lean meat – The No Salt, No Fat, No Sugar Journal

12 days of no-salt, no-sugar Christmas recipes — Chicken with strawberry & pineapple salsa

We’re bringing back a site favorite this holiday season, our 12 days of no-salt, no-sugar Christmas recipes to help you come up with a fun and healthy menu for this busiest time of year.

I’ll be linking to and discussing recipe favorites every day for the next 12, starting today with a recipe I wrote about recently and just made myself this past Sunday, grilled chicken with strawberries and pineapple salsa.

I suggested when first reviewing this recipe that you could substitute Mrs. Dash salt-free taco seasoning for the salt-free steak seasoning called for in the recipe. That worked out really well for me, giving the chicken a nice flavor. I rubbed the seasoning on both sides of each breast I made. Continue reading “12 days of no-salt, no-sugar Christmas recipes — Chicken with strawberry & pineapple salsa”

A Low-salt chicken recipe —Tomato & basil chicken with zoodles

With the holiday season in full swing, it’s a sure bet you’ll be cooking more for the various people who will be showing up on your doorstep this time of year. So I’ve been busy clipping recipes that are low-salt, low-sugar and low-fat, are quick to make, and sound pretty tasty too to share with you.

This post is about a recipe for something called tomato & basil chicken with zoodles.

I saw this in a magazine but it’s also on the Foster Farms (a poultry brand) site.

Ingredients you’ll need are:

4	chicken breasts seasoned with salt and pepper
2 tbsps	olive oil, divided
1 tsp	chopped fresh garlic
½ cup	balsamic vinegar
2 cups	cherry or golden tomatoes, quartered
2 tbsps	fresh basil, chopped
•	salt and pepper [leave out the salt]
¾ lb	zucchini, cut into spirals

Continue reading “A Low-salt chicken recipe —Tomato & basil chicken with zoodles”

Know what a paillard is? Me neither, but this one sounds tasty

It sounds incredibly simple and quick, plus now you have a new word for your cooking vocabulary.

Chicken has become my go-to meat choice now that I’ve had two stents put in during the past five years. And I’m constantly searching for more ways to cook it, as you can see on my recipe page. I recently saw this recipe for chicken paillard and I thought, what is a paillard and is it tasty?

Bon Appetit magazine seems to think it is, and for the record, a paillard is simply a piece of meat pounded flat, usually between two pieces of wax paper. Continue reading “Know what a paillard is? Me neither, but this one sounds tasty”

Say it ain’t so Naf Naf Grill. Did you add salt and fat?

So what has happened? Has there been a drastic reformulation of Naf Naf food for the worse, or is something wrong with it’s nutrition info on-site?

I wrote an enthusiastic post about the relatively new fast food chain Naf Naf Grill back in 2014 when I discovered the low-salt content of its pita bread and the low-fat content of its beef in a pita offering. I’ve been touting it to friends and family ever since.

The menu board from a Naf Naf Grill location in Niles, Ill. Other outlets have slightly different offerings.

So I was shocked and dismayed recently when I checked it’s site and found the numbers have changed drastically for the worse. I’ve written Naf Naf and posted on its Facebook page to get answers but haven’t heard a word yet, very poor customer relations. Continue reading “Say it ain’t so Naf Naf Grill. Did you add salt and fat?”

Know your chicken — here’s a great guide

Sorry organic chicken lovers, you cans till buy it for the taste, or if you feel it helps the environment overall, but don’t expect massive nutritional benefits.

As red meat has become demonized because of high fat content in recent years, people are turning more and more to chicken, and specifically lower-fat white meat chicken. I’ve been eating more chicken since my 2012 angioplasty on orders from my nutritionists, leading me to continually search for ways to bring some taste to white-meat chicken.

When you go shopping for chicken, remember all chicken is not the same and a lot of the things you think you know about what makes for healthy chicken may be plain wrong. Cooking Light recently put out a great overview of the chicken world, The Definitive Guide to Healthy Chicken, which I recommend you read.

It goes after the myths about chickens, which far too many people believe. Continue reading “Know your chicken — here’s a great guide”

Slow-Roasted chicken with lots of garlic

Garlic is one of my old-time food loves. Growing up Italian, it was always around and I came to love it. As an adult, I had roasted garlic for the first time and feel in love with that a swell. So whenever I see a recipe that talks about lots of garlic, like this one from Bon Appetit, I’m interested.

Try skinless chicken breasts instead of the whole chicken to cut the fat.

Slow-roasted chicken with all the garlic was the headline in the BA newsletter I received recently. I had to click through. As with most recipes I see, I’d make some modifications to make it lower-fat and lower-salt. Use chicken breasts instead of a whole chicken as the recipe calls for. Continue reading “Slow-Roasted chicken with lots of garlic”

Skillet rosemary chicken, modified to cut salt and fat

Food Network has tons of recipes it sends me via regular email newsletters but many of them have too much salt, fat and sugar for my post-angioplasty diet. So I find myself modifying them to suit what I need now. Such is the case with this skillet rosemary

chicken.

Here are the ingredients Food Network specifies:

3/4 pound small red-skinned potatoes, halved, or quartered if large
Kosher salt
2 sprigs fresh rosemary, plus 1 tablespoon leaves
1 clove garlic, smashed
Pinch of red pepper flakes
Juice of 2 lemons (squeezed halves reserved)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 skin-on, bone-in chicken breasts (6 to 8 ounces each)
10 ounces cremini mushrooms, halved Continue reading “Skillet rosemary chicken, modified to cut salt and fat”