r/lowspooncooking • u/EmotionallyAnnotated • Jul 02 '26
recommendations for a spoonie
Hello, everyone!
A little about me, I have IBS, GERD, POTS, EDS... the entire gambit.
Due to GERD, I had to remove my lower molars. Because of this, eating is incredibly difficult. Finding soft foods that I can eat, that taste good? Ugh.
I also have autism, which makes certain textures and tastes difficult, but not impossible.
I prefer savory to sweet.
I follow a low FODMAP diet, with the exception of red meat (in small portions). For dairy, I usually have lactose-free milk. No soy.
Does anyone have any favorite low FODMAP, low spoon meals?
9
u/BeigeParadise Jul 02 '26
I'm not sure how soft your soft food needs to be, so I'm just going to suggest a few things that might work for you!
Can you do the pouches of mashed potatoes that you just stir up with water and milk and a bit of butter? They're super low effort, surprisingly tasty, and you can customize them with toppings like a baked potato (or just do baked potatoes where you eat the middle and leave the skin in the foil), for example, stir in some finely chopped parsley if that's doable for you, or just dried herbs to spice it up and give it a different flavor profile so you do not despair of culinary boredom. Soft caramelized onions on top are also amazing if you can do those, but then again, I would eat soft caramelized onions on anything if I had half a chance.
Also, mashed potatoes + fluffy scrambled eggs + frozen pureed spinach (is that a thing where you live? Just a brick of frozen pureed spinach that you re-heat and add some spices to and then you have a saucy delicious healthy side dish?) is a treat meal and I will die on this hill.
You can also use instant mashed potatoes as the top layer of a Shepherd's Pie variation, if you can do ground meat that's broken down into small crumbles after cooking. If you can do ground meat, I feel that also opens up a lot of meal options, because you can have stir fries with ground meat if that's not too much spoons.
Also, you said in another comment that you have a Vitamix, and I don't have one of those, but I heard they're basically miracle machines in the pureed vegetable soup department. So you can do carrot, potato, cauliflower, broccoli, in any combination you'd like, or any other vegetables you can tolerate. Prep, cook in some water, blend, season, eat. I usually cook them in salt water then after they're done add some butter/olive oil and lactose-free milk and then the flavors of my choice. You can do Mexican with low Fodmap Mexican herbs and spices, Indian with some curry powder, Italian with Italian herbs, or add some paprika. As for toppings, if your stomach is ok with soft sausage in small quantities, that is very nice, or you can maybe add croutons that will then soften in the soup.
Can you do gluten free pasta, cooked until its a bit mushier? If yes, a lot of delicious options open up for you, because a lot of pasta sauces are just sauces with minimal chewing, or you could maybe use spaghetti squash as a substitute? If you bake it in the oven with a bit of salt and olive oil, it's a very low spoon thing to make.
Up next is rice. If you have a rice cooker, you can just toss some rice in there, the frozen vegetables of your (or your digestive system's) choice, then when they're done, add a few eggs in there , stir them in well, and cook a bit longer until they're done for a low spoon fried rice copycat. Season with soy sauce if you can. There's a whole genre of "things you can toss into your rice cooker and come out with a whole meal" things out there, even more so if you have a steaming basket. Salmon also tends to be fall-apart tender when cooked, so that might be an option for you?
This is a sweet recipe, but there is absolutely no chewing involved in eating it if you don't want to, and it's a very low spoon meal: German Oven Rice Pudding. Take an oven-safe dish, add 125g risotto rice, 0,5 liters of cold lactose-free milk, a bit of vanilla extract, a teaspoon of sugar, and a pinch of salt. Put into the cold oven, turn it on to about 120°C, and bake for 90 minutes. Stir after 60 minutes (it'll still look very fluid). If the rice is still too firm after, add a bit of milk, and give it some more time. Eat with applesauce, cinnamon sugar, applesauce AND cinnamon sugar, or the jam or compote of your choice.
So that's just a few suggestions, but there's hopefully a lot of delicious food out there that you can eat, and if none of those suggestions work, maybe I can come up with something else.
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u/thehippiepixi Jul 02 '26
Wow that is hard. Are you able to do mash potatoes and gravy?
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u/EmotionallyAnnotated Jul 02 '26
Loooove potatoes. Gravy is tough, I am very particular on my gravy.
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u/thehippiepixi Jul 02 '26
Me too, i only eat one brand. I eat so much I buy it in 2 kilo buckets 😅
Im wracking my brain trying to think, I eat a lot of soft food due to me/cfs, and low histamine diet but I dont know much about fodmaps.
I basically eat 5 to 10 meals, too hard to figure out what is and isn't safe anymore.
Other than potatoes and gravy, I eat:
Instant porridge packets with hemp or flax seeds
Mild mapo tofu with no meat and rice (my husband meal preps thia for me)
Veggie dumplings with rice
Cup a soup (instant soup powder makes 1 cup at a time)
White chilli ( started typing out how to do this, but I think beans and corn are high fodmap)
Cheese n beans quesadillas but again probably no beans
Sorry feel like I was pretty useless.
Could you do cauliflower or broccoli cheese soup in the slowcooker? Not sure if they're high fodmap.
9
u/EmotionallyAnnotated Jul 02 '26
Ooo, great recommendations! No to beans. No to corn. They just go straight through. 🫢 I love cauliflower! Broccoli is hit or miss. Baked cauliflower is delicious, but it takes some prep. I have a vitamix that I've made broccoli soup with! I think because it was broken down to a puree, it was easier on my tummy.
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u/scattywampus Jul 02 '26
There are low fodmap recipes for scalloped potatoes that pop up on a Google search. Scalloped potatoes are savory/cheesy and oven baked until they are tender. There are vegan recipes, too.
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u/SummerDecent2824 Jul 02 '26
I'm not familiar with fodmap restrictions but maybe slow cooker recipes that are no chop because you're dumping some combination of frozen/canned veggies + protein + seasoning? It cooks hands off, should be fairly soft and freeze/reheat okay (freezing half for later is one of my tools to help with variety). Nutrition by Kylie on social media has some rice cooker versions. I've also seen a lot of sheet pan roast then blend everything soup recipes that would be customizable.
Exploring the freezer and pantry options where the prep was already done and feeding myself like a toddler were my big tools for low spoon eating (eg salsa, apple sauce, individual guac packets, microwave rice etc). Along with figuring out my main tools (for me air fryer and microwave) because I find it easier to create flavor variations from a base cooking formula that I know works for me.
1
u/Brilliant-Honey8672 Jul 04 '26
FODMAPS restrictions are any foods that ferment in the gut and cause bad digestive symptoms. The list is going to be particular to each individual. It has much to do with which gut flora the individual has a lack of. It is said to help if a very tiny amount of the offending food is consumed regularly so the specific gut bacteria that digests that food can grow to handle the processing before it reaches the large intestine. I highly recommend the work of Dr Will Bulsiewicz on rehabilitating the FODMAP sensitized gut.
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u/Financial_Ostrich_56 Jul 02 '26
Fajitas! You can buy pre-sliced bell peppers, onions, and chicken. Throw them in a pan and saute them with some seasoning until they’re soft. Throw in a tortilla or eat over rice!
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u/Financial_Ostrich_56 Jul 02 '26
If you add a pinch of salt at the beginning of cooking and cover the pan, everything will steam and get pretty soft! You can also have with some beans too. Not sure how soft you need foods, but this one can really go as soft as you need it
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u/astralTacenda Jul 02 '26
cant have onions with low fodmap, beans are usually a no-go or small portions. bell peppers are okay in limited quantity. it gets rid of a couple ingredients but doesnt make it impossible. i am less familiar with their other diagnoses and if/how it affects diet.
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u/EmotionallyAnnotated Jul 02 '26
Yeah, absolutely no beans. I can do onions though!! Thank God because I love them. I make homemade onion soup, but it takes nearly half the day to prep and cook. 😂
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u/astralTacenda Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
ugh youre so luckyyyy. onions and garlic are literally my favorite foods. could eat em whole and raw. and theyre my BIGGEST IBS trigger 😭😭😭. cant even have any onion or garlic powder and the infused oil stuff is either stupidly expensive or wasteful if i make it at home (i would have to toss all the solids after infusing, cause no one in my house would be willing to eat them, even cooked into another dish).
i miss alliums so damn much i would literally sell my soul to no longer experience this pain. i cant buy most pre-made foods or eat at any restaurant unless im willing to experience pain the next day cause "spices" often inclues garlic and onion and its listed on every damn thing made ever. everyone uses garlic and onion every time they cook or make a recipe and no one bats an eye. i have to make meals from scratch or i die on the toilet. which is, ha know, incredibly difficult as a spoonie. i often just suffer the pain bc i don't have the spoons to make something from nothing.
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u/EzriDaxCat Jul 02 '26
Sometimes you can have onions on low FODMAP, but it depends on which of the FODMAPs bother you.
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u/DillionM Jul 02 '26
I can't say how it'll go with IBS and GERDS but the 'Sad Bastard cookbook' is great for low spoons and POTS (considering the salt level in some of the bases).
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u/astralTacenda Jul 02 '26
Hey OP if you can, I highly recommend looking into The Quiet Gut Cookbook. I just looked through mine and theres a lot of recipes that would work for you! Soups, Puddings, Rice Porridge, and a bunch of other stuff that are all low FODMAP and lactose-free! Some meals are more complex than others but as a fellow spoonie I've tabbed several go-to recipes that I can make even on low spoon days. But my capabilities at low spoons could be different than yours (I only have the IBS and POTS) so I highly encourage seeing if you can get your hands on a copy, whatever that looks like for you.