How to Sneak More Veggies Into Your Diet

Vegetables are low in calories and fat, they're cholesterol free, and they're a critical source of several essential nutrients. They help you maintain healthy blood pressure, blood sugar, and bowel movements. They keep your skin, teeth, and gums healthy, and they can help reduce your risk of heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers.

So, if you can't suck it up and eat your veggies straight from the bag they came in, these sneaky tips will help you get the daily dose you need without having to look at them — or in some cases, even taste 'em.

Go green with your morning smoothie. A fistful of spinach is a nutritional powerhouse, containing vitamins A, C, E, K, B1, B2, B3, and B6 as well as nutrients like iron, folate, calcium and potassium, among others. Can't stand spinach? No problem. Toss that fistful of the leafy green in your blender along with the blueberries and bananas when you make your morning smoothie. You'll get all the benefits and none of the taste.

Bulk up your burgers. Shred up some carrots and sweet potatoes, and add the shreds to your ground beef or turkey before you form the patties. You won't even know the veggies are in there once the burger is cooked and plated. Bulk up casseroles and lasagnas the same way.

Eat more spaghetti. Tomatoes are packed with vitamins, minerals, and lycopene, a powerful antioxidant that can curb the growth of cancer cells and may reduce your risk of heart disease. Plain old tomato sauce is a good way to get some vegetables in your body, but you can create a tomato sauce that packs an even healthier veggie punch by roasting a mess of carrots, zucchini, peppers, onions, and squash, pureeing them, and tossing the puree into the sauce for a tangy, robust, and incredibly veggie-dense plate of spaghetti. You can do the same thing to soups and stews, and no one will be the wiser.

Bake them into your bread. Zucchini bread is sweet and tasty, and it's easy to make. Add shredded carrots to the zucchini for an extra dose of vitamins A and K, among other essential nutrients.

Make a tangy slaw. Next time you make coleslaw, shred some broccoli, carrots, turnips and other winter vegetables to add to the cabbage base. It won't make much of a different taste-wise, but the finished product will contain a nice variety of nutrients that you can't get from cabbage alone.

Slice 'em up and fry 'em. Turnips, potatoes, sweet potatoes, parsnips, and beets make a delicious snack when they're thinly sliced and fried up in a vat of canola oil. Fry just a few at a time, remove them to a stack of paper towels, sprinkle some sea salt on them before they dry, and let them drain.

What’s your favorite way to get your veggie fill?