15 Easy Diabetes-Friendly Recipes for Busy Days

Diabetes-friendly cooking on a busy day is less about recipes than about a ratio: half the plate vegetables, a quarter protein, a quarter grain.

Every meal below follows it, takes roughly half an hour, and uses ordinary kitchen staples.

1. Moong dal khichdi with double the usual dal and a fistful of beans
2. Vegetable oats upma with peanuts stirred through
3. Besan chilla with grated carrot and onion
4. Sprouts salad with lemon, onion and chaat masala
5. Paneer bhurji with one roti
6. Rajma with a small katori of rice
7. Egg curry with lauki sabzi
8. Curd rice made with more curd than rice
9. Chana sundal — boiled, tempered, done
10. Palak dal with a spoon of ghee
11. Soya chunk pulao, heavy on the vegetables
12. Mixed vegetable sambar over two idlis rather than four
13. Grilled or tawa fish with cabbage poriyal
14. Stuffed methi paratha, one, with curd
15. Vegetable dalia with peas and carrot

Two habits matter more than the recipe list. Cook the protein first, so it does not become the thing you skip when you are tired. And keep something boiled in the fridge — chana, rajma, eggs — so the fast option is also the good one.