It’s not always easy to eat healthy when all of the “bad” food tastes so good. Things get even more difficult when the holidays come along and you want to enjoy your family’s favorite dishes without ruining your hopes of leading a healthier life.
So what do you do? Skip out on the family dinners altogether and FaceTime yourself to the dinner table? Or bring a bowl of veggies while everyone else eats the mac and cheese in your face? Or, do you look for ways to make grandma’s peach cobbler taste the same with a lot less sugar and fat?
If the last option sounds good to you, then read on for more than a dozen ways to make your classic dishes healthier and still delicious.
1. Maple Syrup Instead of Sugar
You can use maple syrup to replace the sugar in your drinks, oatmeal, and smoothies, or even to glaze a ham for your holiday dinner. One tablespoon of maple sugar contains about 12 calories while one tablespoon of white sugar has 48. Because maple is a bit sweeter than white sugar, a little can go a long way.
2. Almond or Peanut Flour Instead of White Flour
White flour is ultra-processed and can cause problems for people with a sensitivity to gluten. If you want to prepare pan- or oven-fried fish, chicken or pork, you can turn to nut-based flour. Try peanut or almond flour. Peanut flour will even crisp up a bit more and give your meal an extra boost of protein.
3. Egg Whites Instead of Whole Eggs to Reduce Cholesterol
Egg whites can be used to replace whole eggs for breakfast and even in your favorite baked sweets. Follow the instructions on your egg white carton to get the measurements just right. You’ll knock out cholesterol and saturated fat from your dish in the process.
RELATED: 3 Easy Swaps for a Healthier Heart
4. Fat-Free Yogurt Instead of Sour Cream
For recipes that call for sour cream, you can save yourself 360 calories per cup by using fat-free plain yogurt instead. Typically, sour cream is used for texture, so the yogurt can do the same thing without the fat.
5. Panko Instead of Bread Crumb Topping
Bread crumbs are a staple for adding crunch to casseroles and baked savory dishes. But that crunch comes at the price of high carbs and calories. You can reduce those and get more crunch with Japanese panko. These crumbs even pack in more fiber than your average regular bread crumbs.
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6. Zucchini Noodles Instead of Flour-Based Pasta
Zucchini noodles or “zoodles” are an amazing replacement for pasta in most of your favorite pasta dishes. First of all, zucchini is a green vegetable full of antioxidants, electrolytes, and fiber. All of this comes at only 30 calories a cup, compared to 210 calories per cup of typical pasta. Just remember to cook them on a low heat to maintain the right density in your new pasta.
7. Unsweetened Applesauce for Butter in Baked Goods
Butter makes everything taste amazing and keeps your favorite recipes from drying out. However, overindulging in butter can lead to heart disease, high cholesterol, and obesity. So, this replacement can literally save your life! Use unsweetened applesauce to save over 1,000 calories per cup of butter in your baked goods without drying out your favorite sweets.
8. Cauliflower for Mashed “Potatoes”
This is a great swap for your comfort food cravings. You can still have your favorite creamy and hearty mashed dish but with far fewer calories and carbs. Using cauliflower in place of potatoes in your mashed potato recipe can save you 100 calories per cup and almost 30 grams of carbs. Not to mention you’ll get a healthy boost of vitamins and fiber from this swap.
9. Chicken Broth Instead of Oil
We use oil in many of our recipes to keep food juicy and to protect our pans. But why add calories and fat to your meals if you don’t have to? Many basic recipes like sautéed veggies can be made even more flavorful by using chicken or vegetable broth in place of oil. Your veggies won’t dry out and they won’t stick to the pan, and now you can skip the empty calories in the process.
10. Switch to Lean Meats
This is an obvious update to our meals that people tend to overlook. Any recipe that calls for beef, pork, chicken, and just about any meat you can think of, can be made with lean versions of those meats. Lean meats have far less fat than the regular cuts and therefore will greatly reduce the calories in your main dishes.
11. Use Rolled Oats Instead of Breadcrumbs
Even the most classic recipes like meatballs and meatloaf can get a bit healthier with a simple swap. To keep your meatloaf and meatballs from falling apart, you can use rolled oats in place of breadcrumbs. Rolled oats have 1/3 the calories of breadcrumbs, and 30% fewer carbs. This swap will also add some fiber to your classic dish and your family won’t notice the difference.
RELATED: Cutting Carbs? Try These Veggie Swaps to Fill Your Plate
12. Black Beans Instead of Flour for Brownies
Because everyone loves brownies, this healthy swap is specific to this ooey-gooey chocolatey dessert. To keep that moist and hearty consistency that you crave in any good brownie recipe, you can replace white flour with black beans. It sounds crazy but popping dried black beans into a food processor turns them into the same consistency as flour with far fewer calories, and carbs, and a lot more fiber. This works best with rich chocolate recipes because the rich chocolate flavor will erase the minor black bean flavor. Don’t knock it till you try it!
13. Himalayan Salt Instead of Table Salt
Salt is almost essential for flavoring just about everything, but too much of it can lead to hypertension and put you at an increased risk of stroke. Thus, any way to maintain flavor while cutting back on sodium is a welcome change to any meal.
For this recipe swap, all you have to do is replace your everyday table salt with Himalayan salt. Per teaspoon, Himalayan salt contains a bit less sodium than table salt. So this doesn’t mean you should use more, rather over time if you make the change to Himalayan salt, you will consume less sodium than by using table salt. Give it a try and see if you notice the difference.
14. Fresh Fruit Over Canned Fruit
It may not be surprising to learn that using a fresh ingredient is healthier than its canned version. A lot of dessert recipes call for canned fruit in heavy syrup for added sweetness. But fruit is pretty sweet, and you can likely do without the added calories from the heavy syrup. The next time you need to buy canned fruit, consider buying fresh fruit, or at a minimum, the canned variety with the fruit in its own juice or water.
Sharita Jennings is a fitness and travel enthusiast and creator of Get Fit Like That, LLC. She is a health policy attorney and ACE certified group fitness instructor and fitness nutrition specialist. She provides online fitness plans and leads group fitness classes in Washington DC. Check out her fitness tips and workouts at GetFitLikeThat.com.
