How to Pick a Recipe from the Pinch of Nom Books

You’ve got your Pinch of Nom cookbooks and you’re ready to start creating delicious recipes, but where do you start?

It can feel overwhelming at first when there are so many recipes to pick from, especially if you don’t have too much experience in the kitchen! 

We’ve rounded up some tips and tricks to help you pick a recipe from your Pinch of Nom books!

First, it’s important to decide what kind of recipe you’re looking for. For example, do you have leftovers that need using? How much time do you have? What’s your budget this week?

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See what grabs your attention first

When your shiny new book first arrives, it’s well worth taking some time to read it through and see which recipes jump out straight away. 

Highlight them using post-it notes so you can quickly reference them when you need them!

Many of the members of our Facebook Group suggest using these smaller post-it notes as bookmarks to highlight your favourite recipes as you go. 

You could use specific colours for different dietary requirements, or for those that fit into your budget.

The possibilities are endless!

Look for specific ingredients

If you’ve got a specific ingredient in mind, one of the best ways to see recipes at a glance is using the index pages. 

Let’s say you’ve got some lemons in the fruit bowl that you want to use up while they’re still fresh: simply flip to the last few pages of the book and you’ll find main ingredients listed in alphabetical order.

Look for ‘lemon’ and you’ll see recipes with lemon as a main ingredient! 

Please note not every ingredient is listed in the index or it would be longer than the book, but it’s a good starting point for main recipe components! 

If you do happen to have a surplus of lemons, try our Lemon Drizzle Cake for a slice of lemony goodness that’s great with a cuppa.

Choose based on how much time you have

If you know you’ve got a busy day ahead, it’s worth looking for recipes that you can slow cook, so you can leave the hard work to the slow cooker!

If you flick to the ‘Batch Cook’ chapter, you’ll find recipes that you can make in advance and freeze, and many of these are slow-cooker friendly.

It doesn’t get much easier than defrosting dinner ready to heat up and eat on those days where you don’t have the motivation to start from scratch!

We have loads of Batch Cook recipes on our website too, like this Slow Cooker Balsamic Beef Stew.

We also have a handy conversion guide here so you can convert oven recipes too!

Start small at first

If you aren’t sure about trying out a new recipe every night of the week or have fussy family members to cater for, aim for one or two recipes per week.

Psst.. we have more tips on how to deal with fussy eaters here!

It can be really useful to plan out a week’s worth of meals and if you find you’re struggling to fill the full meal plan, slot in a new recipe!

If Spaghetti Bolognese always goes down well in your house, look for something similar.

For example a Bolognese Risotto from our third book would make a tasty alternative?

You can try new recipes at your own pace while still making the most of your books.

Don’t forget, our Pinch of Nom Food Planner has a handy ‘notes’ section for you to write down your favourite recipes!

You can adapt it to suit you with fun stickers and shopping lists.

Haven’t got yours yet? Find out more here.

Recipe roulette

For those days where you fancy cooking something slimming friendly and delicious, but just need a burst of inspiration, we have a solution!

This fantastic tip was shared on our Facebook Group and is a great way of selecting a recipe: simply label flat lollipop sticks with recipe names and page numbers and store them in a jar.

When you’re deciding what to cook, pull out a stick and you have the recipe ready to start cooking!

You could use this idea in a few different ways, including writing on slips of paper, using a random number generator to pick a page number, or even flicking through the book and stopping at a random page! 

Are you taking part in our Quick & Easy challenge?

To make this as easy as possible for you, we’ve created these handy printables!

You can print them out – and either put them in a jar or use the lolly stick method above.

We’ll be adding new sheets each week to go alongside the challenge – but this week we are starting with BREAKFASTS.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE BREAKFAST PRINTABLE

Let our Instagram filter decide 

We’ve recently introduced a super fun camera effect over on our Instagram page that takes all of the fuss out of deciding what to make from our Quick & Easy book!

Simply visit our Instagram Stories or the Effects tab on our profile page to use the filter.

Press a button and the recipe spinner will stop at the dish you should make that night.

It’s a really fun, simple way of choosing what to make.

Don’t worry if you don’t fancy the first suggestion, spin again – just don’t forget to tag us in your videos!

What are your favourite ways of choosing what to cook from your Pinch of Nom cookbooks?

Tell us over on our Facebook Group, where we have nearly 1 million members ready to inspire, support and motivate you on your weight loss journey.