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Frugal Low Fat Cooking

© Teresa Jones

We all know that eating lower fat foods is healthy, but a lot of low fat products are expensive. So, what can we do to cook the lower fat way? And still afford it?

There are some easy ideas you can incorporate in your cooking. I'll share some I've come across:

 When cooking cakes, try using 1/2 the fat recommended and use applesauce or prune puree for the other half. Pureed dates can be good too, as they are naturally sweet, and you can then also reduce the sugar content.

 For a creamy sauce use milk powder and cornflour to thicken. Use the usual cornflour plus add approx. 1/4 cup milk powder. This makes your sauce nice and creamy without adding lots of fat.

 When frying, use an oil spray on the bottom of your frying pan, or a non-stick cooking paper. This cuts down a lot of fat when frying your food, and yet still gives that golden colour.

 Always buy lean meat, or to make this even more cost effective, trim the fat off your own meat! And don't forget that with chicken meat, the fat is all in the skin. You can either skin the chicken before cooking, or prick the skin all over, bake the chicken on a rack and tip off the fat the drips to the bottom. It depends how easy you find it to skin a chicken and how much time you have!

 When you lower fat in a recipe, use more flavours such as spices, soy sauce, herbs, etc. This will give your dish the added zing of flavour that you will enjoy.

 For a whipped topping, try using 1/2 whipped cream and 1/2 a mild, plain yoghurt. You could use fruity yoghurt if you'd like that flavour in your topping.

Another good step to take is to make your own low fat products such as cakes, breads, toppings, frostings, cookies, loaves, etc. You could even make your own low fat sausages if you have the equipment needed to make them! Just use lean meat, and low fat fillers.

I've found some good sites for low fat cooking. Check out some of these: http://www.fatfree.com. Here you will find all sorts of handy low fat recipes. They are all vegetarian, but you can always add some meat to the recipe if you wish!

http://www.low-fat-recipes.com Lots of recipes to check out here.

http://www.glorysite.com/hints.html Some low fat cooking hints.

Well, hope these hints and recipes will prove useful! Happy healthy eating everyone!