Creating a Healthy Dinner - Mexican Style

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Barbacoa Tacos — “Three corn tortillas f...
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Mexican food is a style of food that is bursting with flavor but is unfortunately usually loaded with calories and fat. With a little planning and creativity, however, you can have a delicious Mexican meal that is actually good for you.

Many Mexican meat dishes use pork or beef. Make a habit of substituting either lean beef or chicken as your meat. Main dishes such as fajitas, enchiladas, or tacos are very versatile and can use almost any type of lean meat, including seafood.

The next most prominent ingredient in any Mexican dish is cheese. Use low fat cheese instead or experiment with different kinds of cheese such as Swiss or Mozzarella. These two cheeses tend to be lower in fat and still taste great.

If the recipe calls for cream cheese, simply use a low fat or non fat version. Another option is to slightly reduce the amount of cheese used in the dish. While cheese is a great source of protein, it also packs in quite a few calories and grams of fat.

Sour cream is a common ingredient found either in a dish or as a side topping. As a side dish, you could eliminate it altogether or use creative substitutions such as plain, non fat yogurt, avocado, or salsa. If it is needed in a recipe, try low fat or non fat.

Refried beans are a flavorful side but are typically made with lard and therefore extremely high in fat. You can buy non fat refried beans, which also have less calories and taste just as good. Another option is to serve black beans and add various spices and vegetables. Black beans are high in protein and low in fat.

Lettuce is an essential topper for your tacos. Rather than using traditional ice berg lettuce, which has virtually no nutrition, substitute a leafier green such as Romaine lettuce, Belgian endive, radicchio, arugula, or even spinach. You could always mix these other types of field greens in with iceberg lettuce for a great healthy combination.

Tortillas are perhaps the staple of Mexican dishes. Traditionally, they too have been made with lard. You can buy a plethora of different health-conscious tortillas at the super market including low fat and low carb. The best option is to get wholemeal tortillas. You can also find them with a variety of spices and seasonings added in. You could always make your own at home. All you need is wholemeal flour, oil, water, and salt. This could be a fun way to involve the whole family.

When sautéing vegetables or meats, use less oil and use a lighter version such as olive oil. Only sauté vegetables until they are crisp-tender so you preserve their nutrition.

The article is written by Chelsi Woolz on the topic of healthy Mexican meals for dinner. When you are creating a Mexican cuisine for dinner, think of using healthy ingredients such as extra light tortillas, so you can stay healthy and still satisfy your taste buds.

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Variety For Your Healthy Lunch Recipes

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Miniature Food - Fruit Salad 1:12
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Making healthy lunch recipes can sometimes be impossible for you when you are on the run. Eating the same thing for lunch can get boring and eating out everyday is unhealthy and expensive. Making lunches for you and your family can be easy with all these fast simple easy to make recipes. You might enjoy recipes like pastas, soups, or salads; Finding fast recipes is easy when you look online or at book stores. You can even find lunches to make with the kids, to share with friends, or for when you are on the run.

The sandwich is an all time favorite. Its a quick lunch fix but sometimes ham, lettuce and tomatoes just don’t cut it.

You can vary the flavor by adding chicken, tuna, turkey and even fish. There is also a variety of veggies for example tomatoes, sliced bell peppers, pickles or you may try adding some fruit. Mayo is not the only choice of spread either now you have thousand island, sour cream and many others. Just imagine how many combinations you can make using all these different ingredients

Some fast healthy lunch recipes are soups which you can make yourself or buy them at the store. Making your own is better considering the fact that you can make a weeks worth and you can add your own ingredients. You don’t have to eat just the soup alone you can combine it with many side dishes. Some good dishes can be bread, cookies, chips or any other side dish you can think of. Since you might not have time to heat the soup you can also eat them cold. Pasta is another lunch recipe that can be eaten either hot or cold and you can make your pasta any way you like.

Talking about cold lunches salads is not just lettuce and tomatoes anymore there is a wide variety of ingredients too choose from when making your salad. You can add any leafy greens, dressings, meats, and toppings. With the choices of meats to put into the salads this will help to give you that full satisfying feeling. This healthy lunch recipe will keep you up and going for that busy, stressful and tiring day. You can even add fruit to the salad to give it some sweet flavor or make your own fruit cocktail.

When going to the grocery store make it a habit of scanning all the ingredients and think about all the healthy lunch recipes that are available to you. When you go shopping take your children so they can help you come up with some weird and delicious combinations of foods (kids are not afraid to speak their mind). The kids can also help you make their lunch before going to school which is good for spending time together on a busy schedule.

Brenda Vazquez enjoys delicious food, watching the cooking channel, and taking walks.

Healthy Lunch Recipes

Healthy Lunch Ideas

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See pictures of delicious recipes and other details at:

Romantic Recipes They Love

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