by Suzanne Rose

Created on: July 10, 2010

Just because you eat something that is low fat does not mean that it can’t be flavorful.  The following ideas are several ways to achieve a balance of healthy and delicious.

Use spices

There are many delicious spices that do not add fat but can add lots of flavor.  What spice you use will depend on the meal you are going to make, of course.  You will also want to be careful about using a spice mix that is very high in sodium.  You should experiment with different spices to find the flavors that you like with different recipes.

Use flavorful but low fat ingredients

There are many ingredients that are very flavorful but are low fat.  For instance, you could make a vegetable mix with a sweet and low fat vegetable such as a sweet potato or corn.  Besides not providing you with a lot of fat, these have many other health benefits as well.  There are a lot of recipes that incorporate fruits, which are very delicious as well.

Look for low fat versions of ingredients

A lot of times you can substitute a lower fat item and hardly be able to tell the difference in a recipe if at all.  For instance, if the recipe calls for milk, you could consider using skim or at least a low fat milk.  If it calls for a canned soup, then you can look for the lower fat version.  There are many different low fat versions of foods that you can consider.

Lower the amount of oil, butter, etc that you use in the recipes

Sometimes you will barely notice the difference if you lower the butter or another type of fat in a recipe.  A lot of recipes will let you substitute something such as broth instead of the oil or fat.  Experiment to see what works for you.  You can see what else you can add that will give a lot of flavor but not a lot of fat.

When looking to make low fat yet flavorful meals, you might want to consider looking in a low fat cookbook.  If you have a recipe that you normally make full of fat, then you might more notice a difference.  However if you take a recipe that was low fat and flavorful to begin with, then you might be more satisfied.  The above strategies may help you to enjoy healthier, delicious food. 

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