Top Ten Tuesday: My Favorite Low-Fat Meals
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I thought today I’d share with you some of my favorite low-fat meals. These are those healthy, low-fat dishes that are so good, I could eat them every day — those meals that I’d very likely choose over a higher-fat option if fat and calories were not object. Ready?
1. Chicken fajitas. Yum! These are so good! I skip the cheese and tortilla altogether and just top the chicken with homemade guacamole and pico de gallo (minus the cilantro – yuck!).
2. Super salads. I have these for lunch at least twice a week. I always make sure to have my husband grill extra chicken to put on top.
3. Chicken ropa vieja. Sometimes I fix a batch just to freeze for lunches. I always have this as a burrito bowl (as mentioned in the link), but when I make it for dinner, the family often uses the chicken as filling for a burrito.
4. Grilled chicken and spaghetti. I marinate my chicken in my low-fat Italian dressing (recipe in the link for the super salad) and red wine vinegar. Instead of pasta, I roast a spaghetti squash for fewer fat and calories.
5. Manicotti on homemade crispelles. This takes a little more prep time than some dishes, but it is so worth it. Delicious! And the time is made up for simply based on the fact that I don’t have to wrestle with pasta shells.
6. Asian grilled chicken. This one always gets rave reviews from everyone except my youngest.
7. Grilled chicken and pineapple. Yum! And, the leftover chicken and pineapple is fabulous on a salad. (Unfortunately, the link is no longer available.)
8. Roasted broccoli or asparagus. This is the only way we eat broccoli anymore and it’s even convinced one of my non-broccoli eaters that maybe that green stuff isn’t so bad after all. The link is for the broccoli recipe, but you make the asparagus the same way and it’s just as good as the broccoli.
9. Roasted squash. This is essentially the same as the broccoli except I use one zucchini squash, three yellow squash, an onion (sliced) and mushrooms (an 8 oz. container of fresh, sliced mushrooms) instead of the broccoli.
The key here, which we discovered accidentally, is roasting the squash until it starts to look burnt. It looks overcooked, but the flavor is enhanced tremendously by the extra cooking time. I roast it on convection roast at 450 degrees for 20-30 minutes.
10. Baked zucchini sticks. We almost always have these with the grilled chicken and spaghetti. Like the roasted squash, these are best when they’re kind of crispy.
You may have noticed that most of these recipes came from Skinny Taste. That is my go-to site for low-fat cooking. I love that the foods are real foods with real ingredients that normal people generally have on hand. Gina takes her favorite recipes (and sometimes reader requests) and modifies them to create a healthier version.
She taste-tests them in her kitchen before posting them on her blog. I don’t think I’ve come across one recipe on her site that I’ve made and been disappointed. I highly recommend bookmarking Gina’s blog.
Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.
I have recently started eating spaghetti squash instead of the noodles too. I love how it tastes with the marinara sauce on it! THanks for sharing these recipes, I was in need of some new ones!
Taking notes, as the doctor told me today that I have elevated levels of LDL (bad cholesterol) and triglycerides.
@ Susan — I have plans soon to do a post on some of my favorite sites/lists of heart-healthy, high fiber foods, which are also good for the problems you're having (I think — I'll have to look at some info I have again).
My next goal, now that I've got a pretty good handle on the low-calorie, low-fat thing is to up my intake of the really good-for-you stuff like fiber, veggies, whole-grains, fruits, etc.
I love Gina's site (found it a couple months ago thanks to you!) That salad looks wonderful, I love apples in a salad. Sweet and crispy. Thanks for sharing all these links!
Quick question: I'm always concerned about my children eating enough. They are 4, 6, and 8, and all three are on the small side. Do your kids eat the low-fat meals, or do they eat something different? I'm wondering if my kids will get enough calories if I feed them the low-fat meals. What do you think?
Hi, Shannon. I just realized that I hadn't answered your question yet. Sorry about that!
If your kids are anything like mine, you probably don't need to worry about them not getting enough calories. Mine snack all day!
My thought is that they're getting good, healthy calories when I serve healthier meals, rather than empty calories and excess fat. I keep healthy snacks available for them all day — yogurt, string cheese, fruit — and some less-healthy-but-not-too-bad favorites such as Goldfish crackers, chips, and Pop-Tarts.
The thing with keeping healthy snacks available is that the kids can snack as much as they want, whereas I tend to get the bulk of my calories at meals, so they're getting what they need, but I'm not overeating.
Hope that helps!