5 Healthy Summer Picnic Food Ideas – Plant Based Barbecue Meal Ideas

When the weather becomes warm, you want to spend as much time outside soaking up the sun and enjoying lighter evenings as possible. That can make it difficult to want to spend loads of time cooking over a warm oven, so picky meals are a go to.  But just because they are easy to prepare and quick to throw together doesn’t mean that aren’t as healthy as a meal that has taken longer to cook. The list below is a tasty mix of proteins, fats and carbohydrates and it includes plenty veggies to. All the ideas are plant based but they could be served as sides at a barbecue as well. These types of meals are also a great way of introducing some different foods to your little ones.

So here are some quick and easy, delicious and healthy food ideas to include in your summer picnic or barbecue (they are also toddler approved by Jasper!).

Lentil Kebabs – I found these in Sainsburys in the vegetarian fridge section and I thought these would be a great addition to a barbecue if you were vegetarian or trying to cut down on your meat consumption. They are curry flavoured so they were slightly spicy but they were really tasty. I would say they are quite moist so difficult to get out of the packaging but once they were cooked they were fine. Also the main ingredient is cauliflower so a good way of maybe eating some different vegetables to usual. I really liked them so I would buy them again for convenience or I would love to try and create my own.

Salad – Salad is a must on a warm day as it is really refreshing so great for cooling down. For our picnic we had tomato, cucumber, beetroot and avocado. This was Jasper’s first time trying beetroot and he really took to it after the first couple of mouthfuls. Other good salad options are lettuce and carrots, these can simply be roughly chopped up, washed and served as they are.

Bread – I love eating fresh bread, especially during summer, as it reminds me of being on holiday. It is great in a picnic to make in to sandwiches or just eat on its own with some dips!

Kale Chips – These have become a new favourite in our house recently and they are a brilliant way of eating dark green vegetables. Simply drizzle oil and paprika over some kale leaves and pop in the oven at 180 degrees for about 15 minutes or until the kale is at the desired crispiness. Then serve with some salt (leave the salt off if serving for babies or toddlers).

Dips – Some of my favourite dips are tomato salsa, houmous, guacamole. These are delicious spread on bread or to dip vegetables in to.

Do you like to have picnic meals or barbecues in the summer? I would love to know what you include in yours, let me know in the comments or on facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

Thanks for reading, Jen x