10 Tips for making recipes healthier
You've got a goal! You want to lose weight and maybe look and feel better in the process. You've also got a recipe you want to eat, standing in the way of meeting your goals. What can you do?
The following are ten ways you can take just about any recipe and make it: lower in fat, lower in calories or lower in sodium (without sacrificing a lot of flavor). Armed with this knowledge no recipe, no matter how much butter it calls for, is beyond your reach.
Good luck with you goals, now get to cooking!
Tip 1: Cut down on the cooking fats
A lot of recipes call for ingredients to be cooked in butter or oil. This is great for the flavor and texture of whatever is being cooked, but it doesn't exactly help the figure. If you are using nonstick pans, for most recipes you can halve the amount of cooking fats needed and still get good results. You may have to stir the food a bit more to keep it from burning, but that shouldn't be a big concern compared to the health benefits.
Tip 2: Add more veggies
Most dishes, and certainly most courses, are a combination of a meat, a starch and some vegetables. Do your best to maximize the amount of vegetables and when possible, make dishes that let you mix your meat and vegetables (stir fries and fajitas, for instance). That way everyone can still feel full with veggies instead of meat.
Tip 3: Lose the variety (except when it would violate Tip 2)
Whenever possible, try to keep variety out of your dishes (except when it comes to vegetables). If you make a dish that has several types of protein, say beef and chicken together, it will encourage everyone to eat more so that they can get their fill of both ingredients. Keep it simple... but not boring!
Tip 4: Protein makes you feel full
Despite Tip 2, when you are trying to eat healthy, keep some meat on the menu because protein will make you feel full quicker. However, try to substitute lean meats whenever possible. For instance, substitute steaks with another red meat. Try ground white turkey instead of ground hamburger. Next time take the skin off your chicken to make it a healthier meal. Just remember, whatever you do, leave some meat in the recipe.
Tip 5: Roux is not your weight loss buddy
Roux is a mixture of butter (fat) and flour (unprocessed carbs). It's used as a thickener and it's just not healthy. For recipes that call for roux, omit it and add a slurry (a mixture of equal parts cornstarch and water) when the sauce needs thickening.
Tip 6: Don't cook with sugar
If you can avoid it, don't add sugar to non-baking recipes. For baking, there are some sugar substitutes, but the best solution is moderation. If you take sugar in your tea, switch to honey or agave. If you are making a sauce, try adding honey or orange juice, which has naturally occurring fructose.
Tip 7: Don't forget your broiler
A lot of recipes try to replace frying with baking, especially when it comes to things like fried chicken. However, most of the time this is a poor substitute. If you want something to be crispy, try broiling it for a few minutes. You will have to experiment with each dish to get it right, but you can get reasonably crispy chicken and fish sticks with a broiler.
Tip 8: Avoid unnecessary calorie sources
A lot of recipes have ingredients that serve a purpose, but do nothing to add flavor. A good example are bread crumbs (which are great for texture but don't pack a lot of taste). Unless you are sure that an ingredient will affect the taste of the dish, consider striking it. Now, you cannot always do this, but a lot of times leaving out a few small ingredients can add up big in the end.
Tip 9: Bacon is your friend
No, really! Think about how powerful bacon's flavor is. Just a few drops of bacon drippings packs way more flavor than the best olive oil or a big pat of butter. Therefore, if you want to add a lot of flavor to a dish, replace all the bad fats with vegetable oil and add a teaspoon of bacon grease (especially a smoky bacon) and see what it does to your dish.
Tip 10: If all else fails, cut down on the portions
Most recipes say they yield enough to serve four, but could just as easily serve eight or more. If you can't do anything else, make the recipe as is and then give each person a half serving of the unhealthy dish and a double helping of vegetables on the side.
Bonus Tip: Your oven fries aren't fooling anyone
As a bonus tip that applies more to meal planning than recipe modification, there are times when healthying up a dish just isn't worth it. If you are jonesing for french fries, don't try to bake fries in the oven. If a dish would be healthy except one not-so-good-for-you component, go ahead and eat it in moderation. The key being moderation. It will work out better in the end because you will cure your craving and not go wild.
