500 Calorie Dinner Recipes

Looking to eat more healthily this year? These 20 easy dinners are all under 500 calories per portion, but are packed with flavour, family friendly (no more cooking separate meals) and won’t leave you hungry, either!

Being a food blogger and staying slim is a tough gig! I am constantly taste-testing and photographing new recipes and looking at pictures of food on social media! In fact, trying to ensure I didn’t end up the size of a house was a big reason why I decided to focus on (mainly healthy) weeknight dinners here on Easy Peasy Foodie.

I have to eat dinner anyway, right? So I do all my taste-testing and most of my photography at dinner time, then I can just eat the food I’ve made without piling on the pounds!

Easy Dinners Under 500 Calories

The other trick I’ve found helpful, in my quest to stay slim, is to keep my portion sizes sensible. The NHS recommends a woman should have about 2000 calories per day to maintain her weight, so I try to eat 500 calories for breakfast, 500 calories for lunch and 500 calories for dinner – that keeps me from feeling hungry during the day and gives me a few calories leftover for healthy snacks and the occasional glass of wine!

To achieve this, my usual breakfast is a large bowl of muesli and milk. Lunch is generally leftovers from the previous evening’s healthy dinner or, if there are no leftovers, two slices of granary toast with marmite, a small piece of cheese and an apple. And dinner is either a new recipe I am testing or one of my existing Easy Midweek Meals.

To help you (and me!) to know which of my easy dinner recipes are under 500 calories per portion, I’ve compiled this list of 20 Easy Dinners Under 500 Calories…

Summer Dinner Recipes Under 500 Calories

I hope you enjoyed this roundup and have found lots of new favourites 😀 If you have tried and enjoyed any of these recipes I’d love to hear about it! Either let me know in the comments below, or snap a quick photo and share it on social media. Tag me @ and I’ll like and comment on as many as I see!

Have you got your hands on a copy of my meal plan yet? If not CLICK HERE to download a copy of my FREE 4 Week Easy Dinners Meal Plan today!

* Nutrition advice is approximate and meant as a guideline only. I have done my very best to ensure nutrition information is as accurate as I can make it, however there will obviously be some variation depending on the exact ingredients you use.

My 7 Day Indian Meal Prep

I am a food blogger NOT a nutritional health professional, so while I do try to make (mostly) healthy recipes, none of this should be read as professional advice about weight loss!You’ll love these 500 calorie meals that are healthy, satisfying, and delicious. Choose from easy sheet pan meals (my personal favorite!), skillet and stir-fry meals, one-pot meals, vegetarian meals, and more! All of the recipes are gluten-free.

All these gluten-free recipes are 500 calories or less, and most contain 20-30+ grams of protein. They are perfect for lunch or easy dinners. Or breakfast if you prefer to start your day with a savory meal. I’ve tried to focus on easy, simple recipes featuring lean protein, fresh vegetables, and gluten-free whole grains.

Depending on your health goals (sustainable weight loss vs. weight maintenance) and overall daily calorie intake, you may enjoy the recipes as is or round out your meal with a side salad, whole gluten-free grains, or fresh fruit and still have room to satisfy your sweet tooth with a post-dinner healthy treat!

The Best 500 Calorie Meals

Yes-for most people. While everyone’s calorie needs are different, for someone consuming a calorie range of 1500-2000 calories/day, a 500 calorie meal will help promote weight loss (if desired). In addition, a well-balanced 500 calorie meal should also provide optimal protein to prevent loss of muscle mass, enough calories to help fill you up, and a wide variety of micronutrients for optimal health benefits.

No. While 500 calories are suitable for a meal, it’s considered a very-low-calorie diet, and I do not recommend cutting calories below 1200-1500/day for most people. While you may lose weight quickly, it’s hard to sustain a diet of fewer than 1200 calories per day (hello, hangry!)

It’s also hard to consume enough protein and macronutrients at this level. And, without adequate protein, you’ll lose lean body mass, which can slow your metabolism. Read: How to Boost Your Metabolism.

Top Seven 500 Calorie Meals Bowls

Absolutely! If you are trying time-restricted eating or intermittent fasting (i.e. 16:8 fasting) and eat 3 meals/day, 500 calories/meal is a good goal to aim for to support weight loss-again, if that is your goal. If you eat more than 1500 calories per day, research suggests eating more calories earlier in the day may be better for weight loss and metabolic health, and may help with appetite reduction. (1, 2, 3)

In addition, if you have heartburn, eating a smaller meal at dinner, and at least 2-3 hours before bedtime can help with reflux.

But, I wouldn’t stress out about it too much. If you’re eating half (or more) of your daily calories at dinner, I suggest adding more calories to breakfast and lunch, gradually cutting back on dinner calories, and assessing your health parameters and how your feel.

Fast Dinner Recipes — All Under 500 Calories

Check out all the 500 calorie meals recipe categories & descriptions below, including calorie count information. I’m sharing links to the individual recipes, or jump to the bottom of this post and download all the recipes in a cookbook! If you’re using a calorie tracker like My Fitness Pal or Chronometer, all nutrition information is provided for each recipe in the ebook.

You’ll love this free recipe book featuring all 40 easy, healthy, and delicious 500 calorie (or less!) meals including sheet pan recipe, skillet meals, vegetarian entrees, and more! Click the link below to instantly download the book!

Let’s Chat! Which of these 500 Calorie Meals will you make first??? If you enjoyed this post, please pin it or share it on social media, or share it with your family and friends. And, be sure to sign up for my newsletter, Delicious News, to get new recipes, integrative nutrition news, free meal plans, and more delivered straight to your inbox. Thanks so much for your support!

Ten Chicken Dinners Under 500 Calories

EA Stewart, MBA, RD is an integrative registered dietitian specializing in wellness nutrition, digestive health, autoimmune disease, brain health, and vibrant aging. She creates easy, plant-forward gluten-free recipes for a wide variety of diets including low FODMAP, Mediterranean, and more.These 21+ Meals Under 500 Calories are all hearty, healthy meals, with many high in protein — they will keep you going all day long!

I have been working really hard to add nutrition information to a lot of my recipes. Mostly the dinner and breakfast recipes, as dessert is usually a splurge and not an everyday thing (unless it is, and that’s okay, too!).

If you had asked me a few months ago, you’d know that I never had any intentions to add calorie counts to my recipes.

Under 500 Calorie Meals For Dinner Or Lunch

Not because they’re not healthy, but because it’s so easy for calorie calculators to be wrong. All brands of products are slightly different, and a lot of ingredients I don’t weigh, which makes it even more difficult. I don’t feel it’s realistic for me to give you a recipe that requires 468 grams of chicken breast — it makes more sense for me to ask for 2 chicken breasts, but 2 chicken breasts can vary greatly in size and calories.

I want you to keep that in mind as we go from here — all of my calorie counts were calculated using the My Fitness Pal Recipe Calorie Calculator (which is free for anyone to use!), and I’ve done my best to ensure they’re accurate. But they will still vary slightly for everybody.

If you have a condition that requires you to know exactly what you are eating, you will want to do your own calculations using your own preferred brand of ingredients. The nutrition information is only to be used as a guide.

Filling Low Calorie Meals That Fill You Up (with Calories Included)

I want you to know that I generally take my health and nutrition pretty seriously. I feel like most people who browse my recipe index would assume otherwise — when what comes up is pastas, and cheesy skillet dinners, and burritos.

However, I have done a lot of research about nutrition in my day. For a couple years before I had my first child, I was fascinated with it. I subscribed to all kinds of health and fitness magazines, and I counted calories.

These days, I focus on making healthier swaps so that I can eat the food I want to eat. I don’t count calories. I don’t deprive myself. I work out so I can eat cookies. And that’s what you’ll see here.

Meal Prep Recipes For Weight Loss

I don’t do kale chips, or salad, or just generally a lot of green things (though I do love a good mint chocolate cookie 😉 ). I confess — as I’ve confessed before — I am a picky eater.

So what