How To Make Delicious Healthy Indian Food
Indian cooking has often been described as quick, easy and tasty but the reverse has been said about healthy Indian food too. The perception about Indian cooking is usually that it is fast, easy and delicious but it is all about the ingredients. And more often than not, these are leftovers and not healthy Indian food at all! So here we have been trying to make things easier for you by giving some easy cooking tips for healthy Indian food.
Instant Oats
Although instant oats are a healthy option when used sparingly, they have their place in a healthy Indian meal. Instant oats are high in fiber content but if used all the time, especially in a dish which is high on calorie intake like a Barfi, it will become less beneficial to your body. On the other hand, quick cooking oats can be used judiciously in curries, chutneys, pachadi kabobs, rice or even in a recipe wherein you do not need to make use of instant oats.
Low Fat and Calories
If you want to cook Indian meals on a budget that is low in fat and calories, then you should look for healthy ingredients like onions, tomatoes, cashews, garlic, green chilies, spices and coconut. However, if you are cooking the ingredients separately, then these too should be kept to a minimum. Instead of cooking vegetables separately, you can add them together at the end of cooking and mix in any of the spices that you have used. This will help you save a lot of money Indian cooking recipes.
Right Amount of Spices
There is no point in trying to cook healthy Indian food if you don’t have the right spices and the right amount of spices in your kitchen. If you have the ingredients ready in your home, it saves a lot of time cooking the healthy recipes healthy Indian meals. It is advisable that one does not buy pre-packaged curries and do not buy moong, unless you are experienced in cooking these recipes. For starters, you should learn to cook Indian recipes using ingredients that are readily available at home.
Simpler Recipes
When it comes to cooking Indian food healthy, it pays to choose simpler recipes over healthier options. Choosing the ingredients used for the main course and the side dishes will help you control the quantity of fat that is used in the food. Most of the times, when people go to restaurants, the portions are too big and it takes a long time to finish the meal. The ideal way to go about with this is to cook your own food healthy.
Various Sizes and Shapes
Indian meal plans come in various sizes and shapes. Therefore, there is no reason that you should feel limited in your cooking. You can easily opt for a four to six meal plan that is based on either quantity or frequency. The variety in the ingredients used in each recipe and the different ways of cooking will make your life much easier. The first step is to find easy recipes that are healthy and then work on making them more healthy. There are many easy Indian meal plans on the Internet that have been tried and tested by people who are already committed to making healthy Indian meals.
Low Fat Milk and Cottage Cheese
For making the healthier Indian food recipes, you should also use low fat milk and cottage cheese. It is important to note that the cottage cheese can be cream based or light. The fat content of the milk and the cottage cheese greatly affects the fat content of the final dish. There are some other Indian cooking tips that will help you make the dishes look easy to make and delicious at the same time. For instance, if you are serving tandoori chicken, you should remember to marinate the chicken in yogurt and lemon juice and cook it in olive oil.
Whole Wheat
Another easy Indian cooking tip is to use whole wheat roti. Rotis are small hollow cylinders, which can hold some pasta and meat as well as vegetables and lentils. If you want to cook an intricate recipe, you can cut long strands of Indian rice instead of using the long thread pasta. Long strands of rice have fewer calories because they contain smaller proportions of calories than the short strands of rice.