Jewish Holiday Recipes for Dieters

The holiday season is the perfect time of year to break out the old traditional Jewish holiday recipes. However, for people who are on a doctor recommended diet, or who are trying to lose weight, these comfort food recipes have too many fat grams, salt grams and calories to eat. At least that is what they think. With a few basic modifications, you can turn just about any traditional Jewish holiday recipe into a meal that will fit in with your current diet plan.

Go Vegetarian

One of the easiest ways to cut the fat and calories from a Jewish holiday recipe is to turn it from a meat dish to a vegetarian dish. For example, you can substitute eggplant, beans, lentils and even mushrooms for many meats. However, even though most vegetables have lower calories per serving than meat, they can still have high fat content or start content which can impact your insulin, so be careful.

Use Lean Cuts of Meat

Succulent, juicy and rich are all adjectives that are used to describe holiday meats. These adjectives usually are selected because of the wonderful mouth feel that fatty meats produce, especially after slow cooking on a low heat setting. While beef briskets and hams are tasty, they have a lot of fat and a lot of calories. To reduce the calorie count in your holiday meal without sacrificing taste all you have to do is select leaner cuts of beef and pork. The easiest way to do this is to select cuts that have loin or round in their name. These are generally the leanest cuts of meat.

Use Low Sodium Condiments and Broths

Salt can get into your holiday dishes in several ways. The first way is through the broths that you use to create sauces and bases. To cut down on the amount of salt in your dishes you will want to use low sodium broths. While they may seem a bit flavorless at first, by the time they have been reduced in your sauce, the salty taste will intensify. The second way that salt can get into your food is through extra salt that you add during cooking and at the table. To help cut down on the amount of sodium being added to your meal, use sea salt, which is naturally lower in sodium. Finally, salt can be added to other ingredients during the manufacturing process. To keep tabs on all the salt that is being added to your recipes all you have to do is read labels and keep a tally on how many grams or milligrams of salt is contained in each ingredient.