Nutritious and Healthy Home Cooking Tips

For people who have been watching their diet, healthy eating is not just picking the right kind of food but also cooking them in the right way. Yes, we tend to stay away from fast food and instead cooking at home by ourselves, therefore, in doing this, take time to read the following paragraph can help you get the most of your healthy food choice, especially for those who are counting all those calories to keep fit.

Add more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains in your recipes. Go for organic fruits and vegetables as much as possible, they are not just free from poisonous pesticide but also contain more antioxidants than the non-organically grown ones. Replace or get rid of those high-calories, high-fat ingredients, it is one of the healthy cooking tips you can never go wrong if you want to have healthy diet. In some recipes, you can actually choose to omit the optional ingredients that contribute to the higher calorie content of the food.

Choose cooking oil. Chinese cooks usually use peanut oil, which has a high smoke point and a pleasant nutty flavor, for both stir-frying and deep-frying. For a healthier version, try to use Canola oil and olive oil, which are high in healthy monounsaturated fat and low in unhealthy saturated fat, it is believed that monounsaturated fats help lower the bad cholesterol that can lead to heart disease or stroke. Asian sesame oil is unsuitable as stir-fry oil because of its strong flavor and unstableness when heated, and it is used primarily as a seasoning that is added to stir-fry at the end of cooking.

Choose a healthy method for preparation. Appropriate cooking method always helps to preserve nutrients of the food. Grilling, broiling, steaming, and braising are good ways to do this.

Lower the salt in your food. Instead of relying on salt for extra flavor, increase the amount of herbs and spices in the dish. Spices such as curry powder, five-spice powder, and chili powder are salt-free while have loads of flavor. And if you are using canned vegetables that contain salt, remember to rinse them thoroughly under cold running water to remove some of the sodium before cooking.

Choose right kind of food and start with these practical and healthy cooking tips, you can absolutely make a big difference in your diet and your health.

Low Fat Cooking Tips - Roasted Vegetables

If you're anything like me, one of your favorite meals is a traditional Sunday roast. Mmmm, those delicious roasted vegetables, crispy on the outside but soft and luscious on the inside! But now we're on a diet we can't indulge in that taste anymore... right?

Not true. While traditional roasted vegetables are very high in fat due to the fat bath they sit in while they cook. There are ways to prepare low fat roasted vegetables. And it's really simpler than you think (and sometimes even yummier than fat soaked traditional roast vegetables). You see, it's not really necessary to have so much fat to roast vegetables. Although it is the fat that kind of semi fries the vegetables to that nice crispy exterior... a little fat works just as well, if not better, than a lot.

So here is one way to prepare low fat roasted vegetables. Doing it this way won't result in soggy roasted vegetables.

Low Fat Roasted Vegetables

1. Preheat oven to 350F (190C)
2. Line your baking tray with parchment (baking) paper
3. Prepare and cut up your vegetables as per usual
4. lay your vegetables evenly over the parchment paper
5. Spray vegetables with extra virgin olive oil cooking spray
6. Bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes
7. Turn vegetables and spray the unsprayed side with cooking spray
8. Bake for a further 20-30 minutes

Cooking time on this will vary according to the size of the vegetable pieces of course and you're the best judge of that. But preparing them this way results in a nice crispy skin without all the excess fat.

Oh, and the meat can be prepared the same way. Tip with cooking pork, remove the skin and the excess fat before cooking. If you really must eat the crackling you can rub salt into it and cook under the grill. Not only is it lower in fat, It works better and results in lovely crisp crackling (but you have to watch it carefully). Just be certain to trim most of the fat from the underside first, you need a little to generate the heat to form the crackling... but certainly not the amount that is usually there.

Oh, and this makes it much easier to clean your roasting tray which is the other advantage of this low fat roasted vegetable recipe.

Hope you enjoy my low fat cooking tips.