Healthy Eating Great Picnic Meals for Pre-Dialysis CKD

With the aromas of barbecues in the air in the summer, it’s time to get ready for another great picnic. Even if you have chronic kidney disease (CKD) and your doctor / dietitian gave you pre-dialysis nutritional guidelines to follow, you can still make this next picnic a memorable one.

The primary considerations are that your foods are low protein and low sodium, both easily achievable – and good-tasting as well. Read on for some gourmet menu ideas that will more than satisfy your taste buds and create a little wonder and amazement at what you’re eating from everyone else at the picnic.

Gourmet Burgers Spice Up Any Picnic!

What’s a picnic without burgers? Make up your own with these two sample recipes. The yield allows for others at the picnic to sample them, too!

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What About Other Picnic Foods?

Since the average white hamburger bun contains 200 mg sodium, you can opt to go even more gourmet than just with the burgers. Simply wrap your cooked burger in lettuce leaves. It’s what some fine restaurants do! Add pineapple tomato salsa on top of the burger if you would like even more of a burst of flavor.

One thing that makes picnics great is many different foods to choose from. When you have CKD, your variety means lots of vegetable and fruit dishes, which are naturally low in sodium. By adding passionate flavors that delight and excite the taste buds to these foods, your picnic guests will look at their own food as boring!

Here are some ideas on how to mix different flavors together in vegetable and fruit dishes:

Apple-Cherry-Coconut- Celery-Fennel Salad

Mix the following ingredients: 1 diced apple, 1 cup pitted cherries, ½ cup coconut flakes (unsweetened), ½ cup diced celery, and ½ cup diced fennel bulb. Sprinkle the juice of one lemon on top. Mix thoroughly and refrigerate ‘til picnic time.

Zucchini-Baby Corns-Baby Lentils-Cherry Tomato Salad

Mix the following ingredients together: 1 diced zucchini, 1 can baby corns drained and rinsed well to cut down on sodium, 2/3 cup baby lentils already cooked, 12 cherry tomatoes, juice of one lime, ½ cup balsamic vinegar, and ¼ cup oil. Refrigerate so flavors will mingle.

Sauerkraut-Rice-Hot Pepper Salad

Mix the following ingredients: 1 cup low-sodium sauerkraut purchased in the refrigerated section at the grocery store, 2 cups steamed short-grain rice, and 2 mild to hot chili peppers that have been de-seeded and diced. Refrigerate so that flavors will mix overnight.

Hot peppers contain capsaicin, excellent for heart health. The sauerkraut lowers the Glycemic Index of the meal so that just in case you cheat with a dessert you shouldn’t have, the damage won’t be so bad. Sauerkraut also is full of probiotics that help your digestive system as well.

Learn more about recipes for every day meals using our predialysis meal plan and know what to do for your entire day.  We have recipes that are made for dinner, and options for the entire day of meals. Click here and learn more about our pre-dialysis meal planning.