How to Tweak Your Recipes

We all have our favourite recipes that we love to cook and eat. And there’s nothing better than browsing glossy magazines for gorgeous recipes. But how can you use those recipes with the Food Lovers Dietitian approach to deliciously finding to your healthy weight. Here I’ll show you seven recipe hacks to tweak meals and snacks and make them waistline friendly.

Use the Food Lovers Meal Planner

The Food Lovers Meal Planner is your best friend when it comes to making recipes waistline-friendly. It tells you how much fat (oil, butter, nuts, cream) and to aim for, per person. It also helps you tweak the carbs (spaghetti, rice, potato) as well as the cheese and the protein foods. It also prompts you to serve your main dish with a side salad or a vegetable accompaniment to get those veggie serves too.

The first step is to work out how many people the recipe is meant to serve. Remember too that it’s great to cook extra and freeze individual serves for busy nights.

The Meal Planner suggests 125g raw weight per person (1/2 kg for 4) for a larger protein serve……

…..or 50g raw weight for a smaller protein serve per person (200g for 4 people).

 

I’ve also suggested using about two fat serves per person for a lunch or dinner meal. It’s good to use one fat serve per pserson for a salad dressing or to dress or roast vegetables so that leaves about 1 Tablespoon of oil or butter for a main dish recipe to serve four people (or 1 teaspoon per person).

Cheese can also be trimmed back, especially  if you use tastier cheeses.

Plan for one smaller carb serve per person. This might be in the recipe, or it could be a side dish. Serve extra serves of carbs on the side for people with larger appetites.

7 Recipe Hacks

1. Tweak the Proteins

Aim for one larger protein serve per person. This will be about 125g of raw weight of meat, chicken or fish or two eggs.

2. Tweak the Fat

Usually you can use less oil or butter for frying or roasting than the recipe suggests. Two teaspoons is often enough. If the recipe calls for cream or coconut milk, you should be able to add less and still get the flavour and texture. Nuts are tricky. Sometimes you can leave them out or just sprinkle a few on the top. Nuts go further if they are chopped or flaked.

However, you can’t reduce the butter you need for a roux for a sauce as that depends on the right proportions of fat to work well. 

3. Tweak the Cheese

To trim the cheese in a recipe but still get a great taste, use a strong cheese like feta or parmesan and stick to 30g or less per person. Add it just to the top of the dish or in a single layer to concentrate the flavour. Stirring it through a dish dilutes the taste and means you need a lot more.

4. Tweak the Carbs

This is the easiest part of the recipe to change. Sometimes you can add less to the recipe, or serve less on the side.

5. Tweak the Serves 

Often you don’t need to do much more to make a recipe waistline friendly, than take a recipe designed to serve four people and use it for six serves with a side salad or vegetables.

Use the Food Lovers Eating Out Tips

Sometimes you can’t change a recipe without affecting the flavour or texture too much. This is the case with baking. No problem. Just use the Food Lovers Dietitian Eating Out Tips and serve small serves and offer dressings and sauces on the side.

6. Serve the Sauce on the Side

The dressing or sauce is often the part of the dish that has a lot of fat serves. Just like when you are dining out, the solution is often to serve it separately and let everyone add the anount they would enjoy.

7. Use Small Serves

The Food Lovers Dietitan Approach means you can enjoy any food just as it is. Instead of tweaking the recipe you can just tweak the serve size and add plenty of salad or vegetables. This is difficult to do too often because it makes it hard to nourish yourself. Itis a hack that works best for eating out but it’s also useful at home when you can’t tweak the recipe.

See These Recipe Hacks in Action

Kerala Fish Curry 

1. Tweaks the fats

https://foodloversdietitian.com/healthyweight/fish-curry/

And this was the original recipe….

https://foodandtravelsecrets.com/kerala-fish-curry/

Asian Salmon Bowl

1. Tweaks the fats

     2. Tweaks the carbs

Primavera Stuffed Chicken

1. Tweaks the protein

    2. Tweak the fats

    3. Tweaks the the cheese

    4. Tweaks the carbs

For this recipe, I’d  swap the oil for 2Tbsp pesto rubbed onto the chicken and I’d skip the cheese. I’d use just 2 chicken breasts sliced lengthwise to get 4 serves. Then a serve would be 1 large protein serve and 1 serve fat using the Food Lovers Meal Planner. A green salad and dressing with a smaller carb serve like ½ cup canned chickpeas or roasted sweet potato (in the oven with the chicken) would go nicely.

 

Bibimbap

1. Tweaks the proteins

    2. Tweaks the fats

    3. Tweaks the carbs

For two serves use 1 tsp vegetable oil to stir-fry the spinach, halve the mince, sauces and sugar and double the egg (have 1 each)!

 

Poke Bowl

1. Tweaks the fats

    2.  Tweaks the carbs

Cauliflower and Pomegranate Salad

1. Tweaks the fats

    2.  Tweaks the carbs

    3.  Serves the dressing on top ( not stirred through)

One Skillet Tuscan Chicken

1. Tweaks the fats

    2.  Tweaks the serves

To trim the serves of fats to just 1 per serve, I’d tweak it to use just ½ Tbsp oil and fry off the onions first then add the mushrooms and finally the chicken. I’d stick to just 30g each diced sundried tomatoes and sliced olives and I’d use the whole dish to serve six with a green salad and a good dressing. 

 

Pasta Frittata

1. Tweaks the fats

    2.  Tweaks the cheese

This recipe can work with the Food Lovers Meal Planner for 4 serves, but I’d just use 2 tsp oil for the pan and 90g of feta for the top with cherry tomatoes and basil.
Serve it with a green salad with a drizzle of dressing.

 

Easy One Pan Greek Chicken with Roasted Veggies

1. Tweaks the Proteins

    2.  Tweaks the fats

    3.  Tweaks the carbs

 

Open Vegetarian Lasagna

1. Tweaked the fats

    2.  Tweaks the cheese

    3.  Tweaked the carbs

https://www.instagram.com/p/BcbsyWSjCR2/

So over to you! How would you use these recipe hacks and the Food Lovers Dietitian Meal Planner to tweak your recipes?

Do show us on the Food Lovers Dietitian Facebook Page. Post your recipe and tell us what you’d do!

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