The holiday season tends to include bundles of classic and delicious recipes. Many of these recipes, however, include ingredients, such as butter, cream cheese and sugar. Luckily, the Mayo Clinic offers an ingredient substitution list to help us recreate our favorite recipes using healthier alternatives that won’t take away flavor from the traditional dishes our families have come to love so much.
Along with the obvious healthier options like skim milk and whole grain bread and pasta products, the Mayo Clinic suggests using these not so obvious substitutions for healthy holiday feasts and meals in the New Year:
• Bacon. If your recipe calls for bacon, try substituting Canadian bacon, turkey bacon or lean prosciutto instead of real bacon to cut back some of the calories, fat and cholesterol.
• Sugar. Sugar adds a load of calories to many dishes, but in many recipes you are able to cut the amount of sugar called for in half, diminishing many of these extra calories. Sweeten the dish by adding extra vanilla or almond extract, nutmeg or cinnamon.
• Butter, margarine or shortening. These ingredients can pose serious harm to you and your health. Substitute half of the amount called for with applesauce or prune puree, and for the other half, use butter, margarine or shortening that has been specially formulated not to contain trans fat.
• Cream cheese. Aside from using reduced-fat and fat-free cream cheese products, another healthy alternative for cream cheese is pureed cottage cheese. Not only does it help cut down on fat, but it also provides more protein to your dish.
There are several other ingredient substitutions that could make your holiday dishes much healthier. For the Mayo Clinic’s full list of healthy ingredient substitutions visit http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/healthy-recipes/NU00585