There are three basic ways to clip the calories from a recipe:
- Substitute lower calorie ingredients for high calorie ingredients.
- Dilute high calorie ingredients by adding a variety of lower calorie ingredients.
- Change the way the food is prepared – either by using a low calorie cooking method, or completely revamping the means to a particular end result.
Yet another way to manage high calorie foods and situations is to develop your portion awareness and control. We all know that sometimes tasty foods just must not be altered; we’ve all suffered through a tasteless non-fat cheese or a mealy light cookie. In these instances, savoring small portions of richer high-calorie foods may be your best option.
What is Substitution and How Is it Done?
This is the easiest place to begin the transformation. Choosing lower fat versions of similar ingredients often works well. Remember that fat carries flavor, so when you reduce the fat in a recipe, you may have to increase the spices to keep the recipe flavorful.
Here is a great chart of substitutions from the NHLBI (National Heart Lung and Blood Institute)
What is Dilution and How Is it Done?
Here are a few ideas on how to dilute the calories in a recipe by adding low calorie foods:
- Add shredded carrots to your favorite chili recipe.
- Use fat-free yogurt for all or some of the sour cream in a dip or other recipe.
- Replace some or all of the ground beef with textured vegetable protein in a recipe.
- Throw banana and apples into your morning hot or cold cereal.
- Replace a portion of the higher fat item in the substitution chart with a lower fat version suggested.
- Always ask yourself how you can squeeze some fruit or vegetable into a recipe.
Recipe Transformations
Sometimes substitution or dilution just isn’t going to cut it as far as reducing calories in a recipe and maintaining the quality of the end product. Here are some ideas of how recipes are transformed:
Look for a lower calorie cooking method. Here are some examples:
- “Oven frying” chicken or potatoes, a method of simulating the deep-fried experience.
- Steaming rather than sautéing in butter.
- Choosing low calorie liquids for braising meats.
- Change the way a sauce is thickened. Rather than the traditional butter-flour (roux) method, trying cornstarch or other means of thickening can work well.
- Completely rework the ingredients and methods you use to achieve the end product (sorry! sometimes it's your only alternative!).
When you get into altering the essence of a recipe, unexpected results are more the norm more than the exception. Remember there are many passionate home cooks and expert chefs doing this work for you. Check back here to see recipe transformation, and to submit your own recipes for me to work on. By staying in touch here, exploring the other healthy cooking sites, and cultivating other favorite sources on the net and elsewhere, you can develop a great repertoire of tasty calorie conscious options.
