How to Make Better Food Choices with Weeknight Bite’s Lindsay Surowitz

Lindsay Surowitz radiates authenticity and creativity. As the creator behind Weeknight Bite, a go-to resource for nutrition, recipes, and wellness tips, Surowitz combines her formal training as a holistic nutritionist with her love for chocolate chip cookies. Is that counterintuitive? Not quite. Surowitz believes that enjoying great food with family and friends is one of the truest forms of happiness—and you should never have to choose between that and living a healthy life.

Whether you’re a pro at balancing wholesome meals with indulgent treats or are aiming to make better food choices, Surowitz is here to help. Ahead, she shares her tops tips for shopping at Thrive Market and her favorite recipes to support a happy, healthy life.

Take us through your week. From breakfast staples to guilt-free dessert, what are your favorite go-to recipes?

Here’s a typical day of eating for me:

Breakfast:

• Chocolate Almond Butter Cup Smoothie
• 1 1/2 cups unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• 2 tbsp chia seeds
• 1 1/2 tbsp almond butter (a natural brand with no added sugar)
• 1/4 cup frozen banana slices
• 1 tbsp raw cacao powder
• 1 scoop chocolate protein powder (my fave)
• 1 handful spinach or one pinch microgreens
• Optional: 1/4 cup frozen cauliflower
• Ice

Blend all ingredients until smooth. Enjoy!

Lunch:
Two pasture-raised eggs scrambled with rainbow chard or another veggie/green, topped with 1/2 avocado, rolled up in a Siete Foods tortilla or on Mikey’s grain-free English muffins. Or I’ll make a DIY Poke Bowl.

Snack:
A couple options!

• Veggies
• Jilz Crackerz and Romesco Sauce
• Two hard boiled eggs

Dinner:
Instant Pot Spaghetti Squash & Turkey Meatballs

Dessert:
1/2 Hu Kitchen Cashew Butter chocolate bar

Or a frothy hot chocolate:

• 1 1/2 cups unsweetened almond milk
• 1 scoop Primal Kitchen Foods Chocolate Coconut Collagen Fuel
• 1 tbsp cacao powder…and totally optional but so delicious to add a few drops of peppermint extract for a minty hot cocoa!

What are the breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert must-haves that everyone should have in their pantry? And how do you use them?

I’m huge on the smoothie routine and that’s such an easy one to keep stocked in your pantry. For smoothies, I always have Primal Kitchen Collagen Fuel in both chocolate and vanilla, chia seeds, and a few different types of nut butters. Plus, some spices and flavors to change things up, like cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla extract, and peppermint extract. Then I keep some greens and sliced bananas in the freezer, and I’m all set for any smoothie!

For lunch, I love having SafeCatch tuna in my pantry so that even when the fridge is a little bit bare, I can whip up my Lemon Tuna Salad for a quick and healthy lunch. You can easily turn this into a wrap too with the coconut wraps on Thrive!

When it comes to pantry staples for dinner, I always keep some canned coconut milk in the pantry to stir into cauliflower rice or to make an easy curry. Another thing I always have on hand is marinara sauce—I love that Thrive Market has a bunch of brands that don’t add sugar or unnecessary ingredients to their sauces. I’ll use the marinara in a Bolognese sauce or put it in the Instant Pot with some chicken and then shred it up to serve with zoodles. Of course, it’s always nice to have some beans, lentils, grains, and healthier pastas in the pantry if you’re in a pinch and need a more substantial side dish.

My number one dessert staple is Hu Kitchen chocolate—my addiction! I also love Thrive Market brand chocolate that’s sweetened with coconut sugar. Simple Mills crunchy cookies, coconut macaroons, Four Sigmatic hot cacao mix, and Eating Evolved caramel sea salt coconut butter cups are all on rotation, as well.

Food cravings—we all experience them. How do you balance your food cravings with intuitive, conscious indulgences?

I absolutely love this question and this is something I really try to teach my 1:1 nutrition clients. I think it’s so important to satisfy our cravings rather than deprive ourselves, because deprivation never ends well! We have to learn to “upgrade” our cravings with healthier options and focus on making mindful, conscious choices the majority of the time, so it leaves us some wiggle room for treating ourselves to our favorite things! I always keep healthy products stocked at home and keep my cooking and meals pretty nutrient-rich and fresh during the week. That way I can treat myself to my favorite pasta when I go out to dinner with my husband on the weekends, or splurge on that cookie from my favorite bakery. I actually have a whole blog post about mindfully indulging (without the guilt)!

What are your favorite healthy alternatives to food cravings?

I love how cauliflower has become this magical vegetable that can literally turn into anything. If you’re craving pasta, try cauliflower gnocchi. Want to make some taco bowls? Use cauliflower rice and taco seasoning for the base! In the mood for mashed potatoes? Here’s a recipe for cauliflower “mashed potatoes”. If you’re trying to watch your carbs but you’re craving a cozy oatmeal breakfast, you can make Cinnamon Vanilla N’Oatmeal (I swear you can’t taste the cauliflower!). The possibilities are endless!

It’s amazing that there are so many new brands coming out now that help us satisfy cravings in a healthy, upgraded way. I’ve always been a cereal girl (who isn’t!?), and now I can have that with Thrive Market Coconut Flakes or Purely Elizabeth’s grain-free granola, which is the most addicting thing ever—just a warning! There are healthy alternatives for everything—tortillas, pizza, English muffins, pasta, you name it!

Of course, my favorite healthy alternatives for my cravings are all of the chocolate bars that are lightly sweetened with coconut sugar. Now I can have half of a chocolate bar and feel completely satisfied after dinner, but I’ve only had 7 grams of sugar. That’s less than most protein bars out there! There are so many awesome alternatives that we don’t really have to miss out on the foods that we love.

You develop such fun and creative recipes. Take Cauliflower N’Oatmeal as the perfect example—it’s a total breakfast gamechanger. How does your knowledge and formal training as a nutritionist inform your recipes?

We’re so on the same page with the N’Oatmeal! It’s really all about the ingredients for me. I spend a lot of time working with clients to teach them what to look out for—added sugars, artificial ingredients, etc—and showing them better alternatives. I take the same approach with my recipes! If there’s something on a menu at a restaurant that I’m really craving but don’t love the ingredients in it, I’ll go home and test it out with real, whole ingredients that I know will make me (and my clients, and anyone else making it) feel great!

With things like the N’Oatmeal recipe, that came out of me craving a warm bowl of oatmeal, but knowing that when I eat oatmeal in the morning, I’m a bit lethargic and feel hungry again in two hours. So I try to think of what I can swap to turn it into a meal that will give me energy and keep me full. I’ve learned how different foods can truly impact our energy level, mood, bloating, and weight, and I always consider that when I’m creating my recipes!

What made you switch to online grocery shopping? How has Thrive Market changed the way you shop?

It was really the discounted pricing on my favorite products that drew me in, but the convenience definitely keeps me around! It’s amazing how easy Thrive Market has made it to order high-quality products online, and all of the information that I’m constantly looking for when I’m grocery shopping (nutrition facts, ingredients, etc) is so accessible. It’s definitely made me more efficient and allows me to constantly have a healthy, stocked pantry (and freezer, too, with the meat & seafood).

What is your #1 tip for shopping success on Thrive Market?

Start with your favorite brands and products, and then make sure to explore the “Shop by Diet” tab. I love scrolling through the paleo options to find new products and get inspired to try new things. That’s how I found the Thrive Market Goods Coconut Flakes cereal—one of my faves! Also, check out other bloggers’ Favorites pages for more ideas!