If you're trying to lose weight, we're here to tell you that you don't have to give up your favorite recipes. It's possible to eat delicious dishes like meatloaf while still losing weight. In this article, we've got a great meatloaf recipe that's healthy enough to eat on a diet. Let's check it out.
Healthy Meatloaf Recipe
Ingredients:
1lb. ground beef, extra lean
1/2 cup (4 oz) tomato paste
1/4 cup onion, chopped
1/4 cup green peppers
1/4 cup red peppers
1 cup tomatoes, fresh, blanched, chopped
1/2 teaspoon mustard, low sodium
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon hot pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 stalks scallion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon orange rind, grated
1/2 teaspoon thyme, crushed
1/4 cup bread crumbs, finely grated
Directions:
1. Mix all ingredients together.
2. Place in 1-pound loaf pan (preferably with drip rack) and bake covered at 350 degrees F for 50 minutes.
3. Uncover pan and continue baking for 12 minutes.
Yield: 6 servings Serving size: one 1 1/4-inch-thick slice
Each serving provides:
Calories: 193
Total fat: 9 g
Saturated fat: 3 g
Cholesterol: 45 mg
Sodium: 91 mg
Total fiber: 2 g
Protein: 17 g
Carbohydrates: 11 g
Potassium: 513 mg
How to Make Your Favorite Foods Healthy
Meatloaf isn't the only recipe that you can make healthy! You can take pretty much any favorite recipe and make it into something that's diet-friendly. To do so, all you need to do is make a simple adjustment or two.
With this recipe, you'll notice that we used extra lean ground beef. By doing this, we significantly cut down the saturated fat while upping the protein. This is a simple change that makes this meatloaf recipe better than other versions for those watching their fat and calories.
You can follow this same strategy with whatever recipe you want. Grab a favorite recipe of yours that you've been staying away from since you started your diet. Look at the ingredients, and see if there are any substitutions you can make to cut down on the saturated fat, sugar, and/or calories. You might be able to swap whole milk for skim milk, or sugar for artificial sweetener. If you can make even one swap, you'll be on your way to eating your favorite recipe again.
In addition to making adjustments to your favorite recipes, keeping yourself in a calorie deficit will help you lose weight. A calorie deficit means burning more calories than you consume in a day. This forces your body to turn to existing fat stores for energy. Keep in mind that putting yourself in a calorie deficit does not mean starving yourself. It simply means using exercise to burn more calories than you consume.