whats your alternate option to pasta, rice and potato?

[mouses]

hello

im planning on reducing my carbs and have found spaghetti squash for one, briefly came across cauliflower mash - but yet to look that up.

what other ideas are there and what do you do to replace your carbs in lunch or dinner?

More veg. Any kind. Don't try to mimic carbs... Some veg like squash and root veg (bit more carby those though) roast really nicely.
I have lots of cabbage, raw shredded and turned into salad (no Mayo in the dressing...)
Carrot and cucumber in ribbons is another nice salad option, with dill and vinegar.

More green veg really. Occasionally I'll have spag boll with a pack of the Slim Pasta(brand name) which are made from Konjac plant.

More veg, either salads or cooked greens. Great with lumps of meat of fish.

Rice cakes with pate or spreads as a lunch.

Quinoa, pulses, sweetcorn with spinach and chopped tomato and sweet pepper etc to bulk it out a bit.

Rice - grate raw cauliflower then microwave or stirfry.
Mash - steam cauliflower and blitz in blender.

Chips - I like to make chips from carrot and cook in the oven with a little cooking spray.
Pasta - I like spaghetti made from courgette, I peel the courgette into strips with a potato peeler then I slice the strips into spaghetti.

thanks for all your reply's

how do you cook your courgette strips? is any thing else needed to add flavour if it were for kids?

Sometimes I steam it, sometimes I stirfry it, often I will just add it straight to a sauce, it doesn't take much cooking. It just depends how you want it really,

You can also leave it in the wide 'peeled' strips and use as a substitute to tagliatelle.

Butter for flavour! Plenty of seasoning, herbs, spices etc. though you will find your tastebuds adjust and food tastes more flavoursome when you're not eating bland carbs everyday.

I second sweet potato for roasting. Delicious. In fact most veg tastes good bunged in a roasting tin with plenty of butter, oil, garlic and seasoning.

Cauliflower rice is fab, too.

Courgette and celeriac both make lovely chips - you need to deep fry the courgette but you can bake the celeriac ones like potato wedges.

Celeriac full stop is a magic ingredient. It's much lower carb than other root veg. We have it in gratin, roasted, mashed etc.

We often have pulses too but I know some types of low carbing don't allow that.

Curry is lush with chickpeas instead of rice
Ditto stew

Aubergine slices as lasagne sheets or mini pizzas.
Round or similar lettuce ribbons (cut thinly crossways) are lovely wwith cream sauces.
Celeriac makes lovely thick cut chips.

Shameless place marking - I need to get back to low carbing and am loving these ideas!

some great ideas, thankyou.

I did try chickpea curry but did really like it, kids either

Dhaal is lovely, and very easy. You can make it with different types of lentil, and add mushrooms or spinach or whatever you like really.

will need to look into dhal, never heard of it. thanks

You can make wraps by rolling chosen filling up in lettuce leaves.

lentils and chickpeas aren't low carb though?

Like I said, it depends what you're doing. Eating lower carb allows them, rather than low carb.

I have mashed swede instead of mashed or roasted potatoes.

A big handful of salad leaves with almost every meal (vary with rocket and watercress for flavour).

Cubed courgette fried in Kerrygold butter or coconut oil.

Cauliflower "rice"

Mixed veg mash ie maybe half a sweet potato with double the amount of cauliflower and turnip (the big orange ones, what we call Neeps in Scotland).

Roasted beetroot wedges, parsnip or sweet potato chips.

But remember... They are carbs, be aware of portion size.

My staples: Cauliflower mash or rice. Celeriac chips. Swede bake.

mashed swede instead of potato, raw spinach with pasta sauce is a good one if you have kids eating pasta