If your diet is the foundation for controlling diabetes, dinners are your cornerstone. Dinners can be flavorful and satisfying without wreaking havoc on your blood sugar.
Little Tricks to Make Any Dinner More Diabetes Friendly
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Make a pot of tea before you start cooking
Cooks nibble. It’s unconscious, and it’s incessant. You can consume a couple hundred calories in no time tasting the soup, sampling the roast, stealing a little cheese or noshing while you wait for the water to boil. Controlling this is critical for people who cook regularly—and for those controlling calories as part of a diabetes diet plan. Steep a pot of tea before you even begin and turn to your mug instead of your food while you cook.
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Savor the crunch of oven-baked chicken and fries
Add fried chicken and French fries back into your diabetes diet without overloading on saturated fat. Dip strips of boneless, skinless chicken into a little flour, coat in egg beaters, yogurt or fat-free milk, and cover with plain breadcrumbs mixed with herbs. Then bake in the oven at 350°F for 20 to 30 minutes. The chicken will have a crispy coating that satisfies your cravings for fried chicken. For the French fries, cut white or sweet potatoes into strips, soak in water for 20 minutes, and spread them on a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and bake for 40 minutes at 350°F, stirring halfway through. Check out some healthier takes on comfort foods.
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Try a new shape
Buy precut vegetables or cut them yourself into new shapes and you may find that you want to eat more of them. Carrot chips have a crunch that make you feel a little like you’re eating potato chips. Cut zucchini or summer squash into long strips and grill. Bring out the sweetness by brushing them with olive oil, sprinkling with salt and pepper and roasting in a 400°F oven until soft. On the grill, add firm vegetables such as eggplant, onions and peppers right to the grill for 10 to 15 minutes. For softer or smaller vegetables like sliced zucchini, tomatoes and carrots, use a metal grilling basket or grate and grill for 6 to 8 minutes. These are some of the healthiest veggies you can get at a farmers market.Â
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Top fish or chicken with fruit salsa
It’s an exciting way to sneak in a serving of fruit and give simple dishes flavor without fat. And what a difference it makes to a piece of fish or a grilled or roasted chicken breast. Make a fruity salsa by combining chunks of pineapple, mango or papaya with chopped onions, ginger, mint, cilantro and hot pepper flakes. Let it sit for 30 minutes at room temperature or up to four hours in the fridge. Take a look at our top fruit salsa recipes.
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Think bean filling when you’re itching for enchiladas
The next time you have Mexican night, skip the beef or chicken and fill your enchiladas and tacos with beans (not refried). For an easy meal of enchiladas, drain and rise canned black beans and add them to a skillet with onions, mushrooms and other vegetables. Add enchilada sauce and serve in whole-wheat tortillas with low-fat cheese. Beans are just one of many superfoods for diabetes to eat more often as part of a diabetes diet plan.
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Give veggies more flavor by steaming them in chicken broth
Instead of adding water to your steamer or saucepan, add chicken or vegetable broth. You’ll add flavor without fat to zucchini, cauliflower, carrots, sugar, snap peas and other veggies. We love these sneaky ways to add more veggies to our meals.
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Save the water from steaming
After steaming your vegetables, pour the water into a covered jar and keep it in the fridge to use for broth the next time you make soup. The antioxidants from vegetables help stave off complications from diabetes, including problems with kidneys and eyes, and they may even help prevent diabetes in the first place.
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Toss a five-minute bean salad
Choose three or four kinds of canned beans—such as garbanzo, black, kidney, navy, black-eyed or waxed beans—and drain and rinse well to get rid of some of the salt. Then toss with chopped red onion, red pepper and some vinaigrette-style salad dressing. Use about 1 tablespoon of dressing per 1/3 cup bean salad. Here are 100 more ways to use a can of beans.
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Replace white potatoes with sweet potatoes
Sweet potatoes raise blood sugar less than white potatoes do. If the sweet potato is large, cut in half and share one potato between two people. Be sure to eat the skin for its fiber. This is your complete guide to sweet potatoes.
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Have fruit for dessert
Think you can’t eat fruit on a diabetes diet? Not true. Fruit is, after all, nature’s candy. So on those nights when you eat dessert (we suggest once or twice a week), try a roasted plum, a half cup of berries with yogurt on top or a fruit crisp or crumble (go heavy on the fruit, oats and cinnamon and very light on the sugar and butter). “Bake” an apple in your microwave. Just core an apple, sprinkle the inside with cinnamon and a touch of sugar, and microwave for three minutes until soft. On the flip side, there are 9 fruits those with diabetes should avoid.
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Go vegetarian at least once a week
You’ll get much more fiber and far less saturated fat. Instead of meat lasagna, have vegetable lasagna using eggplant or a mix of veggies such as broccoli, carrots, bell peppers, mushrooms and zucchini. Likewise, vegetable chili is a perfectly tasty alternative to meat chili. These healthy vegetarian dinners will help get you started.
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Replace a pat with a spray
Take food that’s typically fried in butter or oil, such as Italian zucchini patties, and brown them on the stovetop with a little cooking spray, suggests Mary Jean Christian, RD, CDE, diabetes program manager at the University of California, Irvine. She uses cooking spray to brown her grandmother-in-law’s zucchini patties instead of using the loads of oil her husband’s family traditionally uses for the recipe. The result? Her in-laws say her zucchini patties taste the closest to their grandmother’s.
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Have a main dish salad once a week and give it the works
Get out of a rut by trying new ingredients, such as spicy hearts of palm or artichoke hearts from a can, sweet jicama slices, steamed broccoflower heads, nutty bean sprouts, steamed and marinated chayote squash or sautéed varieties of exotic mushrooms. Include a protein food such as beans or grilled chicken breast. Check out our healthy main dish salad recipes for inspiration.
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Use barley instead of white rice
For most people, barley raises blood sugar less than rice does, so consider it your new rice. (Test it and see for yourself.) Serve it with stir-fried vegetables, add it to soups and stews, toss it into your bean salad or make it as a side dish. High in soluble fiber, it’s a lot like oatmeal in the way it reduces cholesterol levels and the risk of heart disease. This is the difference between whole grain and whole wheat bread.
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Use veggies as fillers
Don’t confine vegetables just to the side of your plate. Throw in a couple of handfuls of frozen peas and carrots to your rice during the last five minutes of cooking. Add chopped onions and spinach to meat loaf or hamburgers made with lean beef. Stir chopped peppers and mushrooms into canned or jarred spaghetti sauce. Add cooked collard greens, mushrooms and onions to stuffing. Rub the fuzziness off of the stalks of okra, wash, slice and add to soups, stews or casseroles.
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Pair strawberries with wine or vinegar
A half cup of strawberries drizzled with balsamic vinegar or soaked in white wine makes for a sweet, indulgent tasting dessert while satisfying about 75 percent of your daily vitamin C requirement. And like other berries, strawberries contain powerful antioxidants that help protect your body from the ravages of high blood sugar. Here are some surprising health benefits of strawberries.
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Cook once, eat twice
Make double and you’ll have dinner for tomorrow. Or pack it up and freeze for a day when you don’t have time to cook. If you’re new to meal prepping, here’s a handy guide.
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When beef is on the menu, choose lean cuts
These include filet mignon, flank steak, round and loin cuts. Remember that a serving of meat is no more than three ounces cooked, four ounces raw. Steer clear of ribs, prime rib, skirt steak and brisket. Check out a few ways to make tough cuts of beef more tender.
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Put your meals “to bed”—on greens
Chefs everywhere are serving this or that dish on a bed of greens. You can too! Simply steam some spinach, kale or Swiss chard on the stove, then put it on your plate and place your fish or chicken on top (for more inspiration, check out these diabetic-friendly chicken recipes). When you tire of dark leafy greens, get creative and make your “bed” of steamed snow peas, sugar snap peas and pea sprouts.
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Make a deal with your spouse
The idea of preparing a meal, washing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen can be a deal-breaker when it comes to cooking a healthy meal. But before you forgo your eating plan and decide to have frozen pizza, tell your spouse that you’ll cook if they’ll clean. You’ll both benefit from the home-cooked meal, and you’ll be able to put up your feet afterward. Cut down your cooking time with these kitchen shortcuts.
Originally Published on The Healthy
