We continue our celebrations of Nutrition Month this week with a special guide to cooking light. Based on years of experience with many recipes, these are our 10 best tips for lightening cooking. Which tip do you like best? Which tip would you like to try? These are low-fat egg roll images.
1. Low in fat. Do not just use your cooking oils as is. Oils are VERY calorie dense. To further reduce fat, use a nonstick skillet. You have the option of “oven-frying”, which is lightly spraying food with cooking oil spray, and baking at a higher temperature to crisp and cook your product simultaneously.
2. Be very gentle with the cheese. Choose small quantities of flavorful cheeses such as Romano or Parmesan. Use fat-free ricotta in place of regular ricotta cheese.
3. Limit your intake of lean meat to a small amount. Replace high-fat products like sausage and ground meat with lower-fat options like ground turkey. All of these are healthy choices, including fish, seafood, white meat poultry, and white chicken without skin.
4. Emphasize vegetables. You should use meat as a flavoring agent or side dish and not as the main course. MyPlate recommends that half of your plate be filled with fruits and vegetables at every meal.
5. Whole grains are better. Whole grain pasta and brown rice are better than their refined counterparts. Whole grains are richer in fiber and nutrients.
6. Low-fat salads are a good option. Salads are filling and low in calories. A study showed that people eat more calories if they eat a large low-fat salad before eating.
7. Instead of cream, use broth. Broth is a great sauce for pasta. For more flavor, add basil, thyme and rosemary.
8. Take it easy with the bread. Bread is high in calories and can be easy to overeat. At dinner, choose small rolls over whole loaves. Sandwiches should only contain one slice of bread.
9. Serve fruit for dessert. Don’t bake calorie-laden desserts and keep them around the house. Instead, serve fresh fruit as dessert or snacks.
10. You can control how much pasta you eat. For small pastas like elbow macaroni or shells, spirals and wagon wheels, penne, bowties etc., 2 ounces uncooked pasta equals 1/2 cup dried pasta and just under 1/2 cup cooked pasta. For long pastas such as angel hair, vermicelli and linguine like spaghetti, angel hair, vermicelli and linguine 2 ounces of pasta is equal to 1/2 cup dry pasta and 1 c. of cooked pasta.
