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Stock your kitchen with these HG staples and you'll be good to go! Here are our Top Ate picks for guilt-free cooking.... Wheeeee!
1. Nonstick Cooking Spray
A spritz of this stuff can save you crazy amounts of calories and fat grams when whipping up your favorite dish. Just one little tablespoon of regular vegetable oil will add around 125 calories and 15 fat grams to your meal. Forget it! A quick spray of most of the nonstick stuff is calorie-free, and even a longer spray will only cost you a fat gram or so and a few calories. Use it when baking, cooking burgers, making veggies and more -- stovetop or on the grill. And take advantage of all the fun flavors and varieties out there. PAM has olive oil and butter flavors as well as special sprays for baking and grilling. Spray those extra calories and fat grams away!
2. Steamer
Steaming foods ROCKS. First off, it helps to retain the vitamins and other good-for-you stuff found in natural foods. Secondly, it's super-easy to do. And, best of all, it's a great low-cal and low-fat cooking method, since you don't need to add any oil, sauce, or butter to get going. There are many types of steamers: stand-alone kitchen appliances, stovetop steamers, and HG's personal fave, the microwave steamer. Microwave steamers are inexpensive, easy to clean, and they cut cooking time down to mere minutes. YAY!
3. Blender
Smoothies and shakes from the local coffee shop or burger joint can contain absurd amounts of fat, calories, and sugars. But it only takes a few minutes, some key ingredients, and a blender to whip up your very own guilt-free versions! We also use our blender to grind up those Fiber One breadcrumbs (the KEY ingredient in our Lord of the Onion Rings recipe). Blenders are a girl's best friend!
4. Food Processor
Food processors make prepping veggies a breeze. You can also make soups, sauces and awesome chopped salads with these super-handy appliances. Life without a food processor is like, well, life without a thing that chops, hacks, dices and liquifies really well.
5. Spices & Extracts
Keeping a stocked spice rack will help you add zazzle to your cooking while barely affecting calorie and fat counts. We're crazy about Mrs. Dash's salt-free line of gourmet seasonings. Tons of flavor without all that pesky sodium. But spices aren't just for upping the heat factor of an entree. Cinnamon and vanilla extract, two HG staples, are great for sweetening desserts while keeping them guilt-free. Use those in our hot dessert-y drinks, french toast, creamy fruit dips, and gooey apple pie desserts!
6. Nonstick Frying Pan
Investing in a good nonstick pan is a MUST. You can basically cook up anything (seafood, pancakes, veggie burgers, and more) without the use of any oil or butter. Another bonus? These pans are easy to clean, so no more using that as your excuse to order in! (Pssst...you never know how many ounces of oil were tossed into the wok with that Chinese takeout.)
7. Measuring Cups & Spoons
It's WAY too easy to overdo your portion sizes when you're eyeballing it. Measuring out ingredients will do more than get your baked goods to taste right; it'll keep you from accidentally causing increases in the fat and calories and not even knowing it. Even when you're not re-creating your favorite recipes, measuring utensils are super-handy. Sure you buy low-calorie cereal, but when was the last time you checked how much of the stuff you're filling your bowl with? Yikes! Break these out to keep yourself in check.
8. Reusable Spray Bottle
This may sound like an odd kitchen essential, but trust us. A spray bottle allows you to control the quantity of high-fat liquids like oil and salad dressing, and to evenly distribute 'em on your dish so you use less. HG loves Wish-Bone Salad Spritzers, and now you can turn almost any dressing (okay, maybe not chunky blue cheese!) into a spritzer. We still recommend sticking with reduced calorie and low-fat or fat-free ones, but using a spray bottle will help you scale back on serving size -- a definite plus!
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