At the beginning of January, I did the Daniel Diet for 21 days. From this experience, I have created a Daniel Diet Menu sharing what meals I made throughout this time.
Some of you may have heard of the Daniel fast, which is based on the Biblical character, Daniel, who limited himself from certain food types for 21 days and focused mainly on eating natural foods, with no additives, or no choice foods as The Bible describes it.
Over time, different variations of the Daniel fast have developed, with some incorporating fish into it, whilst some maintain the original no animal-sourced foods. To see an extensive list of foods accepted generally on the Daniel fast/ diet, click here.
Typically, I am a meat-eater. However, on this 3-week diet, I discovered the variety of non-meat tasty meals there are and actually became creative with the meals I made. I didn’t miss meat as much as I thought I would have. You can make some of the best meals with simple ingredients if you get creative.
Healthy eating doesn’t have to be bland or expensive. It can be cheap and cheerful. This article suggests a daniel diet menu with 7 easy meal ideas I tried in the 21 days. A few of these recipes are the same ingredients but switched around to create different meals. Be creative!
Fried Salmon With Brown Rice Pasta
Refined foods are one of the main foods excluded from the daniel diet. So I used brown rice pasta as an alternative to white rice pasta or wheat pasta. Brown rice pasta is much more nutritious than white pasta or white rice pasta. But it is also still filling; don’t let the fine strands fool you!
For this dish, the salmon was seasoned with coarse salt and coarse pepper and fried using olive oil (as plant-based oils are permitted on the daniel diet/fast). It is then decorated with onions and peppers. You can choose to add other vegetables with this dish as you see fit! Rice Pasta, vermicelli, is super easy to make- just boil a kettle and pour the hot water on top of the rice pasta in a bowl or pot with a lid for a few minutes. Vermecitti rice pasta is so fine in texture that it is easy to get to soften, compared to white rice pasta that needs to be cooked on the stove thoroughly.
Smoked Salmon and Brown Rice Pasta with Mixed Veg
This stirfry dish uses brown rice pasta and smoked salmon. It also includes mixed veg such as broccoli, avocado, aubergines, and of course, as usual, I’ve used onions and sweet peppers as a base.
Potato and Tuna and Tomato
Who doesn’t love a good baked potato? Coupled with tuna, tomatoes, and broccoli, this meal was the most filling meal out of all the ones I tried during this 21 day period. As you can probably tell from the pic, I mashed the potatoes up with the tuna and rest of the meal to fuse and better blend the flavours together and it went down a treat!
Quinua and Smoked Salmon Tomato Bolognaise
Quinua is another great healthy alternative to white rice and pasta. Just as filling but with more nutritious value. For this meal, I used blended tomatoes to create a bolognese type sauce, with salt, pepper, mixed herb seasoning and laid it over with the good ol’ smoked salmon. With all these meals, you can, of course add seasoning as you prefer.
Lentil Stew and Quinua
Lentil Stew is one of my favourite healthy meals! You can see the full recipe to this dish here. I chose to pair my lentil stew with quinoa for this particular dish, but of course, rice pasta or brown rice are just as worthy alternatives.
Brown Rice and Cod with Tomato
This is one of my favourite dishes on my Daniel diet menu. Brown rice typically takes longer to cook than white rice, but as we know, it has so much more nutritious value. I seasoned the fish with the usual salt, pepper, and mixed herbs with onions and sweet peppers. Once cooked through, I added the blended tomatoes to create a sauce to add extra flavour.
Veg Stirfry
Stirfries are classic and an easy way to make a meal. I made a veg stirfry on this daniel diet and threw in a range of veggies, including broccoli, cauliflower, aubergines, sweet peppers and anything else I thought would be eligible for this! Brown vermicelli rice pasta was, of course, my go-to for this stirfry dish.
I hope this Daniel Diet Menu has inspired you to try different healthy foods and introduce healthy ingredients into your food. If you’ve done the daniel diet, please feel free to comment on other meals you’ve tried. If you do try any of these meals, please let me know what you thought and share pictures too!
