When it comes to eating healthy, taste often gets a bad rap. These are some of my favorite low-calorie and low-sodium flavor boosters to help keep your tastebuds happy and your waistline lean. I use them almost every day to sauté with or stir fry, put on raw veggies, add to salad dressings and more. The recipe for the lower-calorie peanut satay is from my book The 20 Minute Body along with over 100 other recipe variations to try (20minutebody.com/book). Let me know if you try any of these flavor boosters and recipes!
Majestic Garlic “Delicious Creamy Garlic” – it IS seriously delicious! Garlic is good, but creamy garlic is better! Boost the flavor to raw veggies, salad dressings, wraps and stir fries. Yes, you will have garlic breath, but it’s worth it 🙂 1 tsp has only 30 cal and 3.5 g of fat.
Bragg “Nutritional Yeast Seasoning” – I love cheese, but my half Asian side doesn’t do well digesting it so I’ve had to come up with other “Cheesy” options. My favorite alternative is nutritional yeast and since cheese is made from yeast, you won’t miss the taste! I add it to salads, eggs, meatloaf, soups and steamed veggies. Besides being loaded with vitamins and minerals, 1 TBL packs in 2 g of protein with only 20 calories.
Coconut Secret “Coconut Aminos” – regular soy sauce can be loaded with up to 1,000 mg of sodium and for many people, 1,500 mg is what they should be getting for the entire day! Salt or sodium is a natural flavor enhancer, but too much can be hard on your blood pressure and make you retain water. Instead of adding salt or soy sauce, try using these Coconut Aminos with only 90 mg of sodium and let me know what you think!
Fage ‘Total Greek Yogurt” – if you ever go to Greece, you MUST try their Greek yogurt. It really is the food of the Gods there. Greek yogurt is higher in protein and creamier than the regular stuff and it’s a great lower-calories alternative to recipes that call for heavy cream. 1 cup has only 170 calories and packs in 11 g of protein.
So Delicious “Coconut Milk Coffee Creamer” – if you take cream in your coffee then you know the struggle when you run out of cream and have to add just milk… not nearly the same. Cream is goodness, but it adds more calories and since I don’t do well on dairy, I used almond milk instead. But almond milk, coconut milk or rice milk just doesn’t do coffee justice like some cream… that’s why So Delicious Coconut Milk CREAMER is the savior! Your taste buds will thank me 🙂
Peanut Satay Sauce for Chicken or Tofu – peanut butter makes everything taste better but with 100 calories per TBL it’s easy to over indulge. Adding Greek yogurt instead of Coconut cream to the peanut butter helps reduce the calories without sacrificing the flava!
4 servings (1 serving = 3 TBL)
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup Greek yogurt
2 cloves garlic
1 TBL coconut aminos (like soy sauce)
2 tsp hot sauce
For the complete recipe as well as over 100 recipe variations, checkout my book The 20 Minute Body (20minutebody.com/book)
Watch the Facebook Live I did with Liberté Chan talking about all these flavor boosting foods! Connect with me on my Facebook page for more nutrition tips, workouts and motivation at Facebook.com/BrettHoebel.
https://www.facebook.com/bretthoebel/videos/10155057663529931/
What are you favorite flavor boosters? Let me know in the comments below!
love & sweat,
brett
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