8 easy ways to use superfoods

With a multitude of different superfoods available to us, it's often tough to know how best to use them. Whether you want to kick start a healthier lifestyle, add some variation to your meals or simply make them taste better, we've come up with eight easy ways to use common (and delicious!) superfoods.

1. Boost your breakfast 

As the "most important meal of the day", you may as well spruce it up a little from time to time. You can add simple superfoods like quinoa and amaranth (a favourite among the Aztecs and also gluten free!) to cereals, or blueberries and chia seeds to natural yoghurt to give your breakfast that little bit extra.

"Amaranth is the garden plant aka Love Lies Bleeding! You could easily grown your own." Nelliemoser

2. Innovative baking

As we've discovered over the years, baking doesn't have to be all about the fatty ingredients, even if they are tasty. Amaranth can be used in banana bread to give it a rich flavour, whilst quinoa can be a core ingredient when baking cookies. Chia seeds can be a great replacement for eggs if you're vegetarian or vegan. And if you're a chocolate lover and often use it when you bake, dark chocolate has a good bit of magnesium in it, which means that it also counts as a superfood (that gives us reign to enjoy it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, right?). Almond butter is great for sugar-free (fudge, anyone?) and high protein treats. 

3. Variations in cooking

Experimenting in the kitchen is extremely fun and may also lead to some brilliant discoveries. Rapeseed oil, which burns at a high rate, contains less saturated fat than other oils and is generally a healthier choice. You may find that you already use rapeseed oil when cooking as it's often labelled as vegetable oil, but it may be too savoury to use for baking. Using sweet potatoes instead of regular potatoes can also be a welcomed alternative, as can using bulgur wheat instead of rice. And how about Himalayan pink rock salt? It's a great alternative to common salt, can be bought in a grinder and contains lots of minerals!

"I usually use organic rapeseed oil, which is light in colour and flavour - it makes lovely roasties!" shysal 

"We bought some Himalayan rock salt (not because it was a superfood - we didn't know that it was). DD uses it and DH likes it because he says it is tastier and you don't need to use too much." rosequartz

4. Salads made better

Nothing quite beats a hearty salad, especially when there are so many different ways to make one! Add a few seeds here and some nuts there and your salad can go from bland and boring to the most delicious meal you've ever had. Beetroot juice is easy to pop into salads, as are pomegranate seeds (and juice), pumpkin seeds, flaxseed and watercress, which has the highest nutritional value of all the salad leaves! Yes, we were just as surprised.

5. Milk substitutes

Whether you're lactose intolerant, vegan or just want a change to your usual dairy-filled diet, hemp milk and almond milk are brilliant milk substitutes...and superfoods too no less! 

"You can get unsweetened Alpro (almond milk). They add calcium." jinglbellsfrocks

6. Tea, tea, tea

Green tea? Or, better, matcha tea? If Buddhist monks used it for meditation, there must be something in it, right? Because the leaves dissolve entirely in water, their antioxident powers are second to none. And it'll do wonders for your skin. 

7. Beauty rituals

Himalayan pink rock salt...you can cook with it, but also bathe in it! Add at least 800g to your bath (coarse grain) and it'll provide the perfect detox.

8. Make-up products

It's not often that we think about making our beauty products using items we'd usually find in the kitchen. Coconut oil, whilst excellent in green tea, is nothing short of a nutritious wonder. It doubles as both a moisturiser and a make-up remover...oh and as a hair conditioner too! And if you happen to have some of those Himalayan rock salt granules left, then mix with some coconut oil for an excellent body scrub.

Other things you might like:

10 of the best ways to use coconut oil

How to achieve beautiful skin from the inside out

Images: Shutterstock