Food
BySara EvansLast updated
Anyone with a gluten intolerance knows that it can take a little extra effort to find places to eat out, so if you have this condition you’re probably already pretty accustomed to home cooking. However, this does make it tricky to eat on those days where you get home from work late or just don’t feel like slaving over the stovetop. Fortunately, there are some quick and easy gluten free recipes you can rely on when you’re low on energy.
Slow cooked pulled pork
After a busy day, there’s no better feeling than coming home to the smell of cooked meat and knowing that dinner is already prepared. If you need some ideas for how to make your pulled pork, you can find inspiration here – but it isn’t especially hard to do, as you can just leave it in the slow cooker while you’re out of the house.
Create a coeliac-friendly sauce using paprika, salt, garlic powder, brown sugar and water, and let the pork shoulder simmer in this sauce in the slow cooker. When you get home, all you need to do is prepare some veggies and shred the pork for a hearty, satisfying and gluten-free meal.
After shredding the pork, you may want to return the meat to the slow cooker and mix it with an extra sauce of your choice for 10-15 minutes so that it reheats with added flavour.
Chargrilled vegetables and haloumi
After a long day at work, the thought of preparing a healthy meal can be exhausting – especially when it needs to be gluten-free, too. Sometimes you need something that’s a no-brainer you can switch your mind on autopilot for.
There’s a lot of different dishes you can try that fit the bill. For example, making mix of chargrilled veg and haloumi is extremely easy to prepare and tastes great.
All you need to do is cut up some eggplant, zucchini and capsicum, crush some garlic and mix together on a baking tray, then drizzle in olive oil and bake for half an hour. Mix some yoghurt, dill and lemon together as a dressing, and season to taste – then go flick on the TV or do something else to pass the time for 20 minutes. When the veggies are about 5 minutes from being ready, pan fry some haloumi.
Once everything is ready, stack it on your plate with some mixed salad leaves – dinner is served!
Chicken and pumpkin soup
Soups are a delicious and warming winter meal, and if you prepare a big batch on the weekend, it’s easy to reheat when you get home from work. Pumpkin soup is easy to prepare and adding chicken to it for extra flavour and protein seals the deal – and it won’t upset you if you need something gluten-free!
To prepare the soup you’ll need to cook and shred some chicken. Put the meat aside to cool – you won’t need it again until the end.
Next, fry some onion and leek in a pot or pan over low heat until softened. Add some garlic and your preferred spices, then stir them through. Add pumpkin, potato and chicken stock (making sure you use a gluten-free stock) and bring to the boil. Lower the heat again, cover the pot/pan and let the mixture simmer for half an hour.
Once the soup has simmered, let it cool before you blend it (you may need to blend it a bit at a time). Mix the shredded chicken through and either reheat or put it into containers to freeze for later.
Other tips
These recipes are all easy to cook and won’t take you long to prepare. The pulled pork can take a while, but if you know you will have a busy day coming up you can do the prep work beforehand and simply put the pork in the slow cooker in the morning. The chicken and pumpkin soup can also take time, but you can do the prep work on a weekend.
If you’re looking for something even faster and easier, microwaved steamed vegetables and pan-fried fish or steak can be prepared easily and will provide you with the nutrition you need without any gluten.
And if you’re looking for an extra treat for after dinner, consider making some easy gluten-free Nutella brownies. They’re the perfect chocolatey snack for the gluten-intolerant, and the kids are sure to love them, too.
