Chinese cuisine?

DroseraBohemica

Hello,
Do you people know any low calorie food at least inspired by Chinese food? I'm afraid I can't live without it..

CoachMelissaDi

You can look up recipes on allrecipes.com. My favorite that I make is chinese style green beans! So delish! You can find the recipe on that site! Good luck!

ACook42

In my opinion....Stirfry shouldn't be too bad. If you make it at home and know what is going into it..like chicken and veggies, and a low sodium soy sauce.
I LOVE chinese food as well and I find it soooooo hard to resist. But I do STAY AWAY from the buffets.

mistyb47711

I love it to but it packs the calories on....im gonna see what responses u get cause i would love to know also

tuffytuffy1

Google "spicy szechuan lettuce wraps" I love them!

JennaM222

http://www.fitsugar.com/Healthy-Chicken-Lo-Mein-Recipe-18257465


fitsugar.com - Every woman needs to make popsugar.com their home page!!!

dodd319

ditto! love it but hate the nutritional value of everything...

UsedToBeHusky

This came from another MFP member. It was posted a few weeks ago. I copied and pasted into a Word doc.

For starters...to get rid of most of the sodium, I make my own soy sauce. And recently found a recipe for low sodium oyster sauce. Because buying even reduced sodium ones in the store are really high. You can't beat the 15-30 grams of sodium these come out too. The soy sauce is actually pretty good too. I make it in bulk and freeze in ice cubes, so I can have some in the fridge all the time. Tastes good to just throw into stir-frys, or put on rice etc.

I had to buy sodium free bouillon for both of the recipes. But it was worth it. Because I can use them in other things too, like soup broths, gravy's etc.



(ordered mine on Amazon.com)

Low Sodium Soy Sauce

1/2 Cup Sodium Free Bouillon

3 Tbsp Red Whine Vinegar (or substitute reg. vinegar)

1 1/2 Tbsp Molasses

1 Tbsp Ground Ginger

1 tbsp Garlic Powder

1/2 tsp Black Pepper

3 Cups Water

In a sauce pan, combine all ingredients and boil gently uncovered about 5 minutes or till mixture is reduced (thickens).

Store in refrigerator for 2 weeks (stir before using), or freeze in ice cube tray for easy access (good for 3 months)

Makes 32 servings (1 tbsp per serving)....or 2 Cups.
***Tastes good over rice, or just mixed in with a stir-fry too. YUM ****

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Low Sodium Oyster Sauce

8 oz Oysters (the lowest sodium you can find - my choice was boiled)

1/2 tsp Lemon Juice

3/4 Cup Water

2 1/2 tsp No Sodium Chicken Bouillon

1 Tbsp Homemade soy sauce (recipe from above)

Dash of black pepper

1) Drain oysters, reserving the liquid.

2) In preheated wok or skillet combine oysters, lemon juice & 1/2 the water. Boil for 15 seconds. Transfer to blender and grind coarsely.

3) In wok combine remaining bouillon and remaining water. Turn to medium and bring to a slow boil. Turn to low and stir in oyster mixture and remaining ingredients. Simmer 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Makes 22 servings (1 Tbsp each). Good for 1 week in fridge or freeze in ice cube trays for easy to grab servings (good for 3 months)



Chicken Lo mien

Makes 10 serving (3/4 cup or 170 grams)

Calories: 217 Carbs: 31 Fiber: 4 Fat: 4 Sugar: 9 Protein: 13 Sodium: 39

** A food processor came in super dooper handy for both of these. ($20 walamart) I didn't want huge chunks of vegetables & meat in my noodles...so I shredded everything using the food processor. lol You can however chop everything up by hand. **
Ingredients
12 oz - Chicken breast

*****:

4 oz - Zucchini

1/4 cup (4 oz) - Carrots

6 oz - Broccoli

8 oz - Mushrooms

1 cup green onions, sliced

*****

sauce:

1 cup low sodium soy sauce

1 cup Chinese cooking wine or white wine

4 tablespoon honey

2 tablespoon sesame oil

2 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon Chinese 5 spice

1 teaspoon ginger

4 cloves garlic, minced

*****

Noodles:

8 ounce package of whole wheat noodles (Healthy Harvest was low cal)

- First, gather your veggies and chop or slice them and set aside for later. Cook your chicken and also slice up.

- Next, in a small bowl prepare the ingredients for the sauce. You want this ready and waiting!

And, set a pot of water to boil for your pasta/noodles.

Add chicken and sliced veggies to the pan, and stir fry that for a few minutes. And if the water is boiling, go ahead and add the noodles to that pot and cook per package instruction.

Add your bowl of already mixed sauce. Stir fry the mixture a minute or so and by now you should be ready to drain off the noodles.

After noodles are drained, add them to the veggies & chicken, and mix.

Let sit for a few minutes so the sauce gets a chance to thicken, stir occasionally. (around now my egg rolls were just being put in the oven, so I had time to spare)

Enjoy!



Baked Egg Rolls
(Just revised from a previous poster on MFP)

Makes 15 servings (1 egg roll per serving)

Calories: 84 Carbs: 16 Fiber: 2 Fat: 1 Protein: 4 Sugar: 2 Sodium: 165
Ingredients

1 Package of Coleslaw Mix (16 oz)
1 cup Green Onions, sliced
4 oz Sliced Mushrooms, chopped & diced
1 medium Zucchini, diced (8 oz)
1 14oz Can Bean Sprouts, drained

4 tbsp Soy Sauce
2 tbsp Oyster Sauce
2 tbsp minced garlic
1 teaspoon ginger

Nasoya - Egg Roll Wraps (found near the produce and tofu)
1/4 cup Egg Beater ( or 1 egg)
PAM Spray

For the filling:

Add all the veggies to the pot on a medium heat and mix for a few minutes until the veggies are warmed up. Mix the soy sauce, oyster sauce, garlic and ginger in bowl and dump over the veggies and mix well. Set veggies aside to cool for a few minutes.

Once the veggies are cooled, fill your egg roll wrappers with filling (about 1/2 cup for filling or 50 grams) and assemble.


How to roll a egg roll/spring roll video on youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Abqjo5A7rI

Spray a cookie sheet with PAM and line the egg rolls on cookie sheet. Spray the top of the egg rolls with PAM.

Bake on 350 for a good 25 minutes. You might want to broil for a few minutes too to get them crispy on top!

When picking up the ingredients just make sure you pay attention to the labels. Noodles or the egg roll wrappers can make a big difference in the calories. I like to use the Nasoya brand egg roll wrappers because most of the other ones I've found can add between 30 and 50 calories per egg roll. So just be careful and read the labels!

There were pictures too. Sorry. I couldn't get them in the message.

bookyeti

My Dad is Chinese, so we grew up on authentic Chinese food. The key word is *authentic* - the cuisine that the Chinese usually eat is very healthy. Lots of stir-fries (not a lot of soy sauce either) - fresh veggies and lean meats (if any). Avoid Chinese take-aways and buffets as they usually cater to so-called "American-Chinese" food...which really isn't Chinese food at all. Yes, it's yummy for a treat, but a lot of it is 'junk food'.

Taygwen

www.healthychineserecipes.com

Chinese food is my alltime favorite and I don't know if I can live without either. I don't prefer to cook it but if I have to in order to get something close but maybe healthier...I will attempt.

Dramatic456

You can still order chinese from a chinese restaurant! Just pick something like shrimp/ chicken and broccoli, ask them to steam it instead of stir fry it, and get the sauce on the side, then dip the meat/ veggies into the sauce. Ask if they have brown rice instead of white and measure it out! These options are low cal! Also try steamed veggie dumplings (3 big ones is only 200 calories) they're a great substitute for an eggroll.

Just stay away from the fried/ stirfried stuff and you'll be fine, it might take some getting used to, but after awhile, you'll forget the unhealthy chinese of the past!

PAnn1

I agree, you can make it pretty healthy at home, as you have control over all the ingredients. I use 1/2-1Tbsp of Annie Chun's Chinese Stir Fry Garlic Scallion sauce with cut up chicken breast and loads of different veggies and it's so good and filling. Most sauces are sodium loaded so look for the lower sodium sauces. I know I could do better with a different sauce, but I really like this one and I do add a little water so it's more saucy. I've also used dry Sunbird oriental seasoning mixes that are just as good. I love oeriental foods so have made many different stir frys that fit into my menus very well.

kimrich10

BUMP

kunibob

My Dad is Chinese, so we grew up on authentic Chinese food. The key word is *authentic* - the cuisine that the Chinese usually eat is very healthy. Lots of stir-fries (not a lot of soy sauce either) - fresh veggies and lean meats (if any). Avoid Chinese take-aways and buffets as they usually cater to so-called "American-Chinese" food...which really isn't Chinese food at all. Yes, it's yummy for a treat, but a lot of it is 'junk food'.

I came here to say this, so I'm going to quote it for emphasis.



If you Google five spice recipes, you'll find a lot of recipes for a common spice mixture which may be familiar to you from take out "Chinese" food, if the Chinese food in your area is decent at all. I use custom blends of it a lot for chicken and stir-fry beef.

Chicken & cashew nut stir fry can be done quite healthily, too!

The vegetable dishes can be done quite easily (2-3 minutes) and for low calories if you use spice blends and only a little sauce.

Homemade noodle or rice dishes allow you to control the amount of starches that go in, allowing you to control the calories.

Also, you can modify some of the American "Chinese" recipes by baking instead of deep frying and by using a wok/water instead of frying pan/oil.

Stephanie08

bump

Stephanie08

This may not be a popular opinion, but Chinese Food - yes the bad for you American kind - is my favorite. I have to hold off and have it on occasion, but when I do order it, I get what I want, all the delicious foods I like, and then I split it with my BF and make him take the left-overs with him. Or what else I've done is break them down into different dinners and freeze them for the next "hankering".

Because I only do this once in a while, I don’t feel deprived and I still get what I really want.