Cook and cookbook author Chantal Lascaris has released her newest cookbook, . To celebrate, we’re dishing her crazy-delicious sweet chilli chicken pizza – made with genius healthy ingredient swaps.
The case for (healthier) junk food
“This is not a cookbook for weight loss,” says Lascaris. “It’s a book for gaining back your junk food power by putting a healthier spin on everything that would ordinarily be ‘bad’ for your waistline. All it takes is a conscious decision to use nutrient-rich ingredients and smarter preparation.”
Per Lascaris, the book was a reminder to herself not to demonise food. “I think, in a way, I almost wrote it for myself, because I still like junk food and junk food [has] almost become a swear word,” she explains. “You’re not allowed to enjoy junk food, you can’t be seen to be eating junk food, and I thought, ‘We all love it, we might as well admit it, and I wanted to find different ways of actually making it healthy so that I could enjoy it.”
As to how to define the word “healthy”, Lascaris focussed on the main problem: lowering the fat and sugar content in takeaways. “I was trying to see where there was so much fat or sugar, how I could change that; that’s really the benchmark.”
With that in mind, the book takes novel classics, from nachos and burgers to pizza, dessert and air-fried appetisers, to a healthier level with clever ingredient swaps. Here, some of the key manoeuvres Lascaris has come up with:
3 healthy ingredient swaps you won’t believe
Swap frying for baking
If you take a fried dish and bake it, you can cut down on the fat content, Lascaris says. And yes, the air fryer counts in the baking category, in this case.
Trick yourself
“When you think of junk food, you think of that crunch and the colour,” Lascaris observes. “A lot of the time, the colours being made [are] because it’s deep fried. I started looking at cornflakes because it gives you that ‘fried’ colour and the crunch.” This way, it looks and tastes deep-fried, with a much lower fat and carb content. Use in meals as a breadcrumb coating and bake until crispy.
Use healthier fats
Lascaris’ healthy ingredient swaps for creamy dishes are ingeniously simple: subbing cream for plain yoghurt. “You’ve got to watch that it doesn’t curdle, the same as you’d do with cream, but the yoghurt, it still gives you that creaminess,” she says. “It’s a much healthier alternative; it’s got all the probiotics in it and it’s a very good way of getting nutrients in.”
“This recipe book comes from a deeper, bolder place,” says Chantal. “It’s somewhat of an ode to the naughty side of our palates, which we sometimes berate. We try so hard to control our cravings against the backdrop of social norms, fad diets and looming menopause – but all we’re really doing is depriving ourselves of the joy,” says Chantal. In this compendium of easy-to-follow recipes, Chantal shares her own secret indulgences and her new-found methods of keeping the joy in the ‘junk’ without accumulating the calories.
Chantal Lascaris’ Sweet Chilli Chicken Pizza
Source: https://www.womenshealthsa.co.za/food-and-nutrition/feed/
