Lighten Up Recipes

Tip of the Day:

It’s easy to lighten up many recipes simply by substituting some ingredients. Recipes that call for greasing baking dishes and pans can be sprayed with cooking oil. In fact, instead of pouring a shot of olive oil to boiling water for pasta, use olive oil cooking spray, 2 squirts work well.

Many salad dressings now come in reduced fat or fat free… try them… find ones that you like… it saves tons on fat and calories.

I use Egg Beaters (egg substitute) in many recipes that call for eggs. My meatball recipe (see my previous post under “Italian” works just as well with egg substitute than with eggs.

I often substitute fat free (skim) milk in many recipes that call for milk… I just use a little more thickening agent (flour or cornstarch…depending on what the recipe calls for)… you can easily use 1% or 2% milk also.

I rarely fry with oil… sometimes it’s necessary… especially when butter is in the recipe… because of the flavor… BUT… you can use butter flavor cooking spray instead… if the flavor still doesn’t have enough butter flavor, try using some Butter Buds… they add flavor without all the fat and calories.

If you’re looking to cut fat in your diet… but still want an ice cream now and then… try non-fat frozen yogurts… they are delicious… or fruit sorbet… I especially like sorbet… it has such a strong fruit flavor with no fat.

I almost always use frozen vegetables instead of canned… frozen don’t have all the salt and additives that canned vegetables do.

And finally… lower fat cheeses have come a long way since they first came out. There are 2% milk fat shredded cheeses that you can use to make cheese sauces… and use fat free milk … and a once fat laden heavy meal is now a light one… and very tasty too!