You might consider restaurants to be a danger zone when it comes to healthy eating. While that can sometimes be the case, some chefs know how to deliver maximum flavor and use a maximum of healthy ingredients. You can do the same thing when cooking at home: Try these tips for easy healthy cooking from chef Roberto Santibanez, who plans Mexican meals with farm-fresh ingredients for The Taco Truck (www.thetacotruck.com), a restaurant and mobile food service coming soon to Hoboken, NJ.
# 1: Know your fats. "Cook with pure vegetable oils, real butter and/or lard, all of which have proven to be better for you than those processed with vegetable shortening and hydrolyzed fats. Also, use them with moderation!" says Santibanez. "Use no more than a teaspoon to sauté a chicken breast, for example, is my recommendation."
# 2: Choose real corn tortillas, the way Santibanez does, made with no fat. "They are much healthier than plain flour tortillas," he says. More ways to use tortillas for easy healthy cooking: Heat with cheese to make quesadillas, or cut them up and bake or fry them into chips. Try garnishing soups and salads with your homemade chips. Or do as they do in Mexico: "Tortillas are eaten in the same way bread is in other parts of the world, so we eat tortillas with everything—not just as a wrap," says Santibanez.
# 3: Go for the zing. "Using vinegars, horseradish, and strong mustards, all in good measure, can help give foods a bite and add higher notes all around without having to use too much fat to flavor the foods," says Santibanez. The stronger the flavor, the less you'll need to use. Try it at home: Add mustard, avocado, and cilantro to oil and vinegar to create the dressing the chef uses on his spinach amaranth salad.
# 4: Add some heat. "Use all kinds of fresh or dry chiles. They not only add tons of flavor to foods but also contain a high concentration of nutrients like vitamin C," according to Santibanez. For easy healthy cooking, roast, peel, and seed a few green chiles (try a mixture of Anaheim and poblano varieties), add to some roasted vegetables of your choosing. Then add some broth, and puree to make a wonderful soup.
# 5: Focus on portion control and quality. Santibanez suggests learning to eat smaller portions more often, and focusing on natural or organic foods. A smart trick that restaurant diners use is to have some of the meal wrapped up to go before it leaves the kitchen so there's no temptation to overeat. You can do the same at home: When you're done cooking, put some away for leftovers before serving the rest.
# 6: Dip into the salsa. Swap out fatty dips and replace them with fresh salsa, says Santibanez. You'll get more favor and less fat. He suggests making your own version of the pico de gallo that the Taco Truck offers; just mix tomatoes, peppers, onions, and cilantro. And remember that salsa’s not just a dip. Mexican restaurants use it with eggs, steak, chicken…think of it as an alternative to ketchup or steak sauce when you’re cooking at home.