What are your favorite healthy substitutions?
Finding healthy substitutions for higher fat/calorie ingredients/foods has its challenges and rewards. It can be difficult to replicate the taste and texture of certain foods when you start messing with the ingredients.
One of the most popular items people want to substitute is butter because of it's high content of saturated fat, unfortunately it can also be one of the trickiest ingredients to sub. One of the biggest mistakes people make is using margarine spread as a sub for butter in recipes. Because of the high water content in these products, this is not a good substitute--unless it specifically states it can substitute for butter in baking and has no trans fats, don't use it.
So, what are good substitutes for butter? Well, a lot depends on what you are making. If you are creating a sauce, or using it to saute something, then you could use olive oil instead. If you want a lighter flavor, you could use canola oil.
Remember though, oil is still fat--although the fat in olive oil is considered healthier (polyunsaturated and monounsaturated), it still has 14 grams per tablespoon. If your goal is calorie and fat reduction, you need to reduce the total amount of fat used. In sauteing, you could use some chicken stock. Also, using a non-stick pan with a bit of vegetable or olive oil spray is a lighter alternative. I choose to use the olive oil and limit other fats during my meal, such as salad dressing, or whatever I might spread on a piece of bread.
In baking, there are more options. If you want to eliminate the saturated fat, again you can substitute oil (but you have to adjust your dry ingredients) or you can use mashed avocado. The avocado will provide the fat the recipe needs, but it will be healthier monounsaturated fat. A nut butter is another alternative, but it can alter the taste of the finished product. Almond and cashew butter are lighter in flavor than peanut butter. Again, this is not going to lower the overall fat--it will just be a healthier one.
If you want to reduce the total fat, you can sub out half the butter with applesauce, pureed prunes, or mashed bananas. If you want to eliminate the fat you can sub the butter completely with these three ingredients (but you'll change the texture of the baked good--it will be drier). Mashed beans (white or black) can also be used--again the texture will be a bit different.
The new rage right now is coconut oil--the jury is still out on this one--it is claimed to have all these great qualities yet, coconut oil is saturated fat, same as butter, so if lower fat content is your goal--this is not the best choice.
Here's a flourless brownie recipe I found on ChocolateCoveredKatie.com that uses black beans and vegetable or coconut oil. I have not made this recipe, I have, however, made the chocolate chip pie/cake recipe that uses white beans and it was quite good.
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