Healthy Cooking Tips

Cooking Healthy with Our Healthy Cooking Guide

Here are some more healthy cooking tips you can use to make sure you are cooking healthy when throwing together meals with our healthy cooking guide.

In our healthy eating guidelines page, I got you started with knowing what it means to eat healthy. Now, on this page, I take it a step further. I hope you find it helpful...

Healthy Cooking Food Prep Tips

Choose the most low fat meat options you can, or get rid of the meat before cooking. Look for meats without a lot of visible fat or marbling, or with the labels of "loin" or "round". Though fatty meats taste better, they're not as good for you. Buy tuna in water, rather than oil. When you get meat home, cut off any visible fat. For poultry, remove the skin and underlying fat tissue before cooking.

Focus on cooking techniques that use little or no fat. Baking and grilling are great healthy cooking methods. Broiling, poaching, and steaming are good too. If you do cook on top of the stove to pan broil or stir fry, use a nonstick pan and cooking spray, rather than butter or oil. If you must use oil, make it olive oil.

Go easy on the salt. Personally, I don't like to cook without salt, but I only use it sparingly and I almost never salt things at the table. Also, rinsing canned beans and vegetables will remove much of the salt. You can also look for reduced sodium (salt) canned products.

Cut down on the amount of meat you use in recipes. I find that recipes usually call for more meat than is really necessary. Try halving it or at least cutting it by 2/3. You'll still have enough to add flavor, but will reduce fat and cholesterol. Cutting the meat into tinier pieces makes it spread around more too.

Healthy Cooking Tips for Substitutions

Sometimes, you can improve the healthiness of the food you're cooking by making a substitution of ingredients. Here are some suggestions...

Swap out ground beef or pork for ground turkey or chicken (or even veggie crumbles, a vegetarian alternative made from soy). It will taste a bit different, but you can use beef broth to boost the beef flavor if you really miss it. This works well when you're making casseroles, soups, sloppy joes, etc.

Use turkey bacon or sausage rather than the pork varieties. Lean smoked ham is also a lower fat alternative to bacon and will have some of the same flavor.

Use plain yogurt in place of sour cream. It won't taste quite the same, but it's generally close enough, and much healthier.

Instead of whole milk or cream in soups and sauces, use skim (fat-free) milk, buttermilk or evaporated fat-free milk. OK, it won't taste as rich, but just think how much better it is for you!

Healthy Cooking Guide for Adding Flavor

One of the best ways to enjoy healthy cooking is to make your food flavorful. That's what my approach is all about. But many people think the key to making things taste better is adding fat (butter) or salt. Trust me, that's not the answer...

Learn to use herbs, spices and other low fat/low salt seasonings. If you don't know which herbs to pick, check out my page on herbs and spices. Experimentation is a good way to learn what works too. The key is often to mix two or more herbs together in one dish. You can buy some dried herb mixtures, such as Montreal steak seasoning, Italian seasoning, Cajun seasoning, pumpkin pie spice, lemon pepper, etc.

Add some zest to vegetables and other dishes with citrus. Lemon, lime and orange zest/peel can really jazz up a dish, giving it freshness and that little something extra. Or, just use a dash of lemon or lime juice.

Make friends with the onion family. Onion products can add a lot of flavor to meals, sauces, and salad dressings. You don't have to just stick with plain old garlic and the stolid yellow onion, though I think they're great. Try these alternatives:

• Scallions, or green onions
• Shallots
• Leeks
• Red onions
• Vidalia (sweet) onions
• Pearl onions

Each type has a slightly different flavor and aroma. With garlic, try rubbing a cut clove on your dish, mincing it vs. chopping it, or roasting it. Each method will yield different results. Experiment.

Add sauces that are high on flavor and low on fat. You'll have a number of different choices, including:

• Salsa - store bought or homemade
• Bottled pepper sauces, salsa verde
• Mustards of all varieties
• Chutneys
• Flavored vinegars

Use a pungent cheese to add a punch of flavor. Blue cheese, feta cheese, Parmesan, cheddar cheese, and goat cheese can all be added in just a sprinkling for a bold accent.

So, are you starting to see from these healthy cooking tips that healthy cooking isn't really all that hard to achieve? Great!

So, go ahead and start exploring the site to find lots of recipes that capitalize on these principles...