It can be challenging to find tasty, healthy meals when you’re watching your weight. That’s why we compiled this great list of easy Under 500 Calorie Meals for you!
These healthy dinners are all under 500 calories per serving, but still taste great! You’ll find light pastas, cozy soups, fun dinners like tacos, and so much more.
All of these family friendly, 500 calorie dinner ideas taste great, while still being light and healthy. Cook your way through all, we’re sure many will find their way into your regular rotation. Enjoy!
Under 500 Calorie Dinner Ideas
1. Meatball Minestrone Soup (498 calories per serving)
This bowl of Meatball Minestrone Soup is a huge upgrade over the famous Olive Garden Minestrone soup.
It retains the rich classic Italian flavors jam packed with veggies, beans and pasta in heavily seasoned tomato broth.
2. Louisiana Style Red Beans and Rice (325 calories)
Beans and rice are a staple cheap dinner option. This Louisiana style red beans and rice recipes takes the flavors to a whole new level!
It’s surely one of our favorite 500 calorie meals!
3. Barbacoa Beef Lettuce Wraps (480 calories)
Barbacoa Beef Lettuce Wraps! If you’re craving some Chipotle any night, you don’t have to go to a take out place. It’s extremely easy to create the same bold flavors in your very own home with this easy barbacoa lettuce wrap recipe.
Mix some ingredients, throw them in the crockpot along with meat and wait a few hours. You end up with tender, flavorful meat. Shred it and load those greens.
4. Chicken Cacciatore (391 calories)
This classic rustic Italian dish is extremely flavorful. Chicken thighs are cooked to fall off the bone tender low and slow along with onions, tomatoes, Italian fresh herbs, vegetables, and wine.
Your whole family is going to love this delicious Italian meal.
5. Mushroom Stroganoff (344 calories)
This easy Mushroom Stroganoff is a lighter and healthier take on your traditional beef stroganoff. It’s also super quick, and super tasty!
With just a handful of basic ingredients, you can have this meatless pasta dinner on the table in under half an hour. Great weeknight dinner option!
6. Smoked Salmon Flatbread (438 calories)
This smoked salmon flatbread is super quick, like 15 minutes quick, and makes a great lunch, light dinner or party appetizer.
With cold smoked salmon, cream cheese, capers and dill, it’s a great flavor combo.
7. Ground Turkey Stuffed Peppers (353 calories)
These easy Ground Turkey Stuffed Peppers are a hit! Brimming with Mediterranean flavors, even your picky eaters won’t mind their veggies.
With hearty wild rice, sweet cherry tomatoes, briny olives, nutty pine nuts, and plenty of great seasonings, they’re going to be one of your go-to 500 calorie meals.
8. Hungarian Goulash (435 calories)
Try our Hungarian Goulash recipe, which you will fall in love with its lovely flavors and hearty ingredients.
This rich and delicious soup is one of a kind, and makes an amazing comfort food for winter nights. Give it a try, we bet you’ll love it!
9. Mediterranean Pasta (302 calories)
Mediterranean Pasta is your new weeknight best friend. It’s super quick, like 20 minutes quick, and has great flavors the whole family will enjoy.
10. Kedjenou Chicken (483 calories)
Kedjenou is a beloved stew in the Ivory Coast. It’s so simple, yet so spectacularly tasty. Do you want it spicy? Oh, I will show you how to make it spicy!
11. Ground Turkey Pasta Bake (410 calories)
This easy Ground Turkey Pasta Bake is total comfort food that will be loved by the whole family. It’s a great healthy pasta dinner idea with lean meat and hidden veggies.
12. Fasolada (476 calories)
Fasolada… The “mother of all” Greek comfort foods in a bowl. This is one bowl that the generations of Greeks grew up with on cool winter nights… A perfect winter warmer!
This rustic, robust, healthy & homely white bean soup is simmered with aromatics and herbs. But the real magic happens when it gets enriched with a good drizzle of olive oil in the end.
13. Blackened Shrimp and Grits (446 calories)
Shrimp and grits is a Lowcountry southern classic. This recipe featured Cajun spiced shrimp atop a bed of creamy grits.
It’s so decadent that you’ll be amazed that it’s under 500 calories!
14. Salmon Rice Bowl (415 calories)
This Salmon Rice Bowl is a great way to use leftovers, and it only takes moments to prepare.
If you have some leftover salmon and rice in the fridge, this is the best and easiest way to repurpose it for a quick lunch.
15. Chicken Jollof Rice (444 calories)
Chicken Jollof Rice is a colorful and tasty one pot meal that is a West African classic. Simple preparation, then in the oven it goes.
Impress your guests with this easy and exotic treat!
16. Chicken Lettuce Wraps (318 calories)
These super tasty lettuce wraps are a great light meal. They’re low in carbs and have only 318 calories per serving. Plus, they’re super quick and easy.
Perfect weeknight option!
17. Chili Lime Shrimp Tacos (373 calories)
How about some Taco Time? Chili Lime Shrimp Tacos with Mango Salsa… Sweet and savory, these tacos are so tasty you will want to go back for seconds, maybe thirds!
And they are so quick, they just might become a weeknight staple. Whenever you see a mango, think about these colorful tacos!
18. Mediterranean Zucchini Boats (438 calories)
Zucchini boats are a cute and creative way to make zucchini, and we’re starting off this list with these Mediterranean zucchini boats.
They’re stuffed with a flavorful, yet low-carb filling, and they aren’t just healthy – they’re gorgeous!
As an extra bonus, you don’t bake them, so no heating up the kitchen!
19. Scallop Pasta with Cherry Tomatoes (341 calories)
This Scallop Pasta with Cherry Tomatoes is one of our favorite under 500 calorie meals. It’s super quick and easy, in about 20 minutes you have a restaurant quality meal on your table.
20. Vietnamese Chicken Salad (469 calories)
Guys, jazz up your boring chicken salad with this Vietnamese Chicken Salad!
You are going to enjoy every bite of this fresh, vibrant, and extremely flavorful salad, and the Nuoc Cham dressing makes it absolutely phenomenal.
It is going to be your family’s most loved salad ever.
21. Vegetarian Black Bean Chili (298 calories)
Quick, easy, healthy… this vegetarian black bean chili, based on Panera’s black bean soup, whips up in half hour or less.
With less than 300 calories per serving, you can even afford a piece of cornbread on the side!
22. Chicken Provençal (350 calories)
Here’s an amazing recipe all the way from the South of France.
Beautiful golden brown chicken thighs braised in white wine, nestled between eye catching olives, plump cherry tomatoes, oh-so French shallots, tangy capers and plenty of garlic and herbs.
Life can’t be more beautiful!
23. Welsh Rarebit (421 calories)
This British classic will be a staple in your kitchen. Breakfast? Snack? Dinner? You are all set if you have this pile of cheesy sauce over toast.
24. Mexican Meatball Soup (336 calories)
Albondigas Soup is everything you dream about in the perfect soup. This Mexican delight is loaded with veggies, spices, herbs, and albondigas meatballs all together making this soup a super hit.
When you want a light and comforting meal, give this amazing soup recipe a definite try.
25. Shrimp Foil Packs (319 calories)
These Shrimp Foil Packets are a delicious healthy meal with all your favorite veggies.
Ready in just 12 minutes on your grill or even in the oven, this is great make ahead option.
26. Mediterranean Chicken Skillet (387 calories)
Juicy, tender chicken thighs infused with fresh Med flavors coming from olives and artichokes, lemons and burst cherry tomatoes. This is a one skillet meal from stovetop-to oven-to table.
You can’t beat the ease and convenience of this one pot meal, as you literally throw everything in a skillet and let the oven do the work for most of the cook time.
27. Pesto Pasta (423 calories)
Pesto Pasta is a light and fresh Italian dish with a beautiful sauce. It’s great with other add ins like veggies and proteins. Today we’re going with cherry tomatoes and asparagus.
28. Egg Roll Soup (431 calories)
This Egg Roll Soup is everything you dream about in your beloved egg roll, but in a cozy, delicious soupified way.
When craving for that favorite Asian appetizer without wrapping and frying, here is a healthy sub for your egg roll fix.
29. Hawaiian Pineapple Fried Rice (376 calories)
Now, this Hawaiian Pineapple Fried Rice is brimming with delicious flavors, and it is super fun to make.
You will relish each and every bite of this gorgeous dish, as it is loaded with sweet, savory, and umami flavors and amazing ingredients.
Get ready to experience an amazing bowl of tropical fried rice…
30. Ham Bone Soup (373 calories)
Put your holiday leftovers to good use with this Ham Bone Soup. It’s a hearty slow cooker meal loaded with veggies and great flavors!
So there you go, thirty great Under 500 Calorie Meals for you to cook. Who says healthy can’t be tasty? The only question now is, which to try first?
Check out these other great recipe collections!
Healthy Dinner Ideas
Chicken Breast Recipes
Air Fryer Recipes
Meal Prep Recipes
Vegetable Recipes
Zucchini Recipes
Quinoa Recipes
Fish Recipes
30 BEST 500 Calorie Meals
This collection of easy Under 500 Calorie Meals will help you eat healthy, while still enjoying delicious food! We love this simple mushroom stroganoff:
Ingredients
- 2 Tbsp Butter
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 16oz mushrooms, sliced
- 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 2 Tbsp flour
- 2 cups vegetable or beef stock
- 1 Tbsp worcestershire sauce
- 1 Tbsp dijon mustard
- 3/4 cup sour cream
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 8oz egg noodles
- Parsley, for garnish
Instructions
- Cook noodles according to directions on package.
- Melt butter in a skillet over medium high heat. Add onions and mushrooms and sauté until soft, about 6-8 minutes.
- Add in garlic and stir for a minute, then stir in flour.
- Stir in stock, worcestershire sauce and dijon mustard. Simmer for about five minutes.
- Fold in sour cream. Once nicely mixed, stir in noodles and garnish with chopped fresh parsley.
Welcome to GypsyPlate! I'm Alpana, former wordwide tour manager and professional caterer, now full time blogger. I love exploring cuisines from around the world, and my recipes have been featured on sites such as MSN, Parade, Brit + Co, CNET and AOL. You can explore my entire collection of sortable recipes in my Recipe Index or learn more about me here.
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