Bulking out Meals?

zippychick

ive merged this with our thread on bulking out so you can see how others do it.

Adding veg will add healthy touch to any meal

Devious ideas for hiding veggies will also help

Zip

Popperwell

For the first time in my life I have purcased some Quorn!!! I'll see what I can do with that and some couscous...

zippychick

We have a quorn mince thread

Cooking with quorn

Zip

Catt_of_the_Garage

RedLass: a few thoughts:

Fry chopped veg along with your onions instead of adding afterwards. This adds a lot of flavour. Especially important with carrots and celery but will help with any veg. Also means carrots won't take so long to soften.

Try frying your mince for longer, until it's very well browned - even a little black at the edges. This will up the meaty flavour. Don't worry if it sticks to the pan, the liquid in the sauce will lift it off again.

Tinned tomatoes are always sour and sometimes bland (esp if cheap). I add a pinch of salt and big pinch of sugar any time I add a tin of tomatoes. If they are bland, I also add some vinegar to up the acidity. Lemon juice works too. Same goes for passata.

Don't add water, add stock.

Marmite and soy sauce are both very good for increasing meaty flavour - but add a little at a time as they can both add a beery taste if you overdo it.

Garlic is great for depth of flavour. Don't fry with the onions (it burns) - crush it in just before you add the sauce.

Basically, you need to keep the balance the same as you bulk out the jarred sauce. Good jarred sauce is just cooked tomatoes, garlic, salt and sugar, and maybe some herbs. Cheap jarred sauce is the same but they stretch the tomatoes (with thickeners and water) and use a mix of acid, salt and sugar to make the tomato flavour go further without tasting bland. You can do the same stretching trick if you get the balace of acid, sugar and salt right - but because you're stretching with tinned toms, your final product is much better food. And if you get really good at it, you won't need to use the jarred sauce at all!

Catt_of_the_Garage

famousexcuse: has the doctor given any diet advice?

My only experience in "bulking" food is feeding toddlers - official advice for children under 5 is actually that they should get plenty of fat - full-fat milk, cheese, dairy products. Sounds like that would just make them flabby but given a reasonable amount of protein in the diet and a lot of exercise, they convert that fat into muscle very effectively!

Certainly if you are looking at upping calories, fat goes into storage more readily than sugar - which will tend to give you a "sugar rush" during which you burn some of it off. Also it makes your blood sugar fluctuate which can cause periods of tiredness.

So getting more fat into your diet - I suppose just reverse weight-loss advice! Leave the fat on the bacon, fry rather than grill, ask your butcher to make the mince a bit less lean (Or buy your mince in Tesco :rolleyes: ). Give him full-fat milk. And while you're doing all this, make sure he's getting his GDA of protein and enough exercise to make use of it. There's no point giving an excess of protein, the body will just discard it unless you're doing extreme exercise - in which case you need even more calories!

Edit to add that white sauce is very fattening. And put cheese on everything. And I agree with the poster above about lots of potatoes, pasta etc. as well as the fat.

jen1301

So..after unexpected expense this month we're skint till payday on fri.

Would have usually gone shopping yesterday but all week I've been trying to just use up what we've already got. Its done the freezer good actually, It's about ready for defrosting!

So i was going to do chicken curry tonight, just a jar out of the cupboard.

Just realised we've only one chicken breast left in the freezer. Do you think chucking a can of peas and carrots in would be ok to help bulk it out?

Or any other ideas?

Thanks

aneres

That would be fine. I often add a couple of handfuls of mixed veg in to my curries, chillies or bolognese.

HeadAboveWater

If you were vegetarian you'd be bulking it out will all manner of vegetables so go for it!

aliama

When we use jars of sauce we ALWAYS add veg to them, partly to bulk it out and partly because I get a bit twitchy if there aren't enough vegetables in my dinner. I'd also add an onion or two, and I'd also suggest adding some lentils if you have any (dried or tinned) for a bit of extra protein.

redfox

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