Healthy Cooking Blog

How to make a healthy smoothie: best smoothie ingredients & 10 to ditch

Nifer — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:04:46 +0000

Whether you enjoy smoothies for breakfast, a snack or even dessert, they’re a great way to increase your daily servings of fruits and vegetables. But depending on the ingredients they’re made with, smoothies can quickly turn into unhealthy calorie-bombs filled with sugar and saturated fat. And drinking too many high-calorie smoothies could counteract their health benefits and sabotage your efforts to stay—or get—slim.

How to make chicken stock and chicken broth

Nifer — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 18:51:54 +0000

One of the first recipes I learned in culinary school was how to make homemade chicken stock. Both stock and broth start with the same base of vegetables (carrots, celery, onions), herbs (parsley, thyme, bay leaf) and water, yet broth has an enhanced flavor from using the chicken meat while stock generally only uses the chicken bones. Many recipes and store-bought products use the terms interchangeably. You can use chicken broth and chicken stock interchangeably in recipes.

DIY chocolate-dipped strawberries (and more chocolate-covered treats)

Nifer — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 20:26:26 +0000

If you want to melt hearts this Valentine’s Day, dark chocolate-dipped strawberries are one of the most romantic foods to serve. They seem fancy and decadent, but they couldn't be easier to make. Just use your microwave to melt chocolate (no double boiler on the stovetop required!). Whip up a batch before dinner and they’ll be ready by the time you hit dessert. (For a gift, let the treats cool, wrap in wax paper and place them in a pretty box.)

Cooking spray: should you use it?

Nifer — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 17:00:45 +0000

In the EatingWell Test Kitchen, we use cooking spray because it’s a fast, no-mess way to make a tiny bit of oil go a long way so we can keep calories in check. Calorie for calorie, cooking spray is similar to other oils: spraying for 1 second (enough to coat a large skillet) is about 9 calories; 1/4 teaspoon canola oil is 10 calories and would be just enough to very thinly coat a skillet.

Fresh vs. canned vs. frozen: which is better?

Nifer — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 19:42:10 +0000

Nothing beats fresh produce. Still, in the kitchen, using canned or frozen fruits and vegetables can be a lot more convenient—but is it worth it? Are you giving up nutrition for convenience? Although a fresh fruit or vegetable would never be considered unhealthy, surprisingly there are a few circumstances where frozen and even canned could offer you more health benefits than fresh. Here’s a closer look at a few examples of fresh foods vs. their canned or frozen counterparts.

Burn 700 calories cooking thanksgiving dinner

Nifer — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 15:10:01 +0000

I love being in the kitchen on Thanksgiving. Between the delicious smells, nice company and constant foot traffic (everyone finds a reason to stop by the kitchen on Thanksgiving!), it’s the place to be in the lead-up to the year’s most sumptuous meal. But anyone who’s ever hoisted a turkey out of the oven or chopped so many veggies their wrists have cramped knows that making Thanksgiving dinner can be hard work. And though a lot of attention is paid to the calories consumed on Thanksgiving, not that much thought is given to the calories burned.

The 7 healthiest foods on your thanksgiving menu

Nifer — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 19:05:56 +0000

Thanksgiving is quickly becoming my favorite holiday. And why not? It’s a great time to hang out with family, watch football and, of course, eat an amazing meal.

Most people think of Thanksgiving dinner as being a bit of a calorie bomb. And, really, it is: in a recent issue of EatingWell we estimated that the Turkey Day meal clocks at least 2,800 calories.

Little tricks to save 500+ calories at dinner

Nifer — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 15:27:45 +0000

I enjoy food WAY too much to always be on a diet. Instead of giving my eating habits an overhaul, I’m going to make small changes to what I’m already doing when I’m cooking to save more than 500 calories. Here are 5 little tricks that save calories at dinner.

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5 secrets to speedy soup

Nifer — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 12:59:13 +0000

Nothing beats a warm bowl of homemade soup on a cool fall day. But I’m a busy guy—I don’t have time to stand around stirring a pot and chopping vegetables all day. So how do I whip up tasty, savory creations in the time I do have? I take shortcuts, using a few cheater ingredients here or some clever EatingWell cooking tricks there to get the job done faster. As a result, I can make an amazing soup just like my mom used to make (What am I talking about? STILL makes) in just 30 minutes. That’s less than the time it takes to order takeout.

8 foods for skinny Italian cooking

Nifer — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 13:59:34 +0000

I grew up in a city in Connecticut famous for its Italian food—New Haven’s pizza places are some of the best in the world—so being able to enjoy fettuccine alla carbonara, osso buco, tiramisu and the like feels more like a birthright than a privilege. But whenever I want to enjoy a deliciously cheesy Italian dish, there always seems to be someone ready to make a disparaging comment about how unhealthy it is. Because Italian equals pasta and pasta equals carbs and carbs equal unhealthy, right? Wrong.

5 ways to use pizza dough

Nifer — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 17:45:32 +0000

For years, one of my favorite go-to quick-dinner tricks has been to grab a bag of pizza dough from the freezer aisle of my supermarket, a jar of marinara sauce, some cheese and a few veggies and whip up a delicious, homemade pizza.

How to cook amazing healthy recipes with bacon

Nifer — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 16:56:07 +0000

It’s hard to deny that bacon possesses some magical qualities. It regularly gets people out of bed in the morning, it converts vegetarians to meat eaters. In fact I’m having a hard time writing this blog because all I can think about is bacon’s intoxicating aroma. Everything about bacon—its smoky perfume, its salty, yet subtly sweet bite—screams “Eat me! Eat lots of me!” But here’s where the fairy tale ends. If you sit down to a plate full of bacon, you will probably die. Okay, maybe not.

The right way to prepare oatmeal

Nifer — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 15:35:12 +0000

One of my favorite parts of fall is the return of warming, stick-to-your-ribs comfort foods. And for me one of the all-time classics is oatmeal. I practically lived on the stuff all through elementary and middle school; now I find it to be the perfect cool-weather start to my day.

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7 easy ways to make your kitchen healthier

Nifer — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 14:45:45 +0000

Forget spring-cleaning: fall is the perfect time to spruce up your kitchen. Now that you’ve recovered from the laziness of summer (maybe I’m projecting a bit here) but before the craziness of the holiday season, there’s a perfect window for tossing those mystery items in the back of your fridge, replacing that gray-looking sponge sitting by your sink and cleaning those drips from the ceiling of your microwave. And while you’re scrubbing your cooking area to make it look nicer, you may as well do a few things to make it healthier too.

Is cooking with nonstick pans healthy or not?

Nifer — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 16:57:04 +0000

More nights than not, I cook dinner in a nonstick skillet. It’s easy to wash up and can lend itself to healthy cooking…but is it safe? Here’s what you should know when cooking with nonstick pans: