Comfort food, including popular homestyle meals such as meatloaf, lasagna and chicken pot pie are inexpensive and delicious, but can also contain a lot of fat. The US Department of Health recommends that total fat intake be limited to 20% to 35% of a person’s total daily calorie intake.
Food columnist Jeanne Jones argues that homestyle cooking and low fat cooking are easy to combine into delicious and healthy food. In her cookbook Homestyle Cooking Made Healthy (ISBN 0-87596-466-4), Jones offers tips and shows how many traditional homestyle recipes can be revised to become low fat.
How to Turn Comfort Food into Low Fat Comfort Food
In her cookbook, Jones explains that traditional homestyle meals taste delicious because the fat carries the flavors of the ingredient throughout the dish. Strengthening flavor and reducing the fat keeps low fat comfort food as tasty as the traditional homestyle version.
Fat is also used in homestyle recipes to texturize food and as a cooking medium. The US Department of Health recommends choosing healthy fat instead of saturated or trans fat, a switch that many comfort food recipes can accommodate.
Tips on Cooking a Homestyle Recipe into Delicious Low Fat and Healthy Food
- Use more herbs and spices. Herbs and spices have practically no calories or fat. Fresh is best – chop or crush and add liberally to a recipe. Hot flavors such as ginger, horseradish, mustard, chili flakes or red pepper flakes will provide bite and add flavor to comfort food.
- Toast spices for extra punch. Jones recommends cooking whole or ground spices in a heavy skillet over medium heat until fragrant, usually about 3 or 4 minutes. The flavor-rich results can be stored in the freezer for several months.
- Sear meat and brown vegetables. Searing meat to develop flavor is a usual first step in homestyle meals such as pot roasts. Browned onions or minced garlic lightly fried in a small amount of oil contribute rich flavors for delicious food. Chopped onions can be sweated with a small amount of water at the beginning of a homestyle recipe instead of being fried in oil.
- Marinate ingredients. People indulge in comfort food for the moistness as well as the flavor. Meat, fish, fruits, vegetables and tofu can all be soaked in a liquid before cooking to achieve the same moistness fat would.
Healthy Fat, Healthy Food: More Tips on How to Cook Low Fat Comfort Food
- Choose healthy fat. Try cooking with polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats instead of saturated fats. Healthy fats to use when cooking homestyle include vegetable oils such as olive, soybean, corn, canola, safflower and sunflower.
- Trim saturated fat. Remove the skin from poultry and trim excess fat from all poultry and meat. Comfort food won’t miss the extra fat if the cook has added extra flavors.
- Choose the low fat version of a saturated fat. Low fat creams or cheeses will work in a homestyle recipe if there are many other ingredients.
- Let some comfort food sit overnight. Stews and soups become extra delicious when their flavors blend for a day or so. Remember, homestyle means moist texture and rich flavor – it doesn’t have to mean fat!
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