Good recipes?!
Answers: Hi. I need a few recipes. My dad recently had a minor heart attack and I want to help cook for him. He needs to eat healthy and LOW sodium meals. What are some easy recipes that you are SURE that they have low sodium and are pretty tasty? He'll eat anything with vegetables in it. Thanks!
Zucchini Squash Cakes
2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
2 eggs, slightly beaten
3-4 tablespoons flour
Mix together, fry in hot oil until browned.
Garlic Green Beans
4 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 pounds fresh green beans, trimmed
1/2 cup chicken broth – lo sodium
1 teaspoon sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons salt (Optional)
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Sauté garlic in hot oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat; add beans, tossing to coat.
Add broth and remaining ingredients. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes or until green beans are crisp-tender.
Yield: 4 to 6 servings
Raspberry-Balsamic Chicken
1 t vegetable oil
? cup chopped red onion
1 ? t minced fresh or ? t dried thyme
? t salt, divided
4 (4 ounce) boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/3 cup seedless raspberry preserves
2 T balsamic vinegar
? t black pepper
Heat oil in large skillet over medium, high heat until hot. Add onion, sauté 5 minutes. Sprinkle thyme and ? t salt over chicken. Add chicken to pan, sauté 6 minutes on each side or until done. Remove chicken from pan, keep warm.
Reduce heat to medium. Add ? t salt, preserves, vinegar, and pepper to pan, stirring constantly until preserves melt. Spoon sauce over chicken and serve immediately.
(Other fruit preserves, such as apricot, blackberry or peach will also work)
And here is a website:
http://www.fitnessandfreebies.com/lows...
Turkey Taco's
2 teaspoons chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon oregano
6 ounces extra-lean ground turkey
1/2 cup chopped onion
4 whole-wheat, low-fat flour tortillas, about 6 inches in diameter, warmed in the microwave
1/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
2 cups shredded lettuce
2 medium tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup salsa
In a small bowl, stir together the chili powder, cumin and oregano.
In a nonstick frying pan, add the ground turkey and onion. Cook over medium heat until the turkey is browned and onion is translucent. Drain well. Add the spices to the turkey mixture. Stir to mix evenly.
To serve, place a 1/4 cup of the turkey mixture in each tortilla. Top each with 1 tablespoon cheese, 1/4 of the diced tomatoes, 1/2 cup shredded lettuce and 2 tablespoons salsa. Fold in both sides of each tortilla up over the filling, and then roll to close. Serve immediately.
Also - I just want to say that it's very sweet of you to be concerned about his diet - and very responsible too! I think that if you can show him that there are a lot of heart-healthy, low sodium options out there, the two of you will do just fine!
I found these links for you, with a lot more recipes, since I don't really know his tastes...
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/healt...
http://www.lowsodiumcooking.com/free/A...
http://www.megaheart.com/sodium_all_ab...
http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/coll...
I hope those help you out! Best wishes.
Hi there!
That's great of you to help your dad out. He's lucky to have a willing daughter!
I would check out Recipezaar. It has some great recipes, and a lot of them are rated out of five stars. If you find something you like, see how many people gave that recipe good reviews, check out others' tips on making the recipe and give it a try.
You can do searches on the 'Zaar for low sodium meals. It takes a little bit to get used to navigating, but I highly recommend it! You'll probably get addicted to the site like I am after you see how convenient it is!
http://www.recipezaar.com
Good luck!
Often leaving out salt, means leaving out flavour. But, it doesn't HAVE to. Hit your local bulk store and pick up the ingredients to make your own version of Mrs. Dash Salt-Free Seasoning Blend - it tastes great on just about EVERYTHING ! (I have a friend to takes the recipe and measuring spoons into the store to be sure she gets exactly what she needs - not more/not less - but, make at least a double recipe.)
Sort-of-like Mrs. Dash Salt-Free Seasoning Blend
1/4 c crushed dried minced onion flakes
4 tsp crushed dried vegetable flakes
1 Tbsp garlic powder
1 Tbsp dried orange peel
2 tsp coarse ground black pepper
1 tsp dried parsley
? tsp dried basil
? tsp dried marjoram
? tsp dried oregano
? tsp dried savory
? tsp dried thyme
? tsp cayenne pepper
? tsp cumin
? tsp coriander
? tsp dried mustard
1/4 tsp celery seed
1/4 tsp Kool-aid unsweetened lemonade drink mix
dash crushed dried rosemary
* Use a mortar and pestle (or the back of a spoon and a small bowl) to crush the onion and vegetable flakes to rice-size before adding them to the mix.
Combine all of the ingredients in a small bowl and stir well. As you stir, crush the leafy spices for a finer blend.
Store the spice blend in a covered container or a sealed shaker bottle.
Makes about 2/3 cup.
My hubby had a 5-way bypass so I know what you mean about low-fat/low-cholesterol/low-salt diet (he also has high-blood pressure).
I left the salt out - first of all - in any recipe. Some people substitute it with that salt substitute but I didn't. There is salt in cheese, in tomatoes, in any canned product (in the form of sodium). So fresh fruits, veggies, and lean meat and fish would work for him. There's a world of things out there you can fix for him on his special diet as I did for my hubby. I converted cookie recipes to not contain fat (by using applesauce instead - I bought it in the Junior size babyfood jars so I wouldn't have a lot left over.
For frying things in a skillet, I would put water in the skillet, bring it to a boil, pour it out and then spray the pan before I put my meat in it right away. If you spray the pan and then heat it, you will burn the spray and get a nasty taste. I would coat his meat (be it chicken, pork, beef, whatever) with salt-free crackers if that's what I was fixing after rinsing the meat off so the cracker would stick to it. I would drop it in the skillet and brown the crackers/meat. Once it's browned, I'd add a can of the low-salt/low-fat cream of mushroom soup that Campbell's puts out and add some water. I'd bring it to the boil, turn the heat down, and cook it for 30-40 minutes or until the meat was nice and tender. Be sure and remove the skin if it's chicken and cut off any visible fat if it's anything else, before doing the crackers.
You can serve that with rice and use the soup mix for the gravy. Serve it with some fresh or frozen veggies that you cook and add black pepper to and Promise Ultra Fat-Free spread or something similar for flavoring. Or you can spray the veggies with the buttery spray that is very low fat (but only if you use just 5 sprays).
You can make for him - for another occasion - steak fries. Cut your potato into the fat french fries, place them in a bowl, make a mixture of paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, and a little sugar, stir well. Spray the potatoes with that buttery spray, stir them and give them one more group of 5 sprays, sprinkle with the above seasonings, give it a stir and sprinkle with more seasonings until they are nicely coated. Place on a cookie sheet or mesh wire over a cookie sheet and bake at 400o for 30-35 minutes.
My hubby was limited to 4 oz of meat a day (not per meal), nonfat products like nonfat cheeses (which still contain sodium so he didn't have them very often), he could eat all the fruit and veggies he wanted and any dessert I made that didn't have sodium or salt in it. Remember baking powder and baking soda have sodium but if he doesn't eat the whole recipe at once, which he wouldn't, then it's not too bad.
When I use eggs, I generally use 1 egg yolk per every 3 eggs called for on an omelet for him. I found it's cheaper to use regular eggs and toss the yolks than to buy egg beaters. Plus the egg beaters add, I believe about 1 T of oil to their product. If the use of eggs isn't for flavor (like in a cookie), I use all whites. In an omelet I always make sure there is at least one yolk because of the taste.
All your frozen dinners are very high in salt/sodium so fresh is better. Some people substitute ground turkey for beef in their recipes. If I want to stretch the meat in a dinner meal, like when using ground beef, I add bulgar I've soaked in boiling water to the skillet. It takes on the flavor of the 4 oz of ground beef (lean) in the pan and he couldn't tell where the meat ended and the bulgar began. It worked great when I made him Sloppy Joes from scratch (not using a powdered mix - high in salt there too).
Hope that helps - a little more information than you probably wanted but as long as you keep it fresh fruits, veggies, and took the salt out of anything you can - then if he has a food that has sodium in it, he will have less salt in his diet and can have that one item.
I recommend you check out http://www.highclassrecipes.com
They have some great free recipes.