Welcome to a realm where nutrition meets taste, unveiling a collection of nutrient-dense meals and recipes.
This treasure trove opens up avenues to not just nutrient-rich meals but extends to nutrient-dense dinners, making every meal a step towards a healthier you.
With a nutrient-dense meal plan in your arsenal, embark on a culinary journey that promises not just a nutrient-dense dinner but a lifestyle shift towards wholesome eating.
Explore, enjoy, and energize your life with every nutrient-dense meal.
- Background
- But First… What Is Nutrient Density?
- Why Should You Prioritise Nutrient-Dense Meals?
- What Meals Are Nutrient-Dense?
- How Did We Create This Collection of Nutrient-Dense Meals?
- How Do You Make a Nutrient-Dense Meal?
- Nutrient Density vs Carbs vs Fat
- Nutrients vs Energy
- What Are the Most Nutritious Meals?
- The Downside of Nutrient-Dense Meals
- Overview of Our NutriBooster Recipe Books
- What’s In Our NutriBooster Recipe Books?
- More
Background
Over the past five years, we’ve been on a mission, tirelessly crunching numbers and analyzing data to uncover the secrets of feeling full and energized through food.
This wealth of knowledge has fueled not only our Macros Masterclass and Micros Masterclass but also the creation of an extensive catalogue of nutrient-dense meals and recipes.
And guess what? In this article, we’re excited to share with you how you can access this treasure trove of nutrient-dense meals—for free!
These are the same NutriBooster recipes that power our Nutrient Optimiser software, helping thousands of Optimisers fine-tune their micronutrient intake in our Micros Masterclass.
So, if you’re eager to up your nutrition game without breaking a sweat, join us on this journey to uncover what’s been simmering behind the scenes.
But First… What Is Nutrient Density?
Nutrient density is simply the sum of all the essential micronutrients, or the vitamins, vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, and amino acids, per calorie in a food or meal.
Because nutrient density is positively correlated with satiety, prioritising nutrient-dense foods and meals ensures you have all the raw materials you need to crush your cravings, control your appetite, and thrive!
Why Should You Prioritise Nutrient-Dense Meals?
Many people like to think in terms of the amount of a single micronutrient in a gram of food. For example, ‘how much vitamin A is in 100 g of liver?’
But nutrients usually don’t come alone—unless they come in a pill! If you follow this overly-simplistic single-nutrient approach, you’ll likely exceed your daily calorie budget and just hit the minimum micronutrient intakes each day. This is far from optimal, especially if you don’t want to gain weight or you want to lose it!
Alternatively, you might think you can fork over your hard-earned cash for expensive supplements in hopes that they’ll give you the same benefit as the micronutrients found in whole foods (hint: they don’t). Supplements and fortification often just give people a false sense of security, thinking that they have bought some ‘nutritional insurance’ so they don’t have to change what they eat.
Our nutrient-dense meals empower you to pack more of all the essential vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, and amino acids into one plate without guesswork. Not only is this convenient for you, but even adding just a few of these nutrient-dense meals and recipes ensures you get all your priority nutrients while staying under your energy budget.
Because nutrient-dense meals provide you with more nutrients that support satiety, you will satisfy your cravings and increase satiety so you can eat less without exerting unsustainable restriction and willpower.
What Meals Are Nutrient-Dense?
Nutrient-dense meals contain more of all the essential micronutrients your body requires per calorie.
Generally, the most nutrient-dense meals combine protein, fibre, and some energy from carbs and fat.
Higher-protein foods—especially from animal sources like meat, poultry, dairy, and fish—provide the essential amino acids that are critical for satiety. In addition, foods containing protein also tend to supply a handful of vital vitamins, minerals, and essential fatty acids, like B vitamins, zinc, and omega-3s.
Low-energy-density foods like fibrous carbohydrates supply some of the harder-to-find nutrients that are tough to get from animal foods alone. These complementary foods ensure your micronutrient profile is complete.
Fats provide a source of slow-burning energy that keeps blood sugars more stable. They also help you absorb fat-soluble nutrients and even contain some of them.
Lastly, non-fibrous carbs are a great source of fast fuel, which is perfect for intense exercise. They also provide some vitamins and minerals.
Together, these food components combine to make the most nutrient-dense meals. Instead of just focusing on a single food that contains one or two vitamins or minerals, recipes like our NutriBoosters provide the entire profile of micronutrients you require to thrive.
How Did We Create This Collection of Nutrient-Dense Meals?
For the past five years, we’ve been collecting and creating a massive database of recipes to find the most nutritious ones in the world.
When we found a recipe that looked OK, we analysed it in Cronometer and added it to our mega-spreadsheet to see how it stacked up.
We’ve also been running our Macros Masterclass and Micros Masterclass for three years. Our NutriBooster Recipes Facebook group has been super active, with many people sharing their favourite recipe creations. Over time, we’ve compiled even more nutrient-dense creations from Optimisers.
Eventually, we partnered with the fantastic recipe creator and photographer Saskia Lesser to perfect our nutrient-dense recipe database and put together our series of NutriBooster recipe books.
On our quest, we’ve analysed more than four thousand recipes, progressively added new favourites, and culled the ones that no longer made the cut.
How Do You Make a Nutrient-Dense Meal?
As we mentioned earlier, most nutrient-dense meals do not require complicated long lists of hard-to-find ingredients. Similarly, most of them do not require more than thirty minutes in the kitchen. The key to nutrient-dense meals is to combe a spectrum of nutrient-dense foods that fill in each other’s nutrient gaps!
Nutrient Density vs Carbs vs Fat
The chart below shows our current list of six-hundred NutriBooster recipes in terms of carbs vs fat vs nutrient density.
- If you know you have blood glucose issues, or if your blood sugars rise by more than 30 mg/dL (1.6 mmol/L) after meals, you will want to choose lower-carb recipes towards the left.
- If your blood sugars are great and you need more carbs to fuel explosive activity, you’ll want to choose the recipes towards the right.
- But if you want to maximise satiety and nutrient density, you will want to choose the green recipes in the bottom left corner. These recipes contain more protein, fibre, and all the essential micronutrients to keep you feeling full so you can eat less.
There’s a lot of data here—too much to show on your phone screen! To see the full details of this chart, you can access the interactive version here. However, we suggest doing this on a computer rather than your phone because there is so much data. To see details, you can mouse over the dots.
To find this recipe, you can Google search ‘Optimising Nutrition’ and the recipe name. For example, ‘Optimising Nutrition Popeye Bowl’.
Go on, try it now!
Cool, huh?
Note: You should be able to find most of these recipes via Google. However, links to some recipes are only available via the secret list of 100+ recipes in each of the NutriBooster recipe books.
Nutrients vs Energy
While dialling in your energy intake from carbs vs fat can be helpful, in the end it comes down to getting the nutrients you need without excess energy.
The following chart shows the NutriBooster recipes in terms of nutrients versus energy. We frequently refer to non-fibre carbohydrates and fat together as ‘energy’.
You can access the interactive Tableau version of this chart here. To maximise your micronutrients, you want to choose more green recipes towards the right.
Again, to find the recipe, search for ‘Optimising Nutrition’ plus the recipe name in Google.
Let us know in the comments below how you go! Which NutriBooster recipe is your favourite?
What Are the Most Nutritious Meals?
If you’re still reading and haven’t yet gotten lost searching for our recipes on Google, we’ll preview some of our favourite nutrient-dense NutriBooster recipes. To see the full recipes and the macronutrient and micronutrient breakdown of each, follow the relative links below!
As you can see, nutrient-dense meals are colourful and relatively simple. They also taste great because they contain the nutrients your body has been searching for!
While nutrition sales and marketing have us believing we should rely on rare superfoods like açai, goji, and other exotic fruits, nutrient-dense recipes don’t tend to contain many hard-to-find ingredients.
The secret to creating nutrient-dense meals is combining fresh, whole ingredients in the right quantities to ensure you get enough of all of your essential micronutrients.
The Downside of Nutrient-Dense Meals
Over the years, we realised that not everyone wants to eat the most nutrient-dense meals all the time. Our nutrient-dense recipes are incredibly satiating, which is excellent for quick and effective weight loss. But once you reach your goal weight, you will need more energy from carbs and fat.
- Aside from weight loss, we realise that some people focus on controlling their blood sugars. So, we created our Low Carb & Blood Sugar collection of NutriBooster recipes.
- Many of our recipes incorporate some form of seafood because it’s so nutritious. However, some people don’t enjoy it or can’t get it where they live, so we created our Meat collection of NutriBoosters.
- For those using a Protein-Sparing Modified Fast-style diet for quick weight loss, we created our High Protein:Energy NutriBooster book.
- Others wanted to gain weight or were REALLY active, so we put together our Athletes & Bulking NutriBoosters. These recipes provide heaps of energy while being mindful of nutrient density.
- Others who prefer eating plant-based for ethical and personal reasons may enjoy our Plantsbook with the most nutrient-dense plant-based recipes available!
- For those who still include some dairy and eggs, we also have our Vegetarian, Low-Carb Vegetarian, and Lacto-Vegetarianbooks, depending on your limitations.
- If you’re dealing with a chronic and complex illness or have some intolerances you’re working on, we have our Dairy Free, Egg Free, Egg & Dairy Free, Autoimmune Paleo, Low Oxalate, Low FODMAP, and Low Histamine books to optimise your nutrient density. while working through your limitations.
- If you’re fighting or recovering from cancer and looking to lose weight, maintain your weight, or gain weight, we have our Cancer (Fat Loss), Cancer (Weight Maintenance), and Cancer (Weight Gain) books to choose from.
- No matter what side of the fat vs carb fence you find yourself on, we have our Low-Fat, Nutritional Keto, and Therapeutic Ketobooks.
- And this isn’t even all of our recipe books!
Before we knew it, we created an extensive array of NutriBooster recipe books tailored for almost any goal!
Overview of Our NutriBooster Recipe Books
The chart below shows where each NutriBooster recipe book sits on the carbs-vs-fat spectrum. Again, you can check out the interactive Tableau version here for more details.
The following chart shows how each recipe book ranks on the nutrients-vs-energy landscape. For the full interactive version of the chart below, click here.
The table below lists each NutriBooster recipe book’s average macronutrient split, respective protein:energy (P:E) ratio, and Nutrient Density (ND) Score.
| Book | Protein | Fat | Net Carb | Fibre | P:E Ratio | ND |
| Maximum Nutrient Density | 51% | 30% | 14% | 4% | 2.1 | 91.4% |
| Dairy-Free | 51% | 31% | 13% | 5% | 2.2 | 91.0% |
| Egg-Free | 52% | 30% | 14% | 5% | 2.1 | 90.0% |
| Egg & Dairy Free | 51% | 31% | 13% | 5% | 2.1 | 89.8% |
| Pescatarian | 51% | 31% | 14% | 5% | 2.0 | 89.6% |
| Fat Loss | 60% | 24% | 12% | 4% | 3.0 | 88.2% |
| Meat Based | 50% | 36% | 11% | 4% | 2.0 | 85.8% |
| Low Oxalate | 50% | 35% | 11% | 4% | 2.1 | 82.9% |
| Bodybuilders | 32% | 36% | 25% | 6% | 0.9 | 82.4% |
| Immunity | 38% | 25% | 26% | 10% | 1.4 | 80.6% |
| Blood Sugar & Fat Loss | 37% | 53% | 5% | 4% | 1.4 | 78.8% |
| Vegetarian | 32% | 32% | 28% | 8% | 0.9 | 76.1% |
| High-Protein:Energy | 68% | 22% | 7% | 4% | 4.3 | 75.0% |
| Low-Carb Vegetarian | 32% | 44% | 18% | 6% | 0.9 | 74.5% |
| Maintenance | 24% | 38% | 31% | 7% | 0.6 | 74.0% |
| Lacto Vegetarian | 28% | 29% | 35% | 8% | 0.7 | 71.2% |
| Athletes & Bulking | 21% | 30% | 40% | 9% | 0.5 | 69.1% |
| Low FODMAP | 39% | 45% | 11% | 4% | 1.6 | 69.0% |
| Cancer (Weight Loss) | 33% | 33% | 24% | 10% | 1.2 | 68.3% |
| Low Histamine | 36% | 45% | 13% | 6% | 1.4 | 68.3% |
| Autoimmune | 35% | 42% | 17% | 6% | 1.4 | 67.6% |
| Low-Carb & Blood Sugar | 25% | 66% | 5% | 4% | 0.8 | 66.5% |
| Low-Fat | 30% | 15% | 46% | 9% | 0.8 | 65.0% |
| Cancer (Maintenance) | 28% | 35% | 27% | 10% | 0.8 | 64.9% |
| Plant-Based | 21% | 35% | 35% | 9% | 0.4 | 64.5% |
| Nutritional Keto | 19% | 71% | 5% | 5% | 0.6 | 57.0% |
| Therapeutic Keto | 12% | 79% | 5% | 4% | 0.3 | 43.8% |
| Cancer (Fat Gain) | 10% | 65% | 18% | 7% | 0.2 | 40.5% |
If you click on the book’s name in the left-hand column in the table above, you will see each book’s micronutrient fingerprint. This shows how much of the Optimal Nutrient Intakes (ONIs) each recipe book contains, on average. As you will see, each dietary approach has its own strengths and weaknesses in terms of micronutrients and macronutrients.
As the fingerprint chart below shows, the Maximum Nutrient Density NutriBooster book hits the Optimal Nutrient Intakes for nearly all the essential micronutrients!
In contrast, the recipes in the Therapeutic Keto book will not provide you with the same amount of nutrients per calorie. Although we tried to maximise nutrient density, fats and high-fat foods are not exceptionally nutrient-dense.
What’s In Our NutriBooster Recipe Books?
Each book contains 33 recipes plus additional links to 100+ secret recipes that align with the goal you have chosen. When you purchase one of the books, you will receive:
- an e-book with the most nutritious meals optimised for your goal that you can take with you anywhere on your phone or tablet;
- a secret index of links to 100+ of the most nutrient-dense recipes optimised for your goal on our website so you will never run out of nutritious ideas to try;
- a full micronutrient breakdown of each recipe showing the vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, and amino acids it provides;
- access to all recipes pre-logged in Cronometerfor your convenience; and
- a list of the most popular nutrient-dense foods that align with your goal.
If you’re interested in learning more about our NutriBooster recipe books, a summary for each is in the table below. To purchase, simply click on the link on the left.
| Goal | Appropriate For |
| Fat Loss | Designed for rapid fat loss, these recipes provide more micronutrients to minimise cravings, plenty of protein to optimise satiety and prevent muscle loss, and less energy from carbs and dietary fat to lower blood glucose. This allows you to restrict calories and use body fat for fuel. |
| Maximum Nutrient Density | These are the most nutrient-dense recipes we have that pack all the micronutrients you need into your calorie budget. |
| Low-Carb & Blood Sugar | This book is designed for someone looking to stabilise blood sugars and maintain weight while prioritising nutrients on a low-carb diet. Ideal for someone with diabetes or anyone who enjoys low-carb. |
| Blood Sugar & Fat Loss | This book is designed for someone with elevated blood sugars and body fat to lose who is looking to optimise their nutrient density. |
| Bodybuilders | We designed this book for someone looking to gain muscle without increasing body fat excessively. These recipes provide plenty of micronutrients with adequate energy to support your workouts, but not to the point that you end up ‘dirty bulking’. |
| High Protein:Energy | This book was designed with a high protein:energy ratio for aggressive fat loss. These recipes are ideal for an aggressive short-term Protein-Sparing Modified Fast-style diet. |
| Nutritional Keto | We designed this book for someone who enjoys keto and wants to optimise their nutrient density but does not require therapeutic ketone levels. |
| Therapeutic Keto | This book was designed for people who require therapeutic ketone levels for specific conditions, like epilepsy, cancer, Alzheimer’s, or Parkinson’s. |
| Plant-Based | The most nutrient-dense, plant-based recipes available! |
| Vegetarian | These are the most nutrient-dense vegetarian meals available! |
| Low-Carb Vegetarian | These are the most nutrient-dense, low-carb vegetarian meals that also stabilise blood sugars. |
| Lacto-Vegetarian | These are the most nutrient-dense, lacto-vegetarian (i.e., no meat, seafood or eggs) recipes available. |
| Maintenance | This book was designed to optimise your nutrient intake so you can maintain your weight and live a healthy and energised life. |
| Pescatarian | These are the most nutrient-dense pescatarian recipes (i.e., vegetarian plus seafood). |
| Egg-Free | The most nutrient-dense meals without eggs. |
| Dairy-Free | The most nutrient-dense meals without dairy. |
| Egg & Dairy-Free | These are the most nutrient-dense meals without eggs or dairy. |
| Athletes & Bulking | We designed these recipes to provide the energy required to support your activity, growth, and recovery without sacrificing essential nutrients. |
| Meat-Based | These are the most nutrient-dense meals that contain meat (i.e., beef, pork, chicken, etc.). |
| Immunity | We designed these recipes around immune-boosting nutrients like iron, selenium, zinc, potassium, vitamin A, C, and D. |
| Cancer (Weight Loss & Nutrient Density) | This book was designed to provide less glutamic acid and methionine for someone with cancer while maximising nutrient density and satiety to promote fat loss. |
| Cancer (Weight Maintenance) | These recipes were designed for someone with cancer trying to maintain a healthy weight that requires less glutamic acid and methionine. |
| Cancer (Weight Gain) | These recipes were designed to provide plenty of energy for someone with cancer that requires less glutamic acid and methionine while providing plenty of energy to support weight gain after or during cancer treatment. |
| Smoothies | The most nutritious smoothies for quick and easy meals on the go! |
| Low Oxalate | Low-oxalate NutriBooster recipes that maximise nutrient density while minimising oxalates. |
| Low FODMAP | We designed these recipes to maximise nutrient density and satiety while avoiding high-FODMAP foods. |
| Low Histamine | This book was designed to maximise nutrient density as much as possible while minimising histamine-containing ingredients. |
| Low Fat | Ideal for people who prefer a low-fat diet or need to refill their glycogen stores quickly when blood sugars are low or after a workout. |
If you’re a part of our Optimising Nutrition Community, you can also check out a sample of each recipe book here.