Jenna Dewan’s delicious go-to meals make me want to step up my cooking game

Actress Jenna Dewan is the first to admit that she has done a lot of out-there things in the name of wellness. “Juice cleanses, colonics, charcoal rinses…I’ve done it all,” she says. Dewan—who announced in September that she’s pregnant—writes about the parts of wellness that actually resonated with her in her new book, Gracefully You: Finding Beauty and Balance in the Everyday. The book is full of tips on how to use everything from mantras to movement to connect with your deeper self and to feel more balanced.

Of course part of feeling balanced is eating in a way that makes you feel nourished. For Dewan, this means following the 80/20 diet, an eating plan that’s defined by eating healthy 80 percent of the time and in a more “anything goes” way 20 percent of the time. “I’ve tried a lot of different eating plans, and this is the one that works for me,” Dewan says.

Here’s a peek at the plant-forward meals that Jenna Dewan typically eats in a day.

Breakfast

“Every day, I wake up and make a Glowing Green smoothie, using nutritionist Kimberly Snyder‘s recipe,” Dewan says. “I met Kimberly about seven years ago and have been making these green smoothies pretty much every day since. It’s made with spinach, romaine, celery, apple, and pear, so it’s loaded with really good fiber.”

“Every once in a while, instead of the smoothie I’ll have a sprouted grain cereal, adding raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries on top,” she adds. “It’s really crunchy and satisfying.”

Workout schedule: “My workout schedule varies depending on my schedule and if I’m preparing for a role, shoot, or something else coming up,” she says. “For the most part, I work out three or four times a week. My go-to workout is Pilates, which has really strengthened and toned by body in a way that makes me feel stronger than when I was dancing for ten hours a day. I also like cardio yoga. Sometimes, I work out with my trainer when I need to bulk up to get my muscles a little bigger. I get bored easily with workouts so I like to switch it up.”

Lunch

“I’ll either have a big lunch and small dinner, or a small dinner and big lunch—depending on if I have a work meeting or not, and how my body is feeling. If I have two big meals, my body just doesn’t feel good,” Dewan says. “Typically for lunch I’ll have a grain bowl, made with quinoa, black beans, tomatoes, cucumber, and heart of palm—or honestly whatever veggies are in my fridge at the time. I’ll have some tortilla chips on the side, too. There’s a chipotle sauce I like to buy from Whole Foods that’s a little spicy and hot, so I like to add that on top with some lemon juice, salt, and pepper. I love dishes that have some kick to it.”

Dinner

“For dinner, if I want something heartier, I like to make brown rice pasta with roasted tomato sauce or pesto. Sometimes I just want pasta,” Dewan says. (Same.) “I’m part-Lebanese and I also really like making kabuli [a type of rice pilaf popular in Afghanistan] and tabbouleh [a Middle Eastern grain and vegetable salad]. I make tabbouleh with quinoa, parsley, mint, tomato, onion, olive oil, and lemon juice. I’ll take warm pita bread and put tabbouleh, hummus, and tahini in there. I also love rice, so I do a lot of rice dishes, adding a lot of vegetables in them. That’s a really good meal for me.”

However, you won’t see dessert on her plate. “I don’t have a sweet tooth so I’m not a big dessert person,” Dewan says. “But I love salty snacks. If I had to choose between a piece of cake or French fries, I’d be like, ‘give me all the fries.'” Girl after my own heart, TBH.

Want to feel like Jenna Dewan’s backup dancer? Try this full-body six-move toning workout. Plus, her tip for covering dark under-eye circles.