Healthy Snacks

If you fail to prepare, you’re preparing to fail. Having healthy snacks to reach for is absolutely necessary to keep me from giving into that vending machine temptress in the break room at my office. In the past my snacks have been pretty basic ranging from carrot and celery sticks to apple slices. Recently, I have been looking into more of a variety of snacks to keep my interest peaked and to prevent me from finding solace in the arms of a bag of cheese-its. These snack ideas are simple to prepare and come together in a flash. They are easy to add into your weekly meal prep or to throw together in a pinch.

You won’t find fancy ingredients here (except maybe the goji berries) and the great thing about them is that you can swap out different ingredients to make something a bit more to your liking! Go ahead and try them and let me know what you think! Happy snacking!

Energy balls

Most of the time I crave salty snacks over sweet snacks. For some reason though lately I have been craving snacks of the sweeter variety in the mid afternoon. I have seen so many different recipes for energy balls and all are equally good. Mine are based on a recipe from a blog I read called The Anna Edit. She’s a lifestyle blogger and posts really smart and inspiring content. You should definitely go check her out on both her blog and her YouTube channel!

Anyways, back to the task at hand, these energy balls are so delicious and will really hit the spot if like me you find yourself gravitating towards the doughnuts people leave in the lunch room what feels like EVERY afternoon.

Ingredients:

1 cup Pitted Dates

1/2 cup Coconut Flour

6 TBSP of your favorite vanilla flavored protein powder (I used my Vanilla Shakeology)

2 TBSP of Water (I started with this and added more until I got the consistency the way I liked it)

2 TBSP Maple Syrup

Pinch of Salt

Directions:

Combine all of the ingredients in a food processor and run or pulse until the mixture has the consistency you desire.
Take 1 TBSP of the mixture and form it into a ball.
Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 5-7 days.

**These are quite sweet so if you wanted you could easily leave out the maple syrup or reduce the amount that you use.**

Hummus Stuffed Sweet Peppers

I really like veggies dipped in hummus. Not that it is that much of a hassle to transport hummus with your lunch, but the idea of transporting it inside the veggies themselves takes all the guess work out of it. One less dish to wash am I right?! This green hummus is one that I bought at Safeway and it’s called the Fresh Nature Green Chickpea Hummus in the Jalapeno flavor…so delicious. If you don’t like spice this would work equally as well with a regular hummus or the really good beetroot hummus I picked up from Trader Joe’s!

Homemade Trail Mix

Trail mix is one of my favorite snacks ever. Not only do I snack on it while at work but we like to bring it hiking or on road trips as a filling and (mostly) well balanced snack. I tend to avoid the trail mix that is sold at the store as there can be lots of extra sugar added that I definitely do not need. It’s just as easy to make at home and you can basically use anything you want! For mine I used dried apricots cut into fourths, pumpkin seeds, goji berries, sunflower seeds, and almonds. This comes together in minutes and is easily transported anywhere you’re going!