Do any recipes here pop out to you?

Pastaprincess1978

https://www.aldi.com.au/en/groceries/recipes/main-meals-recipes/

Hey all - I could add these to the recipe data base - but anyone who is interested - do any of these recipes strike you as low cal? (ie under 400cal a serve)

kommodevaran

Any recipe/meal can be under 400 calories per serve, just make the serve small enough.

Every day you get a calorie allowance. You can spend it as you like.

amusedmonkey

What looks good to you? If you give an example of a recipe that sounds interesting, I'll give you examples how to make it lighter if it's higher in calories than you would like. You could make any meal fit your calorie budget by either having a smaller serving or slightly modifying the ingredients in a way that wouldn't change the taste so much (a little bit less oil, leaner cuts, a slightly larger portion of a lower calorie ingredient in the recipe compared to other ingredients...etc.)

Pastaprincess1978

thanks - I love the look of these two -
https://www.aldi.com.au/en/groceries/recipes/main-meals-recipes/swedish-meatballs/
https://www.aldi.com.au/en/groceries/recipes/main-meals-recipes/cauliflower-crust-pizza/

I put the cauliflower based pizza through the recipe thing here and it came out at like 2000kj a serve (recipe serves 4) didn't sound right to me?

MelanieCN77

Cauliflower pizza base isn't really a thing done for calorie lightening, more for low carb or paleo I guess - by the time you add the cream cheese and egg and whatever binders it's not that light.

Pastaprincess1978

Binders are 1 egg and 25g parmesan - but toppings may do it

amusedmonkey

I'll use the first recipe as an example because it's more involved:
- you could try using a leaner ground pork and beef and make your own meatballs or find a leaner brand. For browning, you could use half oil, cooking spray, or just spray them directly and throw them in the oven for a bit. - this step saves 50-120 calories for the oil and up to 500 calories on meatballs if say, you went from 80% mince to 90%.

- you could make 3/4 the gravy (multiply the amounts of all ingredients by 3/4) - this would save you about 300 calories. If you use light sour cream, that's an additional 50 calories but it isn't worth it if you like regular sour cream because this would only amount to a roughly over 10 calories saved per serving. (I don't mess with sauces and gravy because sometimes ratios need to be exact for them to turn out right, so I just make less of the sauce)

Total saving for the recipe: about 900

Now calculate the calories for the total recipe with the modifications and see how many serving you can get out of it if you divide by 400. It will likely be more than 4 servings because I don't know of any moderately sized meal that has more than 200 grams of meat per serving. To bulk up the meal, make a large salad and you should have something

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As for the pizza, it sounds about right. You're eating nearly a cup of cheese if it's for 4 servings. To make it lower use lower fat mozzarella. This would be a sad sad pizza, though. It's already sad with its cauliflower crust. I would rather just buy or make a thin crust real personal pizza. Not too different in calories from cauliflower pizza but a million times better at scratching the pizza itch.

Pastaprincess1978

thanks so much! True that about the sad pizza lol - sometimes just better to have a slice and count it in!

amusedmonkey

Pastaprincess1978 wrote: »

thanks so much! True that about the sad pizza lol - sometimes just better to have a slice and count it in!

You're not even sacrificing much! A personal thin crust is 350-450 for the whole thing here, not just a slice. Not sure how it is where you live.

Pastaprincess1978

good quality stuff would be about the same