Go-to Whole30 breakfast, lunch and dinner ideas + tips for doing a Whole30 with your husband!

In January 2018, my husband and I completed our first Whole30 together. For me, the new diet wasn’t much of a change. I already maintained a relatively “clean eating” lifestyle. For my husband, it was a very different story.

I don’t think he knew that cauliflower rice was even a thing people ate. Much less voluntarily.

I asked him at least ten separate times if he was SURE he wanted to do this. I even emailed him a PDF of the rules. Did he really understand that he couldn’t have beer? Or cheese?

If this sounds like your story, hi! Welcome! You two can do this! Today I’m sharing our go-to breakfasts, lunches and dinners and talk about how we navigated Whole30 together!

Doing a Whole30 with your spouse is so much fun. There were several days, especially towards the end, when we both wanted to quit but kept at it because we were in it together.

My personal favorite was this text from our third week when my husband was at a catered work lunch:

By the way…can I get in on a catered work lunch that has FOUR TYPES OF CHEESECAKE?!

During Whole30, we ate our own breakfasts, but lunches and dinners were usually similar. Until my husband declared that he actually hated cauliflower rice and he’d prefer it if he never ate it again in his life.

Below is our go-to meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, along with tweaks we made to cater it to our personal likes and dislikes!

Breakfasts

The first week, I made a veggie breakfast casserole for the two of us to have each morning with half an avocado.

I was so over the breakfast casserole by day three.

Apparently men can eat the same thing every day and not care, so my husband took one for the team and ate that darn casserole through the weekend to finish it.

The remaining three weeks, we had some variation of this breakfast tray bake. On Sunday afternoon, I would throw together one baking sheet with potatoes, bell pepper and onion for my husband, and one baking sheet with a wider selection of vegetables for me. Each morning we would pair our roasted veggies with eggs and a healthy fat. I switched up how the eggs were cooked to keep things from getting boring (hard boiled, scrambled, and over medium).

On weekends we tried to do something different, so I would usually pick up ground pork for homemade breakfast sausage, chorizo, or sugar-free bacon. We loved to make these breakfast potatoes, fry up some eggs and have some fruit with it.

Lastly, for days when I wanted something different, I would have this monkey salad. I had it about twice a week through the four weeks of Whole30. Husband did not eat this.

Whole30 Coffee Routine

The essentials:

• NutPods Vanilla Creamer (Whole30 approved)
• This $8 tool to make your coffee frothy
• Vital Proteins Collagen

At first I thought NutPods was expensive, but when you think about how much you’re not buying iced coffees and creamy lattes at Starbucks, it’s really a wash. I also usually only put a splash in, so I only used two of the four containers during my four weeks.

Lunches

To avoid hours of meal prepping on Sunday and to maintain my sanity, lunches were usually (but not always) leftovers.

My biggest tip for avoiding food boredom when having leftovers: switch up the base.

If you have shredded chicken taco bowls for dinner, try throwing the shredded chicken on a salad for lunch the next day. If you have chili for dinner, try serving it over zucchini or sweet potato noodles for lunch the next day. This makes it feel like you’re having a different meal.

For non-leftover lunches, I loved tuna or chicken salad in a hollowed out bell pepper, or simply an “everything but the kitchen sink” salad to help use up odds and ends at the end of the week.

Man approved non-leftover lunches include Applegate Hot Dogs and Whole30 compliant chicken sausage. Always with a side of veggies (even if it was carrots dipped in Primal Kitchen ranch and some almonds).

Dinners

Most days, our dinners were identical. Sometimes my husband would add olives as his fat (I am not and olive person) and I would stick with avocado. I loved adding cauliflower rice for bulk and my husband would have none of it. If I was cooking a tray bake with a vegetable he didn’t like (cauliflower or cabbage), I would simply throw some frozen broccoli or chop up a few red potatoes and throw them on the tray for him. Problem solved.

We cooked a lot from the Whole30 Fast & Easy Cookbook and those recipes were loved by both of us! Here are some of our favorite dinners from Whole30 (all of these we made more than once, which is how they earn the “favorite” title).

• Every Tuesday was taco Tuesday to make things easier for meal planning. Each week we would have taco seasoned grass fed ground beef or salsa chicken and pair it with cauliflower rice, pico de gallo, guac, cilantro, and other taco toppings.
• Savory Turkey Burgers – Always paired with baked sweet potato fries and a homemade chipotle mayo sauce for dipping.
• Sweet Potato Shrimp Pad Thai – Ok, not sure if this was a fave for my husband but I thought it was out of this world. If you’re into Thai, you gotta try it.
• Paleo Turkey Chili – Served over spiralized zucchini one night and sweet potato noodles for lunch the next day. I liked it better over the sweet potato noodles!
• German Tray Bake – Whole30 compliant smoked sausage, red potatoes and cabbage with a garlick-y dijon dressing. This is something we still make even after Whole30! The recipe is from the Fast & Easy Cookbook.

Tips For Making It Work

Inevitably, your Whole30 experience as a couple will not be identical. You have different tastes in food and different goals- it’s only natural that you each have your own unique 30-day journey.

On day 4, my husband accidentally ate some peanuts. He texted me proudly that he had read the label and found that the only ingredients were peanuts and sea salt. If you’re not familiar with Whole30, peanuts aren’t allowed on the program since they’re a legume. He was upset with himself for not knowing, but moved on. If the same had happened to me, there’s a good chance I would have started over (as the program says you’re supposed to).

See how our approach is different? There will be situations like this that you face with your husband. My biggest piece of advice is to remember that you each have your own goals. 

My husband’s main goal was to cut out sodas, become more knowledgeable about food and overall eat healthier. Since I was already a healthy eater, my goals included kicking my sugar dragon in the face and working on my relationship with food. I (to my knowledge) 100% did not mess up during my Whole30. Not a single crumb. At first it frustrated me when my husband didn’t live and breathe read every word of the rules, but I reminded myself that he was doing Whole30 for a different reason, and if his peanuts had palm oil, well, in his mind it was better than snacking on Doritos.

Other Tips

• Be flexible and respect what the other person likes or doesn’t like. For me, this meant not serving my husband cauliflower rice even if I thought it tasted just fine.
• Remember the two of you may eat a different amount (My meals were usually bigger than my husband’s as I was working out 5-6 days a week)
• Aim to please both parties. As the grocery shopper of the house, I made it a point to get Whole30 snacks, dressings, etc. that I knew my husband would like. I bought him compliant jerky and nuts for snacks, Primal Kitchen ranch, and Tessamae’s BBQ sauce.
• My favorite tip from my aunt: “Just serve it!” The first time I made cauliflower fried rice (before my husband decided he hated it), I didn’t say a word. Husband ate said cauliflower fried rice, thought it was delicious, and that was that! Haha.

Whew! That wraps it up! Do you have any tips for doing a Whole30 with your significant other? Share them below!