-cut cheese. Paying more for someone else's knife work is not a moral failing, it’s smart use of your limited energy.

• Keep a dedicated lunch bin in both the fridge and pantry. This is where your grab-and-go items go so you aren’t hunting or trying to make decisions—that’s honestly 75% of what makes lunch-packing so taxing.

• Use a bento-style box. I know they are really trendy (and usually I’m pretty skeptical of that), but I also find them super helpful for reducing decision fatigue. These pictures show a Bentgo Kids box which worked well for us for years, but it’s a little small now for my middle schooler. She now uses a LunchBots Cinco all the time.

• Buy in bulk. Buy the same 5-6 items your kid likes instead of trying to rotate in variety every day. Nobody's kid needs (or even wants?) 180 unique lunch combos a year.

• Delegate! Let an older kid pack their own from the lunch bins. It’s good for you and good for them.

• Sit down, friend. If standing at the counter is the hard part, pack sitting down. Bring the lunchbox and ingredients to the table, a stool at the counter, or heck, even the coffee table at the couch.

• Use the tools in the grocery store! Uncrustables (the day someone makes gluten-free Uncrustables will be the greatest day of my life), Lunchables, hummus cups, yogurt pouches, string cheese. You are allowed to feed your child using the foods that are accessible to you and your body’s limitations.

And maybe most importantly: if your kid’s school provides school lunch and your kid can and will eat it, use it, friend! You don’t have to pack lunch every day. Or ever. You can pack lunches when you want to. Once a month. Once a week. Only when your knees aren’t sore. Never. Whatever! Letting the cafeteria feed your kid is a smart use of resources to protect your energy for other things.

But…if your kid’s school doesn’t provide lunch or your kid won’t eat it or can’t eat it (hello, food allergies) or packing lunch is just important to you, I got you. Here are six ideas that should take you just a few minutes to pull together, plus ways to make each option even easier.

Read more

We’ve been taught that a good pot of soup or chili needs hours on the stove, a mountain of chopped vegetables, and a watchful eye to build “real” flavor.

The problem here: my body doesn’t have hours to give. And it almost never has the hand dexterity to chop a mountain of vegetables, so we gotta do what we sickies do—we adapt.

This chili leans heavily on canned beans, frozen veggies, powdered spices, a jar of salsa verde, canned diced chiles, and good broth from a carton to build all the flavor you need. Plus a secret ingredient to get this chili some serious body (mashed potato flakes—that’s the secret ingredient). Zero chopping is required—unless you want to chop up some avocado to pop on top. Twenty minutes later, it tastes like it simmered all afternoon. Nobody at my table has ever known the difference.

In fact, this chili is one of the few things in my house that gets zero complaints. My kid asks for it by name, my husband eats two bowls, and it is absolutely one of my favorite things to have leftovers of sitting in the fridge. This bad boy gets better as it melds in the fridge, so you’re looking at dinner for a week based on one 20-minute cooking session.

Or, if you wont be able to stuff your face with that much chili in a week—portion it into the freezer for a night when cooking anything at all feels out of reach (my freezer soup guide has my whole system for that, if you want to set yourself up the same way).

Dietary substitutions and variations:

• Gluten-free: Naturally gluten-free as written!

• Dairy-free: Use a dairy-free cream cheese instead. Or, skip the cream cheese entirely and just add in more mashed potato flakes until it’s thick.

• Vegetarian: Swap the chicken broth for vegetable broth and leave out the chicken. Add an extra can of beans in its place so it still feels hearty. You might want to toss in an extra plant-based bouillon cube (I really like this brand), to add some richness.

• Vegan: Follow the subs for dairy-free and vegetarian.

Ways to make this recipe even easier:

• Make it in the slow cooker. Literally just dump it all in the slow cooker on high and then go take a nap. Usually 1-2 hours on high, and closer to 3-4 on low. I do recommend a 6-qt slow cooker to fit the whole batch.

• Use canned chicken instead of rotisserie. One less thing to shred.

• Bring a stool into the kitchen! Your legs do not need to be involved with making this chili.

• Use an electric can opener when opening the cans.

• Use an electric jar opener to help you open the salsa jar.

• Skip draining and rinsing the beans. The bean “juice” adds fiber, protein, and thickness to the chili anyway. Most people just drain it off because the extra fiber can cause the toot train to leave the station. It also does usually include more sodium, so if you plan to add the bean juice, make sure to choose low sodium broth and taste before adding any more seasoning.

• Skip any toppings. Toppings are fun, but it’s good as it is!

Your support helps me keep making good food for people who don’t feel good. If this work helps you, consider supporting it in one of these ways:

• Subscribe for free for weekly energy-aware recipes

• Join the paid tier for meal plans, practical systems, and community.

• Purchase a gift subscription for someone you love.

• Leave a one-time tip via Buy Me a Coffee.

Fluffy Microwave Omelet

This fluffy, cheesy microwave omelet tastes so good you might never make an omelet in a pan again. The secret to good microwave eggs: add some fat!

⏱ Total Time: 3 minutes
🔋Energy drain: 1/5 ✋Physical effort: 1/5 🧽 Cleanup: 1/5
🌿 Dietary: Gluten-Free Option, Dairy-Free Option, Vegetarian Option

There was a time where I would have been horrified by the phrase “microwave eggs.” Rubbery. Watery. Blech.

But then I got sick, my energy was incredibly limited, and the microwave became my best friend in the kitchen. It doesn’t ask me to stand up. It doesn’t need me to watch it like a hawk. It just makes me hot food, fast.

Thus began a journey to create microwave eggs that weren’t just edible, but were actually tasty. And boyyyyy did I succeed!

I’ve been making this fluffy microwave omelet for months, and it’s not a “fine, I guess I’ll eat that” substitute—it’s honestly so good that I might not ever make a pan omelet again! It’s genuinely fluffy, tender, cheesy, and it takes less time than it would take you to find a clean pan. I look forward to my microwave eggs now!

There are two key components to a really freaking good microwave omelet:

1. Add some fat. This is what keeps the eggs tender and rich. I have three recommendations in the recipe: mayo, full-fat cottage cheese, or my fave, just toss in a wedge of original Laughing Cow cheese. Side quest: for an even richer omelet, make this using duck eggs which have higher fat content.

2. Whip it good. You gotta get your eggs super frothy before cooking them. This keeps the omelet light and fluffy. I highly recommend doing it in a blender. I just pop it in my little Ninja personal blender for 20 seconds, and it’s perfection. You could also use an immersion blender or a big blender. It should have little frothy bubbles on top when you pour it out.

Make your omelet your own:

You can mix in just about anything into your little personal-sized omelet. When working with fresh ingredients (like chopped veggies), just try to cut them small so they’ll soften at least a little in the microwave. Here are a few suggestions:

• Chopped ham + minced onion

• Thinly sliced mushrooms + diced green peppers

• Chopped spinach + parmesan

• Feta + sun-dried tomatoes

• Crumbled bacon (always a good choice)

• Smoked salmon + everything bagel seasoning

• Black beans + top it with salsa and avocado

• A big handful of minced herbs (whatever you got!)

• And the possibilities go on…

Dietary substitutions and variations:

• Make it dairy-free: Use mayo for the fat addition, and swap in dairy-free shredded cheese for the cheese. It isn’t exactly the same, but still tasty!

• Make it gluten-free: Already naturally gluten-free!

• Make it vegetarian: Naturally vegetarian as long as you don’t add any meat to the mix-ins.

Ways to make this recipe even easier on hard days:

• Use an immersion blender to mix the omelet right in the bowl you are cooking in—one less dish.

• Don’t add in any mix-ins. The cheesy omelet is perfectly delicious on its own!

• Ask someone to make it for you. Letting the people who love you help you out is a gift to them.

Fluffy Microwave Omelet

Download Printable Recipe (PDF)

Your support helps me keep making good food for people who don’t feel good. If this work helps you, consider supporting it in one of these ways:

• Subscribe for free for weekly energy-aware recipes

• Join the paid tier for meal plans, practical systems, and community.

• Purchase a gift subscription for someone you love.

• Leave a one-time tip via Buy Me a Coffee.

4th of July was never a small thing in my family. Growing up, it meant 50 people camped out at my parents’ house for the entire weekend—tents in the yard, coolers everywhere, a potluck that ebbed and flowed for 48 straight hours. All our holidays were like that: too much food, too much laughter, not enough sleep. I hosted my share of them myself once I was older, and I loved it.

Then I got sick, and holidays got smaller. I can’t stay up late anymore, I can barely cook some days, and hosting anything close to what I grew up with isn’t in the cards.

That was a real grief for a while. It took me time to realize different doesn’t mean worse…just different. But I got there. And I started figuring out how to still make holidays and celebrations feel special without sacrificing my body.

This easy-peasy 4th of July menu is a good example of this new holiday plan: about 45 minutes of hands-on prep, zero chopping besides the watermelon (if you want), and the oven and slow cooker doing most of the work while you sit down. Most of it you can even prep ahead and just bake day-of.

Here’s what’s on the menu:

• Slow Cooker BBQ Ribs (10 minute prep): My illnesses give me wicked heat intolerance, so you will not see me womaning a grill or smoker in the middle of summer. Slow cooker ribs to the rescue! Rub them, sauce them, walk away. The slow cooker does 4-6 hours of work, and makes for some seriously tender, fall apart, amazing ribs with near zero effort.

• Shortcut Baked Beans (10 minute prep): This bad boy starts with canned baked beans, and then we go to town doctoring them up with some pantry staples. A low-and-slow roast in the oven gives them from-scratch flavor with little work.

• No-Chop Coleslaw (5 minute prep): A bag of pre-shredded coleslaw mix means zero knife work. Just stir and let it sit.

• Watermelon Slices (0-15 minute prep): The easiest side there is and quintessentially summer. Slice it yourself if you are feeling up to some knife work or buy it pre-cut.

• Granola Strawberry Crisp (10 minute prep): Frozen sliced strawberries go straight from the freezer into the dish, and granola stands in for a from-scratch topping. No prepping fruit, no making streusel. Tastes like homemade because it is homemade—just simpler.

I originally built this for Memorial Day, and then my body had other plans. So: happy (belated, adjusted) holiday! You’ll find the printable recipes and the ready-to-shop grocery list below. Enjoy.

Read more

I'm writing this from inside a flare. Not looking back at it. Not coming through it. Not improving. Not having learned anything useful from it yet. Just flat out stuck in it.

My brain feels like it’s drowning in potato soup whenever I try to think. My body is so exhausted that getting out of bed is really freaking hard most days. I have a list of a hundred things that need to get done, and every morning I wake up determined to do at least one of them, and then my body and brain look at me and say: No, ma’am. This is your life now.

This is what falling apart looks like. I’m not trying to be dramatic, but that’s really the only way I can describe it.

When you get hit hard by a flare, everything falls apart. Your physical ability. Your mental health. Your hygiene. Your housekeeping. Your work. Your relationships (well, some of them). Your hobbies. Your joy. Your confidence. Your financial security. Your self-esteem. It all falls apart. It crumbles. And every morning you try to pick up some of the bigger chunks and tape them back together into something resembling a life—or at least something that’ll get you through the day—and then every day (usually by 10am for me) it all falls apart again.

I knew this flare was coming. I’m honestly surprised it didn’t happen sooner. I was way overdrawn on my chronic illness checking account. We’re talking thousands of dollars of overdraft fees and a big, burly bill collector beating down my door at 3am.

Read more

No Boil Chicken Sausage and Red Pepper Pasta Bake

This no boil baked pasta is creamy, cheesy, and—best of all—mixed up and baked in the same pan. No pots of boiling water, no bowls, barely any chopping. Just cheesy goodness that bakes away while you sit down.

⏱ Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes (10 minutes active time)
🔋Energy drain: 2/5 ✋Physical effort: 2/5 🧽 Cleanup: 1/5
🌿 Dietary: Gluten-Free Option, Dairy-Free Option, Vegetarian-Option, Vegan-Option

I cannot drain pasta anymore. My wrists and hands just won't allow me to do it. A pot full of boiling water is genuinely not safe for me to lift, carry, or tip into a colander.

Which, honestly, felt like a cruel joke when I first realized it. Pasta? You mean you're taking pasta from me, chronic illness? Really?! Haven’t I suffered enough!?

But I was not going to let that stand. I love pasta! Pasta is affordable, tasty, and endlessly adaptable. I had to do some tinkering and adapting, but what I landed on is better than I expected. Turns out, there are many ways to cook pasta without lugging around a giant pot of boiling water.

This baked pasta is one of those ways. You skip the boiling entirely, cook the pasta right in the sauce in the oven, and end up with something way easier and tremendously more flavorful than the stovetop version. The pasta absorbs everything as it bakes. And you get to sit down the entire time the oven is doing the hard work.

This baked pasta uses three of my favorite energy-aware kitchen shortcuts: precooked chicken sausage, jarred roasted red peppers, and fire-roasted diced tomatoes. All ways to add a ton of flavor with basically zero effort other than just…dumping it into the casserole dish.

Dietary substitutions and variations:

• Make it dairy-free: Swap the heavy cream for 1 cup full-fat canned coconut milk and use your preferred dairy-free mozzarella and Parmesan. My family likes Follow Your Heart for Parmesan and Vevan or Violife for shredded mozzarella.

• Make it gluten-free: Use your favorite gluten-free pasta. Depending on the brand, you may need a few extra minutes of bake time; just taste before topping with mozzarella and add a few extra minutes if you need to. Goodles Gluten-Free pasta is my fave.

• Make it vegetarian: Leave out the chicken sausage or use plant-based Italian sausage links (like Field Roast or Beyond Sausage brands). Use vegetable broth instead of chicken broth.

• Make it vegan: Follow the dairy-free and vegetarian swaps.

Ways to make this recipe even easier on hard days:

• Swap the sliced sausage for frozen fully-cooked chicken meatballs. Add them straight from frozen, no slicing required.

• Use pre-shredded mozzarella and Parmesan (the recipe already calls for this, but just a reminder—you really don’t need to grate from fresh!).

• Skip measuring the seasonings precisely and just eyeball it. It’s a forgiving recipe.

No Boil Chicken Sausage and Red Pepper Pasta Bake

Download Printable Recipe (PDF)

Your support helps me keep making good food for people who don’t feel good. If this work helps you, consider supporting it in one of these ways:

• Subscribe for free for weekly energy-aware recipes

• Join the paid tier for meal plans, practical systems, and community.

• Purchase a gift subscription for someone you love.

• Leave a one-time tip via Buy Me a Coffee.

Oh no! You woke up this morning and your body said, “Absolutely freaking not.” There is no avoiding it or hiding from it: you’re in a flare.

Your priority this week is to rest up, recover, and show your body you are listening. Unfortunately, even though you’re absolutely wiped out, you still have to eat. And deciding on, shopping for, preparing, and eating food takes energy! So. Much. Energy. That you don’t have.

But that’s okay, because I’m here to help, friend.

If I were there in person, I’d bring you some easy meals to stock your fridge, heat you up some soup, and then send you back to bed, but I’m not, so here’s the next best thing: your May 2026 Flare Week Meal Plan.

This meal plan includes:

• 5 incredibly easy dinner recipes that are honestly barely more than assembling things and warming them up

• 2 options for stress-free lunches so you can get back to bed quickly

• 2 options for simple breakfasts that can be made while you’re still half asleep

• Snack ideas that are easy enough that you can eat while horizontal

• A panic button option for the worst days of your flare when you really cannot do anything, you are feeling nauseous, or you are dealing with low appetite

• A printable grocery list that you can use to place a grocery order or send with a loved one to do the shopping

• Substitution suggestions to match many dietary restrictions: gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, vegan, and vegetarian.

And every single one of these meals takes about 5 minutes of active, hands-on cooking time. Ready to get the meal plan? ⬇️

Read more

DIY Instant Oatmeal Cups

⏱ Total Time: 5 minutes
🔋Energy drain: 1/5 ✋Physical effort: 1/5 🧽 Cleanup: 1/5
🌿 Dietary: Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Option, Vegetarian, Vegan-Option

There are mornings when making breakfast feels like just too much. Maybe you’re in a flare. Maybe you just don’t have it in you. Maybe you slept terribly. Maybe you’re not even sure you’ll be able to get out of bed.

These oatmeal cups are for those mornings.

The idea is simple: on a good day (or honestly, just an okay day will work), you fill up a few pint Mason jars and stash them in your pantry. Then on the hard days, all you do is add boiling water, stir, wait five minutes, and eat. That’s it. No chopping, no measuring, no standing at the stove. Just breakfast, handled.

And unlike the store-bought instant oatmeal cups which are oddly expensive for what they are, often overly sweet, and weirdly unsatisfying (anyone else feel like they need to eat at least 2 to get a “real” breakfast?), these cost pennies to make and you control exactly what goes in them.

I’m sharing three flavors to get you started. All three come together in minutes, keep well in the pantry for months, and taste like breakfast happiness:

• Apple Cinnamon: Classic comfort. Tastes like the packet you grew up with, but better. I add golden raisins to mine because yum.

• Peanut Butter Banana: Rich, filling, and a little indulgent for a weekday breakfast. Especially when you add mini chocolate chips (which I always do).

• Strawberries and Cream: Sweet, fruity, creamy, and a little dreamy. The most fun of the three.

But what I want you to take away more than the flavors is the concept! So I’ve also included a general oatmeal cup formula plus big list of flavoring ideas if you want to go rogue and make your own beautiful oatmeal creation.

Customizing Your Cups to Boost Nutrition

When you’re sick, getting as much nutrition bang for your energy buck is a real math equation you have to work through. Good news is you can make your oatmeal cups work harder for your body by tweaking the mix-ins. Here are some ways you can boost these bad boys:

• Sweetener: The recipes call for 0–2 tablespoons of sugar, but you can swap in whatever sweetener works for you: maple sugar, coconut sugar, monk fruit powder, stevia or skip it entirely if your mix-ins are sweet enough, your body doesn’t tolerate sugar, or you want to add liquid sweetener later.

• Protein powder: Adds a meaningful protein boost. Start with 1–2 tablespoons and stick to a neutral or complementary flavor. Vanilla works with almost everything. Too much can make the texture grainy or gummy.

• Collagen powder: Dissolves easily and doesn’t affect flavor or texture much, making it one of the easiest boosters to add. Just stir it in with everything else. This is my favorite collagen powder out there. It really does taste like nothing.

• Chia or ground flax: Both add fiber, protein, and healthy fats. Use a tablespoon or less because they both will thicken the oats considerably. You can also adjust your added boiling water slightly if needed.

• Hemp hearts: Mild, nutty flavor, good source of protein and healthy fats, easy to add without affecting texture much.

• Nuts and seeds: Chopped walnuts, pecans, almonds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds all keep well in the pantry and add protein, healthy fats, and a little texture. Add a tablespoon or two to any flavor combination.

• Fiber powder: Easy to add in small amounts. I especially like Heather’s Tummy Fiber because it dissolves like a dream, has no flavor or texture, and it helps me poop. I love anything that helps me poop.

Alright, onto the three recipes. I went ahead and pulled all three into a downloadable PDF for you. Grab it from the button below.

Download Printable Recipes (PDF)

The Basic Instant Oatmeal Cup Formula

Every cup starts with the same simple base:

• ⅔ cup oats

• a pinch of salt

• 0–2 tablespoons of sugar depending on how sweet you like it

• ¼ to ⅓ cup total of shelf-stable flavor mix-ins per jar

When you're ready to eat, add ⅔ cup boiling water, stir, cover, and wait five minutes. That's the whole formula.

A note on oats: I prefer rolled oats for a heartier, chewier texture, but quick oats work great if you want something softer and faster to hydrate that is easier to digest for some folks. Just reduce your added water to 1/2 cup if using quick oats.

Apples and Cinnamon Instant Oatmeal Cups

Warm, cozy, and lightly spiced, this one tastes like the instant oatmeal packet you grew up with, except actually satisfying. It's the most classic of the three flavors and a great place to start if you're new to DIY oatmeal cups. Layer in a jar:

• ⅔ cup rolled or quick oats

• Pinch of salt

• 0–2 tablespoons white or brown sugar (the fruit adds some natural sweetness)

• ¼ cup freeze-dried or regular dried apple pieces

• 2 tablespoons raisins, optional

• ½ teaspoon cinnamon

• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg

To store: close lid and stash in pantry for up to 6 months.
To make: pour in ⅔ cup boiling water. Stir well, replace lid, and let sit for 5 minutes. Remove lid, stir again, and enjoy.

Peanut Butter Banana Instant Oatmeal Cups

Nutty, naturally sweet, and genuinely filling, this one tastes like a treat but eats like a meal. The peanut butter powder gives you that rich, creamy flavor without any clumping, and the freeze-dried banana adds real fruit sweetness without any fuss.

• ⅔ cup rolled or quick oats

• Pinch of salt

• 0–2 tablespoons white or brown sugar (the fruit adds some natural sweetness)

• ¼ cup freeze-dried banana slices

• 2 tablespoons peanut butter powder

• 2 tablespoons mini chocolate chips (optional, but highly recommended)

To store: close lid and stash in pantry for up to 6 months.
To make: pour in ⅔ cup boiling water. Stir well, replace lid, and let sit for 5 minutes. Remove lid, stir again, and enjoy.

Strawberries and Cream Instant Oatmeal Cups

This one tastes like strawberry shortcake decided to become breakfast! The whole milk powder is the secret ingredient that gives it that creamy, rich finish without needing anything from the fridge.

• ⅔ cup rolled or quick oats

• Pinch of salt

• 0–2 tablespoons white or brown sugar (the fruit adds some natural sweetness)

• ⅓ cup freeze-dried or regular dried strawberries

• 2 tablespoons whole milk powder (you can also use soy or coconut milk powder to keep it dairy-free)

To store: close lid and stash in pantry for up to 6 months.
To make: pour in ⅔ cup boiling water. Stir well, replace lid, and let sit for 5 minutes. Remove lid, stir again, and enjoy.

More Flavor Ideas to Try

• Mocha: cocoa powder + instant espresso powder

• Pineapple Coconut: dried pineapple + unsweetened coconut flakes

• Orange Cranberry: dried cranberries + dried orange peel

• Orange Ginger: crystallized ginger + dried orange peel

• Peaches and Cream: dried peaches or apricots + milk powder

• Banana Foster: freeze-dried banana + brown sugar + cinnamon + milk powder

• Blueberry Lemon: freeze-dried blueberries + dried lemon zest

• Maple Brown Sugar: a little extra brown sugar + maple sugar + cinnamon

• Cherry Almond: dried cherries + slivered almonds

• Chocolate Raspberry: cocoa powder + freeze-dried raspberries

• Chai Spice: cinnamon + cardamom + ginger + a pinch of cloves (or just chai spice mix)

Whether you make all three flavors, create your own, or rely on one as a staple, I hope these cups become a reliable fixture in your pantry. Small acts of care for your future self, done whenever you have the capacity—that's the whole goal here. You deserve to eat well even on the hardest days. Especially on the hardest days.

Your support helps me keep making good food for people who don’t feel good. If this work helps you, consider supporting it in one of these ways:

• Subscribe for free for weekly energy-aware recipes

• Join the paid tier for meal plans, practical systems, and community.

• Purchase a gift subscription for someone you love.

• Forward this email or share this post with someone who could use it.

• Leave a one-time tip via Buy Me a Coffee.

Bagged salad kits are one of the most underrated tools in a low-energy kitchen. The chopping is done. The dressing is done. Someone else already figured out the flavor combinations. They are packed full of nutrition. They are tasty. All you have to do is open the bag.

But a salad kit alone isn’t usually dinner enough for me—at least not a satisfying or filling one. The good news is that turning it into a real meal doesn’t take much effort. A few minutes and a few add-ins, and you’ve got something that actually sticks with barely any extra work. Perfect for days when you are low on energy.

Today I’m sharing with you how to take three classic salad kits that you can get at almost any grocery store: Caesar, Sweet Kale, and Mediterranean and turn them into a super easy upgraded dinner. Here are the transformations:

Classic Caesar salad kit → Loaded Chicken Caesar Dinner Salad
Standard Sweet Kale kit → Hearty Cranberry Kale Grain Bowl
Mainstream Mediterranean kit → Greek White Bean Dinner Salad

Each dinner salad starts with a bag, uses simple add-ins you can keep on hand, and comes together in just a few minutes—no complicated prep and no standing at the stove. And each salad ends up being packed with protein, fiber, and so much flavor you’d never guess it started from a bag.

These three salad kit dinners are built around that idea: let the bag do the heavy lifting (or, more accurately, the heavy chopping), and keep everything else super simple. Let’s make some easy salads!

Read more

One-Pot Shortcut Minestrone (No Chopping)

Minestrone usually means chopping a pile of vegetables and simmering a pot for an hour (or more!). This version skips all of that thanks to the ready-made flavor of stewed tomatoes and jarred pasta sauce. The whole thing comes together in one pot with zero chopping. It tastes like you spent way more energy than you did, and you can eat on it for days.

⏱ Total Time: 20 minutes
🔋Energy drain: 2/5 ✋Physical effort: 2/5 🧽 Cleanup: 1/5
🌿 Dietary: Gluten-Free Option, Dairy-Free, Vegetarian, Vegan

My shortcut Minestrone is far from traditional, but it is incredibly tasty, easy enough to tackle on a low-energy day, and makes a big batch so you can cook it once and enjoy it for days afterwards.

There are three big shortcuts that give this recipe long-simmered flavor in just 20 minutes.

The first real workhorse here are stewed tomatoes. If you’ve never stocked them as a chronic illness pantry staple, now is the time. They are just in the regular canned tomato aisle in your grocery store, and they are packed full of flavor. Basically these cans of joy are what you’d get if you had the time and energy to slow simmer fresh tomatoes from the garden with garlic, herbs, and spices. But you probably don’t. So instead, you use these, and opening a can is the entire prep step.

The other shortcut worth naming: pasta sauce. It’s not just for spaghetti night. Even a cheap-o jarred pasta sauce already has aromatics, seasoning, and body built in. Pouring it straight into the pot adds a beautiful velvety texture to the soup that’s hard to achieve unless you want to spend all afternoon babysitting a pot over the stove (I do not). The soup doesn’t know the difference, and honestly, neither will anyone eating it.

From there, it’s frozen vegetables to the rescue. My love of frozen veggies knows no bounds. They are affordable, often have better nutritional value than fresh veggies (because they are flash frozen at the peak of freshness rather than picked before ripening and shipped across country), last forever in the freezer, and, maybe best of all for us sickies: they are already washed, chopped, and ready to use. You can use straight frozen cut green beans in this minestrone or frozen mixed veggies if you’d like a bit of variation. Both work!

Dietary substitutions and variations:

• Make it dairy-free: Choose vegan Parmesan, or just leave it off.

• Make it meatless: Use veggie broth in the base. Also make sure your pasta sauce isn’t a meat sauce.

• Make it gluten-free: Use gluten-free pasta. I like Goodles gluten-free cavatappi because it is delicious and adds a nice boost of protein and fiber.

• Boost the nutrition even more: Toss in a handful of baby spinach to wilt in the last few minutes of cooking.

• Freeze it for later: Leave the pasta out, and freeze the base soup in individual Souper Cubes for easy reheating later. You can add pasta back in when you reheat, or…not. It’s delicious just as a veggie and bean soup, too.

Ways to make this recipe even easier on hard days:

• Make it in the slow cooker. Literally just dump it all in the slow cooker on high and then go take a nap. When the pasta is done, your soup is ready. Usually 1-2 hours on high, and closer to 3-4 on low. I do recommend a 6-qt slow cooker (like this very cute green one) to fit the whole batch.

• Bring a stool into the kitchen! Your legs do not need to be involved with making this soup.

• Use an electric can opener when opening the cans.

• Use an electric jar opener to help you open the pasta sauce.

• Skip draining and rinsing the beans. The bean “juice” adds fiber, protein, and thickness to the soup anyway. Most people just drain it off because the extra fiber can cause the toot train to leave the station. It also does usually include more sodium, so if you plan to add the bean juice, make sure to choose low sodium broth and pasta sauce and taste before adding any more seasoning.

• Skip blending or mashing the stewed tomatoes. It’s simply a textural preference, but the stewed tomatoes are soft and tender anyway, so if it doesn’t bother you, skip the step.

One-Pot Shortcut Minestrone (No Chopping

Download Printable Recipe (PDF)

Your support helps me keep making good food for people who don’t feel good. If this work helps you, consider supporting it in one of these ways:

• Subscribe for free for weekly energy-aware recipes

• Join the paid tier for meal plans, practical systems, and community.

• Purchase a gift subscription for someone you love.

• Leave a one-time tip via Buy Me a Coffee.

I have spent a significant portion of my chronic illness journey staring at a recipe, getting all the way to step two, and hitting a wall.

Mince four cloves of garlic.

That’s where it ends. Not because I don’t want garlic in my food. Not because I’m being dramatic. Not because I’m lazy. But because on that particular day, with this particular body, mincing garlic is genuinely not something I can do. My hands hurt. I’m exhausted. I’ve already used everything I had just being vertical.

Fresh ingredients are the most common place a recipe loses me. Not because fresh food isn’t amazing (it is!) but because fresh food requires prep, and prep requires energy and physical capabilities that I don't always have.

But here’s the thing: you can get most of the flavor of fresh without doing the work of fresh. Frozen garlic cubes exist. Bottled lemon juice exists. Pre-chopped onion exists. And despite what food influencers will tell you on the ole Ticky Tocky, these are not lesser options.

Does fresh garlic taste better? Sure. Is the amount better it tastes worth expending energy you don’t have or hurting a body that’s already in pain? 100% absolutely not. We’re not trying for a Michelin star here. We’re trying to get food on the plate that tastes good, feeds our body, and doesn’t make us feel worse. Adapt where you need to to feed yourself and your family.

I made this chart because I needed it. It covers the fresh, aromatic ingredients that show up most often to flavor recipes: garlic, onion, celery, bell pepper, ginger, lemon and lime, carrots, and herbs, and it gives you real, practical swaps ranked by effort level. The heart marks the lowest-effort option in each row. The swap symbol flags where the flavor will shift slightly so you’re not surprised.

Keep it in your kitchen. Tape it inside a cabinet door. Put it on your fridge next to the How to Feed Yourself decision tree. Pull it up on your phone when you’re mid-recipe and hitting a wall.

The chart is below: save it, print it, or screenshot it for the next time a recipe asks something of you that you just can't give right now.

Read more

One Pot Creamy Lemon Chicken Pasta

One pot, twenty minutes, and whatever chicken you have on hand. The pasta cooks directly in broth so there's no draining. Bright from lemon, creamy from a splash of heavy cream, and filling enough to count as dinner.

⏱ Total Time: 20 minutes
🔋Energy drain: 1/5 ✋Physical effort: 2/5 🧽 Cleanup: 1/5
🌿 Dietary: Gluten-Free Option, Dairy-Free Option, Vegetarian-Option, Vegan-Option

Some days are medium body days: not good enough to tackle anything ambitious, but not bad enough that my dinner is just a handful of crackers while I shuffle back to bed.

Medium days are usually when I want something that feels like I actually cooked without spending my entire energy budget doing it. This pasta is a great option for a medium day (or honestly, even a medium-low day). It’s rich, creamy, packed full of bright lemon-y flavor, and maybe best of all: it’s a one pot wonder—the pasta cooks right in the sauce.

Lifting a heavy pot of boiling water and tilting it over a colander in the sink is just not something my body does reliably or (honestly) safely anymore. That’s okay! Because cooking pasta in sauce makes it more flavorful and makes for fewer dishes to do after eating. That seems like a win all around. I’m constantly in awe of all the ways my illnesses teach me to cook smarter, not harder.

Dietary substitutions and variations:

• Make it dairy-free: Choose dairy-free heavy cream (I like either the Silk Heavy Whipping Cream or the Country Crock Plant Cream) or full fat canned coconut milk and use plant-based Parmesan cheese (Follow Your Heart is the favorite in our house).

• Make it vegetarian: Swap in veggie broth for the chicken broth and canned white beans for the chicken.

• Make it vegan: Do both the dairy-free and the vegetarian subs.

• Make it gluten-free: Use gluten-free pasta. In these pictures I used Barilla GF Penne, but I’ve also done this with Goodles GF Cavatappi with great results. Depending on the brand you use, you might need to adjust the pasta cooking time—just taste until it’s tender.

Ways to make this recipe even easier on hard days:

• Skip the lemon juicing and zesting nonsense and just use 2-3 tablespoons of bottled lemon juice (to taste).

• Use electric salt and pepper grinders that are wayyyyy easier on hands and wrists.

• Throw the spinach in whole.

• Use pre-chopped rotisserie chicken from the store or canned chicken instead of stripping your own chicken or cooking from scratch.

• Skip the parsley garnish.

• Use garlic powder, jarred minced garlic, or frozen minced garlic instead of the fresh, minced garlic.

One Pot Creamy Lemon Chicken Pasta

Download Printable Recipe (PDF)

Your support helps me keep making good food for people who don’t feel good. If this work helps you, consider supporting it in one of these ways:

• Subscribe for free for weekly energy-aware recipes

• Join the paid tier for meal plans, practical systems, and community.

• Purchase a gift subscription for someone you love.

• Leave a one-time tip via Buy Me a Coffee.

This post discusses diet culture, food restriction, and briefly mentions disordered eating.

I used to believe if I just found the right diet and stayed “good” on it for long enough, I could fix my chronically ill body. It took me nearly a decade to figure out the truth: the most anti-inflammatory diet for my body had little to do with what was on my plate, and everything to do with how much stress I was under to get those things on my plate.

One of the first levers many of us chronically ill folk turn to when it comes to managing our illness is diet—and for understandable reason. For a number of us (me included!) dietary changes can make meaningful shifts in how we feel day-to-day. For some folks, it can even change the whole trajectory of their illness.

And maybe even more importantly than either of those paths: diet is something we can control during a situation when everything feels so horribly, terribly, frighteningly out-of-our-control. Reclaiming some power when we feel so powerless can be the difference between determination and despair.

I’ve been varying levels of “sick” for 13 years, and I spent the vast majority of those years on the dietary carousel trying to solve the problem that was my messed up body. AIP, SCD, GAPS, low-FODMAP, Whole30, WFPB, Paleo, Mediterranean—basically if it has an initialism or a marketable name, I tried it. Some were “prescribed” to me by doctors and other health care professionals, some were discovered by me desperately searching Reddit for answers at 2am.

Some of those diets gave me really vital information that I am so grateful to have. Like I now know that I have a wicked gluten-intolerence that makes my hands swell up like I’m wearing Mickey Mouse gloves. That’s good info.

But those diets also gave me something else: stress. So. much. stress. Financial stress, energetic stress, and emotional stress.

Read more

One Pot Pesto White Bean Gnocchi Skillet

One pan, fifteen minutes, and a pantry full of shortcuts—this skillet features crispy seared gnocchi tossed with sun dried tomatoes, white beans, spinach, and prepared pesto. This is big-flavor, low-effort cooking at its best.

⏱ Total Time: 15 minutes
🔋Energy drain: 1/5 ✋Physical effort: 1/5 🧽 Cleanup: 1/5
🌿 Dietary: Gluten-Free Option, Dairy-Free Option, Vegetarian, Vegan-Option

I’m gonna be honest, this gnocchi skillet has no business tasting as good as it does for how little effort it takes. It’s mostly pantry ingredients that come together and make some magic in one pot.

Here’s what you’re going to do: first you’ll sear shelf-stable gnocchi until they get crispy and brown, then everything else happens in the same pan. In goes sun dried tomatoes, canned white beans, baby spinach, and a big scoop of jarred pesto. After a few minutes of cook time, the dish is ready to serve topped with a dusting of parm.

Nobody has to mince anything or stand over a stove for an hour. If fresh garlic feels like too much, use garlic powder. No judgment. One pan, fifteen minutes, and the kind of meal that makes a hard night feel a little easier and cozier.

Dietary substitutions and variations:

• Make it vegan/dairy-free: choose dairy-free/vegan pesto (I find mine at my local food co-op) and use vegan Parmesan, or just leave it off

• Make it gluten-free: use gluten-free gnocchi. I always use Delallo Gluten-Free Gnocchi in my house, and it’s so good!

• Add meat: toss in 1-2 cups of chopped rotisserie chicken

Ways to make this recipe even easier on hard days:

• Use pre-chopped or julienned sun-dried tomatoes.

• Use garlic powder or pre-minced garlic instead of mincing your own. Or use a garlic rocker or garlic chopper to make it easier.

• Don’t chop the spinach—just add it in whole.

• Make sure to use an electric can opener when opening the beans.

One Pot Pesto White Bean Gnocchi Skillet

Download Printable Recipe (PDF)

Your support helps me keep making good food for people who don’t feel good. If this work helps you, consider supporting it in one of these ways:

• Subscribe for free for weekly energy-aware recipes

• Join the paid tier for meal plans, practical systems, and community.

• Purchase a gift subscription for someone you love.

• Leave a one-time tip via Buy Me a Coffee.

I cook for a living. I have published multiple cookbooks. I have published nearly 1000 recipes online. And still, every day at 5pm, I stand at the fridge and melt into a puddle of frustration over what to have for dinner.

And it’s only gotten worse in chronic illness. I am now making hundreds—if not thousands—of decisions every day just to keep myself baseline functioning. Did I take my morning pills? Did I have enough electrolytes? Is my rheumatologist appointment on Tuesday or Thursday? By the time I get to 5pm, I am D-O-N-E done. I simply cannot.

It’s less about the actual physical act of preparing food—although there are absolutely days where that is problematic, too—the issue primarily lies in the decision fatigue. I’ve used the best of myself (or at least, the best I can muster that day) earlier in the day, and I’ve got nothing left.

I’ve learned a lot of lessons from chronic illness, and this one is maybe the most impactful of my day-to-day life: if something is hard, stop trying to white-knuckle through it and just switch to easy mode. It’s not a moral failing. It’s smart. And that very much applies to me and my 5pm dinner conundrum.

So, what’s my easy mode look like? It looks like meals stocked in the freezer, pantry staples always on hand, and removing 95% of the decision making process around what I eat. That's exactly what this printable is: my personal easy mode, packaged up and put on a chart so you don't even have to think about the system. Just find your energy level, follow the path, and it tells you what to do next.

I use it primarily for dinner decision making, but it can apply to any meal (after all, what makes breakfast food breakfast food other than just marketing?). It covers meal ideas for good energy days (the green path) to very not good energy days (the red path) and everything in between.

This printable lives on my fridge. On the days when I have nothing left, I don't have to think. I just look at the chart, find where I am, and it tells me exactly what to do next. That's worth everything to me.

Read more

No Cook Spicy Canned Salmon Sushi Bowls

No stove, no oven, barely any dishes—just canned salmon, a rice pouch, and a two-ingredient spicy mayo that makes the whole thing taste like a $18 restaurant bowl. Customize your toppings based on what you've got today.

⏱ Total Time: 15 minutes
🔋Energy drain: 1/5 ✋Physical effort: 2/5 🧽 Cleanup: 1/5
🌿 Dietary: Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free

Bowls are a huge part of my energy-aware cooking. On good days, you can chop and garnish and bougie them up as much as your heart desires. On bad days, they are still there, being all tasty and nourishing with just a couple easy prep-ahead ingredients tossed into a bowl.

This Canned Salmon Sushi Bowl in particular is great because it’s 100% no cook (unless you consider microwaving a rice pouch cooking). No standing over a stove. No babysitting an oven.

I have strong heat intolerance, so cooking with heat when I’m already struggling is nearly impossible. And the physical aspect of standing at a stove can be taxing on even a good day. Also: no cook means fewer dishes.

The ingredients that make this bowl always possible: canned salmon, frozen or pantry rice packets, pre-shredded carrots, frozen avocado chunks. Whisk up some mayo and sriracha, and it’s like 85% there.

When those things are in my pantry, it’s relief. Gratitude for past me who considered that future me won’t always be in the best shape.

Now if I’m feeling good, I’ll really fancy this bowl up with some chopped scallions, cucumbers, and nori sheets, but it all counts. Every version counts. It always all counts.

No Cook Spicy Canned Salmon Sushi Bowls

Download Printable Recipe (PDF)

Ways to make this recipe even easier on hard days:

• Skip the green onions and cucumbers to save yourself chopping (or use my favorite serrated knife for easier chopping).

• Use pre-shredded carrots and/or chopped green onions from the store.

• Use frozen avocado chunks.

• Cut everything up in a vegetable chopper box. You can even eat right out of the bottom to save dishes.

• Do either the sriracha mayo OR the sushi rice flavoring—having both adds a lot of flavor, but one will do the trick on a hard day.

• Use an electric can opener to open the salmon can.

• Skip the nori or seaweed snacks, and instead keep furikake nearby for the easiest way to add the unami flavor to these bowls.

Your support helps me keep making good food for people who don’t feel good. If this work helps you, consider supporting it in one of these ways:

• Subscribe for free for weekly energy-aware recipes

• Join the paid tier for meal plans, practical systems, and community.

• Purchase a gift subscription for someone you love.

• Leave a one-time tip via Buy Me a Coffee.

No-Cleanup Easy Baked Oatmeal

This chewy, flavorful baked oatmeal is mixed up in the same dish it’s baked in! It freezes beautifully for a delicious, low-effort breakfast.

⏱ Total Time: 45 minutes (40 minutes hands-off cook-time)
🔋Energy drain: 1/5 ✋Physical effort: 1/5 🧽 Cleanup: 1/5
🌿 Dietary: Gluten-Free, Vegetarian, Vegan-Option

One aspect of gentle cooking that I don’t want you to forget is this: clean-up matters. Washing dishes, putting away ingredients, wiping the counters—it’s all part of the energy-sucking process that is called “cooking”. If you can make any step in the process more energy-aware, you are going to have more capacity in your day to live life.

That’s why I lean heavily on one pot, sheet pan, and one bowl meals in my chronic illness kitchen. Fewer dishes=more energy. And this baked oatmeal recipe takes it even to the next level—no bowl needed at all! All the ingredients are mixed right in the baking dish. I used my 6-cup Anchor Hocking oven-safe glass food storage containers, but any 8” x 8” square cake pan or 1.5-quart casserole dish would also work great.

Beyond this, anything I can pop in the oven instead of babysitting at the stove is a win in my energy-limited body. This oatmeal bakes away in the oven while I get off my feet.

If you’ve never had it before, baked oatmeal is cake-like, chewy, and incredibly delicious. It’s like having a super yummy oatmeal cookie for breakfast! You can add in whatever mix-ins you like, but below I’ve got three versions ready to go for you: banana nut, mixed berry, and apple raisin.

This recipe is naturally gluten free. And while many baked oatmeal recipes call for eggs, my recipe is made egg-free (because my husband and daughter have an egg allergy) with zero weird egg substitutes. You can also easily make it dairy-free.

This recipe freezes beautifully! I freeze it in single serving slices, then just pop it in the microwave for 30 seconds to defrost it for a speedy breakfast.

Your Gentle Kitchen permission slip:

• Fewer dishes equals more energy for you.

• Oven time is rest time. Take it.

• Saving energy after the meal matters just as much as before it.

• Simple is not lazy. Simple is sustainable.

• Nourishment without exhaustion is the goal.

• You’re allowed to cook in a way that protects you.

No Clean-Up Easy Baked Oatmeal

Download Printable Recipe (PDF)

Most weeks, I spend $14.94 on three rotisserie chickens from Sam’s Club.

This habit has easily been the single most impactful thing I’ve done to make my kitchen chronic illness friendly. Not meal prepping. Not having the latest adaptive gadgets. Not having special anti-fatigue mats. Chickens. Three of them.

So what do I do with three giant chickens considering I’m only feeding a family of three? Well, this is where my freezer comes to the rescue. When I get home, I spend 15 minutes stripping the chickens and freezing the meat into 1 cup Souper Cubes.

Each chicken yields me about 5-7 cups of well-packed cooked chicken (depending on how many kitchen visitors nabbed pieces of chicken while I’m working—the legs usually go first), plus the bones to make my weekly stash of Instant Pot bone broth.

These little chicken popsicles are used every day in our house, and they require exactly zero emotional or physical work on my part.

How I use rotisserie chicken:

There is always a stash of chicken cubes in the freezer, and so it makes meal prepping and planning incredibly easy. Here are just a few of the ways we use rotisserie chicken:

• Mixed with pesto and pasta

• Put inside enchiladas

• Chicken salad

• Mixed with sweet potato chunks and avocado with a running egg on top

• Tossed into soups

• Mixed with barbecue sauce for quick pulled chicken BBQ

• Added to any salad to add protein

• Inside a chicken quesadilla

• Mixed with rice, black beans and salsa for a shortcut burrito bowl

• Packed into Mason jar salad

• On top of pizza (like this spinach alfredo pizza)

• Added to sandwiches or wraps (like my chicken Caesar wraps)

• Mixed with taco seasoning to turn it into quick tacos, burritos, or fajitas

• Added into pinwheels (like these taco pinwheels)

• And on and on and on.

Almost all of these meals take just a few minutes to pull together because my freezer is full of rotisserie chicken.

When you consider my love of doubling-and-freezing foods, we easily get through 2-3 chickens each week. Occasionally I’ll have a rotisserie chicken backlog in the freezer that I need to work through, but more weeks than not, I’m buying multiple rotisserie chickens.

Let’s talk finances.

Friends, groceries are expensive as hell. So is being chronically ill. Put those two things together, and it’s murder on your bank account.

You know what isn’t expensive as hell? A Sam’s Club rotisserie chicken. At $4.98 for a whole, giant, cooked chicken, it is maybe the most affordable way to buy chicken. You’d have a hard time finding a whole uncooked chicken for even double that.

Even if you buy a Sam’s Club membership just to buy the chickens, you’re gonna save money. Don’t believe me? Let’s dive into the numbers.

• Sam’s Club Base Annual Membership: $25 (but only if you buy through that link, usually it’s $50)

• Whole Chicken Cost from Aldi: $7.75 each (cheapest I could find)

• Sam’s Club Rotisserie Chicken Cost: $4.98 each

Sam’s Club membership pays for itself once you’ve bought 9 chickens… that’s 3 weeks for me! I’m assuming it’s similar at other warehouse clubs.

Why can they sell chickens for so dang cheap? Well, Sam’s Club rotisserie chickens are what my retired grocery store executive Mama calls a loss leader. The stores purposely price them at below their own cost hoping you’ll come inside the store to pick up a chicken for dinner and see a shiny new 85” TV that you just have to have along the way.

It’s a marketing strategy. But we don’t have to buy the TV. You can just buy the chicken, friend.

But what about the ~*chemicals*~?

As more people discover the joys of bulk warehouse rotisserie chickens, inevitably there is a crop of fear-mongering influencers who get their views by telling you rotisserie chickens are going to kill you because of ~*chemicals*~ or bad vibes or something.

First of all, look at the ingredients. It’s fine y’all. They’re not injecting cyanide into these chickens.

Secondly, here’s the only truth that matters: we are all doing the best we can with what we have. I have been at the point in my life where I had the resources to buy fresh pastured chickens from a local farm and then slow roast them myself in my kitchen. It was great! I loved supporting local family farms when I could.

But I am not at that point in my life now. My finances don’t allow it. My body doesn’t allow it. My brain doesn’t allow it. My energy doesn’t allow it. Many days—especially on days where my body is being ornery—having a stash of rotisserie chicken in my freezer is the only thing that makes it to where I can feed my family. And that’s also great!

If there’s one thing I hope you take from this, it’s this: ease is not laziness. Convenience is not a moral failure. Feeding yourself and your family in a way that works with your body, your budget, and your energy is a success, full stop.

For me, rotisserie chickens are not a shortcut born of apathy. They’re a carefully chosen support system. They give me back time, strength, and mental space. They make dinner possible when it otherwise wouldn’t be.

If a $4.98 chicken helps you protect your energy, use it. If a freezer full of chicken popsicles keeps you fed, celebrate it. You are allowed to build a kitchen that meets you where you are.

I used to be a freezer cooking marathon queen. I’d plan out all my recipes, buy half the grocery store, and then spend 10 hours on a weekend day stocking my freezer with all of our meals for the month. I felt so proud of all of those meals stacked up in neat rows in the freezer. Those stacks meant freedom.

Needless to say, my body doesn’t allow marathons of any kind anymore, but I still love to stock my freezer when I can! I can still get that feeling of freedom, albeit following a slightly different plan of attack. One of the benefits of having chronic illness is that it forces you to work smarter, not harder, and that really applies to my freezer cooking strategy now.

My goal is to regularly share my energy-aware freezer cooking tips with you in this Feed Your Freezer series. I’ll include my tips, my recipes, my schedule, my freezing directions, and a full grocery list all in an easy to use download. For this first one, we’re focusing on soups as medicine!

Why soups? Well, beyond the obvious fact that it’s been incredibly cold, soups are also one of the main healing foods I rely on when I’m dealing with an autoimmune flare. They are easy to heat up. They are a great way to get nutrition when I don’t have much of an appetite. They are easy on my digestion. Oh, and they are really freaking delicious! So, when I am feeling well, I try to pop some soups in the freezer for a future rainy day (metaphorical or literal).

How I feed my freezer while still honoring my limited capacity

• Double what you’re already cooking—this is the easiest way to feed your freezer! It takes almost no time to double something you’re already cooking and drop it in the freezer. I did this just this past week when making energy bites. I doubled it and put half in the fridge for snacks this week and half in the freezer for later.

• Pick recipes that use the same ingredients—that’s the key to this soup prep you’ll see below. All three of the soups in this prep start with the same ingredients: onions, garlic, celery, mushrooms, and carrots. I cut them all at once, which greatly reduces the amount of time and energy needed.

• Containers matter—I had to learn to choose containers that work for when my capacity is limited. Which meant out went most of my heavy, big, and hard-to-open glass containers, and in went silicone and plastic. I was a glass evangelist until my hands stopped working. Now I love me some Souper Cubes and freezer bags! They are so easy to reheat, and they are neat and organized in the freezer.

About this Feed Your Freezer session:

• What’s in it: Creamy Chicken Wild Rice Soup, Taco Soup, and Classic Vegetable Soup

• How long it takes: Took me a little over an hour, start to finish. I did use my Ninja Foodi for one of the soups to save some time.

• What it makes: 18 large servings of soup (6 of each kind)

• Containers used: Frozen in 2-cup Souper Cubes and then popped those into gallon freezer bags for long term storage

Energy and time-saving tips:

• Chop once: each of the recipes in this freezer cooking session starts with carrots, celery, onion, garlic, and mushrooms. Chop for all recipes at once.

• Use chopping tools: If your chopping capacity is limited, use a food processor (this is the one I have and have loved for nearly a decade now), vegetable chopper (this is the one I have and use almost daily), and a garlic chopper.

• Freeze in small portions: I use Souper Cubes to freeze in hearty 2-cup servings because sometimes I cannot lift giant bags or heavy containers of frozen soup from the freezer.

• Use your electric pressure cooker or slow cooker: I made one of these soups in my Ninja Foodi while I cooked the other two on the stove. Use your tools! I’ve included both Instant Pot and slow cooker instructions for all three recipes.

Ready to get cooking? Click the button below to download all the recipes, grocery lists, tips, and freezing instructions for free.

This is easily the most requested dinner in my house, and I don’t mind one bit because it’s absolutely delicious, packed with nutrition, and requires not much more than just opening a few cans and pouring them into a big skillet.

This Taco Mac Skillet is an energy-aware, no-chop version of my popular One Pan Taco Pasta. That recipe was a favorite in my family for years, but when my hands became disabled thanks to autoimmune illness, chopping became impossible for me, so I had to make some changes! Out went the freshly-chopped onion, garlic, and green pepper, in went seasoned canned goods that packed a flavor punch.

Pantry staples, for the win!

I always make sure to have the ingredients for this skillet on hand because it’s such a fan favorite in our house.

Here’s what I keep stocked so I can always make this:

• Seasoned black beans: regular black beans will do the trick, but if you can get a can of seasoned black beans, you’re going to have so much more flavor! If you’re able, you can also cook my seasoned black beans from scratch.

• Diced tomatoes with chiles (AKA: Rotel): this adds so much flavor when you cannot chop aromatic veggies

• Coconut milk: this adds richness and creaminess without dairy. I’m fortunate that dairy doesn’t exacerbate my chronic illness, but I know for lots of folks it does, so this is a great dairy-free option.

• Gluten free pasta: I also did this with regular pasta before we went gluten-free. Both work perfectly!

• Beef broth: Sometimes I have the energy to stock broth in my freezer, sometimes I don’t. Both count.

• Crushed tomatoes: An extra can of diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, and whole tomatoes that you crush yourself all work, too. I’ve even used cans of enchilada sauce and tomato soup in a pinch!

• Taco seasoning: I use about 1/4 cup of taco seasoning (about the same as in one packet). You can add some more if you like it a little spicier.

Your Gentle Kitchen permission slip: dinner can be easy.

• Energy is precious and tonight, you’re allowed to keep yours.

• Pantry shortcuts absolutely count as cooking.

• If all you did was open cans and stir a skillet, that is still a real, nourishing meal.

• Protein, fiber, and comfort can coexist, even when dinner takes very little effort.

• You’re doing great, friend.

No Chop Taco Mac Skillet

Download Printable Recipe (PDF)