Who wouldn’t be a healthy eater if you could have things like cheesy tacos and lasagna, creamy soups, comforting casseroles and even pizza?
Dream no more! With a few recipe reform tricks, almost any dish can be “health-ified.” And they won’t taste like insipid diet foods that lack flavor other than a lot of added salt!
Recipe reform was popular back in the low-fat 90s as we looked for ways to scrub the fat from our diets. But in the early 2000s, when fat was no long Public Enemy #1, the concept of recipe reform seemed to disappear.
Nevertheless it’ still a great tool. It can be used to reform recipes in many ways besides reducing fat, so we can enjoy foods we love, without guilt.
This is why I revisited the idea in my most recent episode on “NG-TV” (that’s Natural Grocers’ YouTube channel!) In that show, I demonstrated 5 Recipe Reform Tricks that easily transform basic meat tacos into a much healthier and tastier version: Spinach and Sweet Potato Soft Shell Tacos. Pictured above is the final scene from the video showing the finished dish with it’s colorful toppings.
I encourage you to watch the video and see the 5 Tricks in action, but I’m repeating them below so you can remember them and use them with other recipes, too.
Convenience Food Options Worried about time? Don’t think you have to spend an hour in the kitchen to get a healthier dish. The recipe includes convenience food options so you can get lots of goodness for hardly any extra time.
Watch the Video Here
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Tacos are often made with just hamburger, taco seasoning, a shell and cheese, and maybe some onion. See how we made this basic dish much healthier and added a lot more flavor.
Recipe Reform Trick #1: Eliminate “Not-Foods” from Your Recipes
“Not-foods,” as the name suggests, aren’t real foods but rather manufactured food-like substances. Healthy eaters will benefit from avoiding or even eliminating them entirely. It’s easy to do.
For instance, many people rely on taco kits and mixes to season the filling. But look at the ingredients in a typical seasoning mix:
Chili Pepper, Corn Starch, Salt, Onion Powder, Maltodextrin, Spice, Sea Salt, Vegetable Oil, Silicon Dioxide, Citric Acid, Sugar, Natural Flavor (which can mean a lot of things!)
Compare that with the easy, inexpensive option in my recipe: chile powder, oregano and cumin–all real whole, tasty foods.
Recommendation: Always, always read the ingredient listing for every packaged product. Usually, with just a little searching, you can find one with no or minimal not-food ingredients, especially if you shop at a store like Natural Grocers that searches for and stocks better options.
Recipe Reform Trick #2: Pick a Protein That’s Right for You
Today’s food world is filled with dozens of competing diets–and protein is often a big point of contention between the different approaches. Should you eat only plants or is meat ok? What kinds of meat are acceptable? What about fish? What about the saturated fats in some meats?
Happily, with most recipes you can simply swap one protein for another to get the protein your prefer. For instance the taco recipe calls for black beans, but you can easily substitute a wide variety of animal proteins: ground beef, chicken, turkey or pork or even white fish. With a meat-based recipe, it can be transformed for plant-based/vegetarian eaters by substituting tofu, tempeh, eggs or nuts and seeds in addition to versatile beans.
Recommendation: Feel free to email me if you need help substituting proteins. Note that this trick is especially helpful for those with “mixed” households. After the dish is almost done, divide in two and add different proteins for the different eating “camps” at your table.
Recipe Reform Trick #3: Add More Vegetables!
If there is one thing almost everyone needs, it’s More Vegetables! Research data continually reveals our dangerous deficiencies in this area. But maybe you’re not thrilled about a bigger pile of vegetables on the side of the plate? The easy solution: weave more vegetables into your entrees.
The taco recipe powers up its nutritional content by adding sweet potatoes and spinach to the bean or meat base. The side notes share a 10 more vegetable options to try. Don’t be surprised if you find your entrée even tastier and more appealing with some colorful vegetables included.
Recommendation: For every main dish you make, take a minute to consider if a vegetable could be added. It can be simple like green onions, or mild spinach that goes with almost everything, or even canned artichokes or frozen peas. Even if you’re not a huge vegetable fan, you’ll likely find them much more enjoyable when mixed in with the flavors and familiar ingredients in your entrée.
Recipe Reform Trick #4: Use Garnishes for Color + More Nutrition
Too often, garnishes are just viewed as cute ways to add color and visual appeal to a dish, so we usually overlook them in the rush to get a meal on the table. Yet they can add a powerful nutrition boost to meals.
The garnishes in the taco recipe, for instance, provide a powerful nutritional boost, from the Vitamin C in the lime to the cleansing benefits of cilantro plus all the other nutrition provided by cruciferous cabbage, tomato-rich salsa and good-fat avocado.
Recommendation: Use any spare minutes while a dish is cooking to prep a garnish or two so they are ready at serving time. It’s good to have a few standard options on hand, like parsley and cilantro, lemons and limes and cheese.
Recipe Reform Trick #5: Substitute Whole Grains for Half Grains
“Half grains” is how I refer to grain products that have been robbed of half (or more) of their nutrients. For instance, white flour has been polished in a factory to remove the germ and bran–the two parts of a wheat kernel that contain half (or more) of its nutrition. Why pay for half when it’s easy to just substitute a whole grain product and get the full nutritional value of the food you’re buying?
Convenience and lack of knowledge are the usual answers, as many of us rely on prepackaged taco kits or just pick up a readily available popular brand. But take a look at the ingredients in one big name brand of white flour tortillas.
Enriched Flour Bleached (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, Vegetable Shortening (Palm Oil, Canola And/Or Soybean Oil), Glycerin. Contains 2% Or Less Of: Baking Powder (Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, Baking Soda), Mono And Diglycerides, Salt, Potassium Sorbate and Calcium Propionate (Preservatives), Fumaric Acid, Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (Soybean, Palm And/Or Cottonseed), Dough Conditioner (Salt, Wheat Starch, Enzymes).
This listing illustrates why my taco recipe calls for corn tortillas. First, they need to contain only corn, water and salt. Secondly, buy a brand like Ezekial or La Mariposa and the corn will be whole grain rather than a degermed half grain. You might also be able to find a clean, whole wheat tortilla.
Recommendation: Again, it is critical to read ingredient listings. Food marketers have gotten very clever at creating copy and packaging that make a product look healthy. Reading the ingredient listing is the only way to know that you’re getting a whole grain product that serves your health goals.
Conclusion
Keep these 5 Recipe Reform Tricks in minds as you make meals each day and see how your food favorites can easily be transformed to meet your healthy eating dreams. Then eat and enjoy them guilt-free.