Adapting recipes to be higher in fibre and lower in fat, sugar and salt does involve a bit of trial and error. However, the following tips will be helpful:
- Try to reduce the amount of fat you use by swapping high fat ingredients for lower fat alternatives.
- Grill, bake, poach, steam, microwave or boil foods rather than frying them or cooking with added fat.
- Use low fat dairy products where possible such as skimmed or semi-skimmed milk, reduced fat cheeses and low fat yogurts.
- Light crème fraiche is very similar to traditional soured cream. It is heat stable and is therefore ideal for use in savoury sauces. It is also delicious served on hot or cold puddings instead of double cream.
- Fromage frais is fresh skimmed cows milk cheese, but is more like a natural yogurt. It is not heat stable and is therefore best used in desserts and dips in place of cream or Greek yogurt.
- When you feel nothing but cream will do, spoon extra thick single cream onto fruit or puddings instead of double cream. Whip up whipping cream rather than double cream for filling cream buns or cakes.
- Use fats and oils which are high in monounsaturates.
- Try using stronger cheese for cooking. You'll find that you won't have to use so much to give it a cheesy flavour. Grated cheese tends to go further too.
- Try and reduce the amount of salt used in cooking and at the table as we eat more salt than we need. Flavour your food with lemon juice, herbs, spices or mustard instead for healthier, tastier food.
- Use pulses such as peas, beans or lentils to replace some of the meat in traditional recipes for shepherd's pie, casseroles, lasagne. They can also be used in soups and salads. They are low in fat and high in fibre. Tinned beans are more convenient to use but are more expensive than dried ones.
- Recipes using a reduced amount of sugar will not keep as long as a traditional recipes as sugar is a natural preservative. To avoid any wastage, freeze in portions that can be defrosted as needed - but check that the recipe is suitable for freezing first.
- If liked, you can experiment by reducing the added sugar in your baking recipes. Most cakes, for example sponge cake, will work even if the sugar in the recipe is cut by a half. Remember that they will not keep as long as a traditional recipe. Recipes such as fruit cakes, fruit scones or teabreads can be made without added sugar. They do not require sugar for bulk and the dried fruit will provide sweetness.
- Jams and marmalades. Ordinary will do or instead of using the traditional ratio of 1lb fruit to 1lb sugar you can reduce this to 1lb fruit to 3/4 lb sugar.
- Cold desserts such as fruit fool and foods that require no further cooking, eg custard, can be sweetened to taste with a liquid or granulated intense sweetener if necessary.
- Hot puddings, such as fruit pies, crumbles or bread pudding, can be sweetened with sugar if necessary but some fruit based puddings or puddings with added dried fruit will not require any sweetening at all.
- Intense sweeteners can be used, if liked, in cooking and baking - follow the manufacturers instructions.
You don't need to adapt your recipes when baking if you only eat cakes at special occasions such as birthdays.