What Should You Have for Dinner During Confinement?

Most mothers understand the importance of having a nourishing diet during confinement to help with recovery and lactation. However, some might find it boring to have similar confinement food for every meal, over and over again for the whole month!

Especially when it comes to traditional Chinese confinement food, some mothers may find certain dishes to be too heaty, too oily, or too strong-tasting. But does confinement food really have to be this way in order to be nourishing? 

Well, if you have been wondering the same thing, we are here with suggestions of dishes that you can add to your existing confinement diet plan to make it more interesting! While you can have them pretty much anytime around the day, we suggest you can have them during dinner to freshen up your palate after a whole day of having traditional confinement food and drinks.

For a more interesting confinement diet, here are some of the dishes you can have for dinner!

• Japanese Style Grilled Chicken with Miso Soup
• Pumpkin Brown Rice
• Savory Oatmeal with Egg
• Carob-coated bananas

Japanese Style Grilled Chicken with Miso Soup

Need a break from the usual herbal chicken or sesame chicken during confinement? Tweak the dressing and side ingredients a little bit and you get a Japanese cuisine! You can grill some chicken breast and pair it with goma-ae, a Japanese style salad that mixes vegetables with sesame dressing. For something warming, enjoy it along with a hearty ginger miso soup! 

This dish features chicken, which is a type of lean meat that has lower-fat content compared to red meat like beef and pork. To make it even healthier, leave out the skin to make the fat content lower! Lean meat like chicken is perfect to be eaten at night when you are not doing a lot of activities to burn calories. Not to mention chicken is rich in protein to help with your recovery. 

Pumpkin Brown Rice

After delivery, you need to maintain a high energy to recover and to breastfeed and care for your baby. In‌ ‌particular, breastfeeding can cause you to be dehydrated and experience constant thirst. As a healthier substitute for white rice, brown rice is one of your best options out there. 

Instead of just having plain brown rice, you can cook your brown rice along with other ingredients, and we would recommend pumpkin! Pumpkin has a soft and sweet texture, making it a great ingredient for comfort food. On top of its comforting flavour, pumpkin is also rich in Vitamin A, which helps with your perineum and caesarean wound healing during confinement. To enhance the flavour of your pumpkin brown rice even more, you can add in more ingredients like mushrooms, diced chicken, and ginger in it, top it off with spring onions for a pop of gree

Savoury Oatmeal with Egg

You might be surprised by how this staple ingredient for breakfast is here in a dinner dish suggestion. But hey, we are talking about making your confinement diet nutritious and interesting, right? So instead of making oatmeal the usual way you would for breakfast, let’s prepare a warm, hearty bowl of savoury oatmeal with egg! After boiling the oatmeal in a pot of hot water, you can add in salt, pepper, egg and stir it until your preferred consistency. Just like how you would cook porridge!

Made of whole grains, oatmeal is a great source of important vitamins, minerals, fibres, and antioxidants. Among the benefits include preventing and relieving constipation, which is great for speeding up your womb recovery.

If you are wondering “does oatmeal help produce breast milk?”, the answer is yes!  Oatmeal helps to stimulate and increase your breast milk production, improving your overall breastfeeding experience. Many new moms claim that they have lost weight much faster when they breastfeed, compared to if they do not.

While not all mothers can agree to this, breastfeeding and the production of breast milk do significantly burn calories. If you would like to stick to a routine, have at least one bowl of oatmeal a day.

Carob-Coated Bananas

 We cannot possibly end this list without adding a delicious, finger-licking dessert! A healthy, nutritious dessert so you can still enjoy sweet food while you are in confinement.

Carob is the sweet substitute for chocolate with a little nutty taste. It is caffeine-free, so if your sleep is often affected by caffeine, this will do you a huge favour in helping you to sleep better. Plus, it contains three times more calcium than cocoa powder!

On the other hand, bananas contain potassium which is good for heart health and blood pressure. They aid digestion, beat gastrointestinal issues, and most importantly give you energy throughout the day. 

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There you go! We hope this list has inspired you to try new  confinement food for dinner. Of course, remember to prioritise on having proper rest during this period.

If you need help with preparing your meals, get the support from your spouse or family members. Or even better, you can opt for a professional confinement food catering service like Tian Wei Signature!

Serving you a wide variety of fusion and traditional confinement meals, our meals are dietitian guided and well-balanced to help boost your recovery and lactation. Interested to try it for yourself? Visit our website and book now!

You May Also Read this : Proper Confinement Diet

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