Ideas for Low calorie side dishes "Preferably home-made"

Any root vegetable lightly steamed and then caramelized in the same pan with a teaspoon of olive oil. I particularly love carrots and/or parsnips and/or celeriac made this way.

I love roasted beets and parsnips

We do lots of salads and roasted veggies here. Or sometimes when I'm lazy, raw cucumbers and carrots

jane837 wrote: »

My go-to side dish is mixed vegetables chopped up and roasted with some olive oil, salt, and pepper. It's delicious, easy, and a great way to use up random veggies that have accumulated in your fridge.

Yes! I do this. I use onion, potato, carrots, and beets. You can also take out the potatoes and drizzle balsamic vinegar on them before baking.

For low calorie I would do roasted cauliflower instead of potatoes. It has the same "mouth feel" as potato but more flavour when roasted. Just needs a spray of oil and some seasoning. Spices are nice.

For chips I boil wedges for 5mins then roast with just a spray of oil. Very nice. Low calorie if you stick to maybe one potato worth- so eight chips.

Stir fry veg is good. Like kale with garlic- yum

Any vegetable, roasted. Vary the seasoning. Cauliflower and smoked paprika. Broccoli and garlic. Asparagus and lemon pepper. Brussels sprouts and garlic. All finished with a squeeze of lemon juice. Spaghetti squash is another favorite of mine with seasoned salt. You can eat a ton of non-starchy vegetables for very few calories. I usually toss mine with a teaspoon of oil and whatever seasoning I'm using and roast in a 400 degree oven on a parchment lined baking sheet until they're done.

Grill asparagus with a splash of worsheshire and garlic salt. Pretty good.

Anyway, I tend to think of side dishes as of two kinds. First, whatever seems interesting to do with vegetables that day--I like roasting and sautéing and often having a mix rather than just one. Usually I don't do salad for dinner or have it in addition to cooked veggies (or sometimes put the cooked on the salad). Second, some kind of starch or starch substitute. This is the optional one, for me. If I want to cut the calories in a meal I replace it with a second or third veggie dish. Also the starch substitute may include what's really a veggie dish, like winter squash or roasted root veggies (carrots, turnips, parsnips, celeriac, beets, etc.). But quite often I have both veggie side dishes and a starch and just watch the portion size of the starch. (For the record, I'm including grains or grain-like foods as starches, so am referring here to corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, quinoa, rice, barley, lentils or other legumes, etc.--basically any standard side-dish made up of something other than a non-starchy veg.)

Sometimes I do something like pasta or a stir-fry-like or stew where the side dish becomes part of the main dish and includes everything in one, and you can reduce the calories in these by using spaghetti squash or other winter squash or some other veg in the place of the pasta or rice, etc., but it's also just as easy to include the higher calorie starch if you prefer it and just modify serving sizes to have more veg and protein and less of the starchy portion. (This also makes me happy since as a kid I'd always be told that in with pasta one should use only a little sauce, whereas the sauce was my favorite part. Now I can make my veggie-heavy and delicious sauce and eat as much as I want on a little bit of pasta.)

execrate2k15 wrote: »

Can some one please post your ideas and recipes for Low calorie side dishes "Preferably home-made"
ie: No processed food

Thank you

I just posted a link to a free low fat recipe book in my stream. It may have some.
http://amzn.to/1E8yh3H

I try to share links to free books I find whenever I find them. If you don't have a kindle, you can always use the kindle app.

I really like orzo as a side dish, mixed with a little lemon juice, olive oil, pine nuts, goat cheese, and whatever herbs I have on hand. I don't know if that meets your low cal criteria but I like it because it is good warm or cold.

My other favorite side, especially when weather warms up and we start grilling more, is a black bean and corn salad. There are lots of ways to make this based on what you have on hand, but I usually start with some version of this:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/black-bean-and-corn-salad-ii/

This is another one that is great for leftovers (especially if you omit the avocado although I love the avocado in there).

This week I prepared marinated pork chops on my George Foreman while the pasta boiled. On the crusty grill I put thin sliced bell pepper garlic and onion for a minute. Meanwhile I whipped low fat Philadelphia cheese with some Greek yogurt. The "cream sauce" I mixed in with the pasta and the veggies. Light "Alfredo".