I recently heard from someone who was very interested in the Nutrisystem diet, but she worried that she wouldn’t be able to prepare many of the foods because she didn’t have a microwave. In the following article, I’ll look at some of the preparation methods of some of the more popular breakfast, lunch, and dinner meals on Nutrisystem to see if a microwave is actually necessary.
The Breakfast And Snacks: Of all of the food options, the breakfast and snacks are the least likely to need any preparation. The cereals only require your adding milk or fruit. The muffins, scones, and bars are ready to eat. You can eat the cinnamon roll right out of the box too, although it’s really good when warm. The pancakes do require some preparation but they can be prepared with a pan on the stove top. Even the egg frittata is made my adding hot water.
Nutrisystem Lunch Preparation: Unlike the breakfasts, many of these meals must be prepared and warmed up. Although there are some ready to eat bars, most items like the soups, stir fry dishes, hot dog, and pastas will need to be warmed. And although a microwave would make easy work of this, you can also accomplish this using hot water. This is probably easiest to accomplish with a stove, but in a pinch, a hot plate would work.
For example, dishes like the sausage and rice and cheese tortellini can be prepared by adding boiling water to the product, stirring, and simmering. The hot dog is quick and easy to heat up in a microwave but you can also make it like your mother probably used to – by cooking it in water brought to a roiling boil. And, you can prepare the soups and other lunch items in the same way. Yes, it will take a bit longer, but it certainly can be done and many people prepare it in this way.
Dinner Preparation: Some of the more popular dinner items can be prepared in a regular or toaster oven (like the pizza.) Many of the pasta type foods (like the lasagne, chicken and dumplings, and macaroni and cheese) can also be prepared with boiling water. You can even use this method with the new wraps like the bar-b-que pork and buffalo chicken.
The bottom line here is that a microwave can make Nutrisystem preparation easier and faster, but it’s not required. Most of the time, you can use the boiling water method accomplished with a stove or hot plate. (I’ve even heard of people using water from a coffee maker or the hot setting on a water cooler.) Plus, some of the foods can be reheated in an over or toaster over.