Homemade polenta

lambjoo

I recently had polenta when eating at a friends, but it was used in a really high calorie dish. Does anyone have a recipe for homemade polenta and a good low cal dish to use it in?

amann1976

polenta is nothing but expensive grits...

lovedogslovecats

It's just cornmeal. Grits is coarser than polenta. Go to foodnetwork.com & do a search for Giada De Laurentis' Basic Polenta. If you make it at home with plain cornmeal, it's actually very, very inexpensive. Or you can buy it already cooked, and it comes in a roll. I agree with the previous poster in that I think it's become very trendy to eat polenta while it's still corny (pun not intended) & country to eat grits. So restaurants can sell polenta for an exorbitant price while you can get grits with your eggs for very little. Personally, I love both of them. I love polenta with fresh grated parmesan and fresh spinach, and I'm looking forward to garlic cheese grits for turkey day!

Laddiegirl

Well the basic creamy polenta that I make is just fat free chicken broth (2 cups), fat free milk (2 cups) and polenta meal (1 cup) and comes out at 75 calories for 6 servings. If you add a a cup of shredded parmesan cheese it will come out to 135 calories a serving. You can do less than a cup of the cheese for fewer calories as well. I'll often add some garlic too if I make it with the cheese.

There are a lot of things you can do to it to make it the main part of a meal and just serve with veggies on the side if you're worried about calories. I've made it with the cheese, spread it in a baking dish and let it firmed up, then topped with sliced tomatoes and chopped basil and then baked till the tomatoes start to brown and it is delicious.

Another is to spread in a baking dish while hot, top with a cup of spaghetti sauce and then bake till bubbly. I use my homemade pasta sauce and it comes out at 147 calories a serving like this. A jarred sauce would work well. And it is firm the next day so really good as leftover lunch.

I stay away from the premade roll polenta because it doesn't taste the same and the texture is off to me. Since it is really cheap and easy to make your own I just go that route. But if you do go with the premade roll polenta it would be easy to slice off a round, top with veggies and bake for a non high calorie but yummy dish as well.