What are some easy tasty and healthy meals?

Goldiegirl

The thing to remember is, any meal is as healthy as the ingredients you put in it.

For example - jacket potato and baked beans
Tinned beans have lots of salt and sugar in them
Better - use reduced sugar and salt beans
Even better - make your own baked beans with something like tinned cannellini beans and passata. There's loads of recipes for this on the web - just be careful of the salt content of the passata.


Homemade soup.
If you use a stock cube as a base, this will be very high in salt.
Better - use a reduced salt stock cube
Even better -a very low salt stock cube from a brand like Kallo


Meat - anything processed like sausages or bacon will be high in fat and salt. Lean meats like chicken breast tend to be more healthy.



You can make most recipes healthy with care and attention

Newly_retired

With pasta eg penne pasta I like to stir in some salmon, can be freshly cooked, or smoked or tinned, and brocoli. Takes no time to prepare, a few minutes to cook, healthy and tasty. Add butter, if you wish, and black pepper.

cashmonger

yes I really like soup and tradiitonal type english meals. Just havent perfected my stews/soups. I found Id rely on fatty meats like ham to make up the flavour. It was horrible to clean the contianers when you would see a huge cake of fat on the edges when it gets cold. I just imagine it does the same to one's arteries.

I am not against fats, but only good fats. I love lots of olive oil. Cheese is high in saturated fat and besides that it gives me spots.

I can look up specific recipes once I get some inspiration. and so far I will try the pasta and breadcrumb idea (nice touch adding the fried bits of bread woudlnt have thunk of that one) and some stew. Though recomednations welcome on how to flavour up the stews without using fatty meat. I like them in theory but they would always end up just like a mass of watery vegetables so I gave up.

TO add one to the mix I found out about sojme american military recipe which they call 'sos'. Which is just white sauce without cheese and red meat (beef or sausage) in place of the cheese over toast. Worked nicely.

NewShadow

Try adding mushrooms and cauliflower to your stews - when you cook them slowly over a long time they breakdown into the 'gravy' and thicken it without you having to use flour.

VfM4meplse

PasturesNew wrote: »

Don't dismiss cheese based on one arbitrary figure "fat". Indeed, many give it up in a diet, but there's some science that proves you should have some cheese daily in order to lose weight ... it does something hidden/magic and, even though it's got fat and calories, it somehow manages to help aid weight reduction.

Cheese is therefore being given a bad name for something that might be irrelevant.

A matchbox size of cheese/day, grated (so it looks more) could really perk you up.

I agree. The "magic" element is actually common to dairy - I think the calcium content means that it's not actually absorbed completely hence the actual calorie load is lighter than thought. I'm sure Horizon looked at this with Alex James in an experiment that involved faecal analysis.

That said, I think that most recipes use cheese to an excess (and I am a cheese lover). It's much better to use a small quantity of strongly flavoured cheese that stacks of mild.

cashmonger

NewShadow wrote: »

Try adding mushrooms and cauliflower to your stews - when you cook them slowly over a long time they breakdown into the 'gravy' and thicken it without you having to use flour.

I have no problems with flour.

I also love dumplings

SailorSam

Add any sort of dried pulses and lentils to cut down the meat you use.

suki1964

cashmonger wrote: »

I have no problems with flour.

I also love dumplings

Hope they aren't English dumplings made with suet with your aversion to saturated fat :eek:

WeAreGhosts

Fresh egg noodles in a stir fry. I just use up veg like courgettes, peppers, spring onions, even carrots thinly sliced. Cook them in a little oil in a wok, add the noodles, cook for a few mins, add sweet and sour sauce.

You can of course add meat.

Mr_Singleton

cashmonger wrote: »

I don't eat cheese due to fattyness.

Words completely fail me.