fancypants meals

At some point during your Whole30, you’re probably going to want to entertain. Maybe it’s your turn to cook a family dinner, or there’s a birthday smack in the middle of your Whole30, or maybe you just want to silence family and friends who keep saying, “You can’t eat anything! You must feel so deprived. I could never eat like that.”

Whatever the reason, we’ve got you covered.

Each of these fancypants meals are complete, start to finish—your main course, plus side dishes. (Some even have appetizers.) We’ll give you a game plan for each one, helping you figure out prepping and planning so you’re not ignoring your guests, distracted by a smoking frying pan.

Unless you’re an experienced cook, we recommend saving these meals until you’re a week or two into your Whole30, and have some experience planning, prepping, and cooking several dishes at once. However, don’t wait too long! Pulling off a meal like this will boost your kitchen confidence, and assure your loved ones that no, you’re not starving, deprived, or miserable while on the Whole30.

In fact, if you didn’t tell your guests you just served them a Whole30 meal, we doubt anyone would even notice—which might open the door to conversations like, “Did you like it? Oh, it was delicious, was it? Well guess what? That entire meal was Whole30. So now that you know the food is amazing and understand that you’re not deprived in any way. What’s stopping you from trying it, Mom?”

Sharing the Good Food word via sneak attack is a totally valid strategy in our book.