What small things do you do to make your cooking healthier?

[ferriswheel]

I've posted on aibu because I figure at one time or another we've all tried to tweak our cooking to make it healthier.

I guess aibu to ask you to share your tweaks?!!

Mine are...

When cooking rice I put in a handful of lentils.

Oil spray for frying and roasting.

Grill for sausages, try to replace real sausages with vegetarian ones.

Cut the fat off meat.

Any others I'm missing out on?

I chuck frozen spinach in pretty much everything I make with a sauce.

Chickpeas in spagbol - a decent source of protein and healthier than mince and taste the same.

Carrots grated in spagbol/casseroles...basically, if in doubt, grate some carrots in! They don't alter the flavour at all.

Frozen spinach to add to dishes when we have run out of fresh green stuff.

I use normal oil but in a spray container (not fry lite). I grate carrot/courgette into bolognese/lasagne. I'll grill or oven cook if I can instead of frying. Oh, and I serve salad on the side of meals (if they go with it).

I'm adding a lot more spice these days, especially turmeric.

I add fat (butter/olive oil) to food. Replace carbs with cauliflower (rice/pizza base/mash). No low fat anything. Nothing with flour in it, or any form of sugar (inc agave, honey etc). Loads of veg. Real food, not processed.

Cook from scratch. Eat whole real foods where possible.

Thank you everyone. What's wrong with frylite?

Changed the way I cook and altered recipes since joining Slimming World this year.

I do a lot more cooking from scratch and never buy jars of sauces anymore

"How does adding grated carrot to onion make it healthier? Both are veg" a wider variety of veg or any food means you're getting a wider variety of nutrients.

The more different colours in your diet the better.

I use herbs and spices to flavour rather than relying on salt (which tends to give me heartburn anyway).

Bulk out carbs (pasta, rice, cous cous etc) based dishes with lots of veg.

Soups stews and casseroles are great for using up veg past its best - money saving too and as pp said fussy eaters are then eating veg they would normally turn their noses up at. Ditto fruit in smoothies/home made ice cream sauces. I also use not the freshest fruit in my fruit infuser water bottle.

Full fat dairy (apart from milk I just don't like fatty milk).

Food as close to natural as possible.

Do have cereal but not overly sugary ones and add fruit/nuts/seeds to it and in winter tend to have porridge anyway.

Yes clean as - I did ww for a while and got some great quick and easy sauce recipes that I still use. Healthier, cheaper and tastier than shop bought ready made ones. Plus you can flavour to you and your family's tastes. Make at least one batch of 'pasta' sauce a week, tastes best after a few days when it's had time to develop the flavours.

Have gone vegetarian with my dd.I stir spinach leaves into curries 3mins before it's ready so that it's just wilted,this makes quorn dishes at least lighter.
I put peas in with rice,it means you can put plenty on the plate but less calorific.
Use ribboned courgettes with tagiatelli,add a few mins before pasta is cooked and drained.
Use good nonstick pans so minimal cooking fat needed.
We have butter and have gone back to full fat milk.
DD makes her own granola so not as sweet as bought and with lots of fruit,nuts and seeds in.

Do it at source, then don't have to worry- so when I'm getting my weekly shop I allow the main part of the trolley for fruit/veg/meat/milk. All the rest of shopping - any processed stuff, biscuits etc has to fit in the little section at the end of the trolley.

eat very little red meat. (three or four times a year possiby)

Carrot and swede mash instead of potato mash. Side of mixed veg or salad with a meat dish instead of chips/potatoes. Smaller portions of things I love. My mince and onion pie is delicious but calorific. So I have just a tiny slice with lots of veg. Have a little bit of what you love and you won't feel deprived. I hate zoodles, cauliflower rice and all that other low carb stuff. But I also hate pasta! So I will still have a Bolognese but inside a bell pepper. Also I recently discovered chicken sausages. The "heck" chicken Italian sausages are divine and only 108 calories for 3 sausages. I make my own soups which are thick and filling but not packed full of sugar or salt. I find that recipes that require oil often don't really need oil at all ( think marinades). It says 4 tbsp, I use just one and it makes no difference to the taste. When I do go for the real deal mashed potatoes I boil them in chicken stock for extra flavour so I don't have to add salt or butter.

I also make my own soups from stocks. You can get 3 of your veg a day into a big bowl of that! That's what I tend to serve for lunch at least one day over the weekend.

Another tip is to slice up onions, tip into a microwaveable bowl with a couple of tablespoons of water, lid on, and cook for a few mins. Maybe stir halfway through. Cooks onions until translucent, and you've cut out the oil, and saved yourself 10 mins of stirring.

Then carry on with recipe....

Oh, and I'll often use a natural sugar replacement called Perfect Sweet. Tastes like sugar, but it gives your system less of a sugar 'high'. Great for crumbles etc.

Cut out bread, pasta and sugar. Limit dairy and only use full fat, lots of veg and whole foods like basmati rice, sweet potatoes etc. Replace red meat with lean (white) meat and fish, including but not limited to oily. Use coconut and olive oil sparingly, it's v high in fat, use lemon, lime and spices for taste rather than dressings and seasoning. Limit caffeine (i only drink decaf) and alcohol. Nothing processed ever, everything from scratch.

Have a treat when you want it though. It won't do any harm if 95% of your diet is good.

@QueenMortificado what tips are rubbish? I'm looking at a lot of them thinking 'ooooh yea I'll try that' but don't want to be changing my diet for the worst

I've cut out most dairy now. Use almond milk in tea, make pancakes with mashed banana and hazelnut milk instead of egg/milk.
DH/DC will have these pancakes or coconut yoghurt with fruit and granola for a sweet treat (will endeavour to make my own granola). I don't have a sweet tooth so I need alternatives for crisps!

I never buy low fat anything. Low fat usually means there's more sugar/sweetener instead.

We have gone from a household having meat twice a day to a week of three vegetarian dinners, two fish dinners, one chicken, one beef dinner.

Toast live nuts and seeds in tamari and chuck I to all meals.
75 % greens on plate.
Lots of fish no meat.

Avoiding artificial low fat stuff

We've swapped to wholewheat pasta.

Frylite - it'll kill you with zero saturates and sugars

Ingredients:
Oil, water, sunflower lecithin (emulsifier), xanthan gum (thickener), sugar beet alcohol (helps preserve the product), natural flavourings

Xanthan gum is a natural (vegan) by product of decomposing veg enzymes
Lethicin is natural fat found in egg yolk and soya

Product Description

Sunflower oil emulsion cooking spray

Frylight contains at least 30% less calories and fat of regular oils and dispenses 1kcal/0.1g fat per spray.

Replace oil or butter with Frylight and use 95% less fat.This bottle can cook up to 190 meals!*Using 5 sprays per cook (5kcal/0.5g fat), which can replace 1 tablespoonful of oil (120kcal/15g fat) or butter (110kcal/12g fat) = 95% less fat and saves over 100kcal per cook.

The original 1cal spray
No artificial ingredients
For frying, baking and roasting
Gluten free
Suitable for vegans
Vegetarian Society approved

If we're short of time for breakfast, I blend banana, milk, oats and a splash of vanilla essence to make a breakfast smoothie, it's delicious and filling. Will add strawberries or raspberries too if we have them. You can't taste the oats at all once it's blended. It makes for a good after school fix.

The blender we have is one of those nutri bullets. I was sceptical about what was so different or special about it compared to a regular blender but it's been fantastic, quick and easy to use and wash up. You can hide a multitude of things in a delicious tasting smoothie like spinach and kale.

We've made the switch to butchers meat and local produce for fruit and veg. I thought it'd be much more expensive than a normal shop but in actual fact it works out cheaper. I spend £30 a fortnight on meat and batch cook st least two meals from that for the freezer. DS is gluten free so I do spend a bit in Tesco on convenience snacks for him.

I add more veg to everything, so yesterday's cottage pie had the normal onions and carrots but I threw in runner beans and a layer of cabbage and then instead of just potatoes for mash, the topping was mashed potatoes, cauliflower and carrot.

I started doing refined sugar free baking when I had DS so now the only treats we have in are refined sugar free. Once you get used to it I actually prefer them. We make muffins and some sort of cake weekly using fruit and honey to sweeten and they're lovely. I made individual apple pies the same way and they were gorgeous! If I'm baking something with gluten free flour I now replace a quarter of the flour with ground almonds, but mostly because GF flour makes everything so bloody dry.