Cooking Q&A: Reduce Fat In A Recipe?
Q.
How can I reduce the amount of fat in a recipe?
A.
The biggest sources of fat in a recipe are butter, oil, eggs, cheese, and fatty cuts of meat. The problem is, fat is the substance that carries most of the flavor, and it has a huge impact on the texture of baked goods. If you cut fat without making the proper adjustments -- adding herbs or other flavor-enhancers, altering the amount of liquid -- you might have a complete disaster on your hands. Approach any fat-reducing techniques as an experiment. You may not want to serve your “experiments” at a dinner party or give a batch of fat-reduced cookies as a gift until you test and tweak the ingredients.
Replace or reduce butter or oil in quick breads, cookies, and cakes, by using fruit purees, like applesauce, pureed prunes, or mashed bananas. You may need to add or reduce other liquids in a recipe to offset the change in texture.
In cold dips, sauces, and salad dressings, swap out sour cream and mayo for low-fat or nonfat yogurt, buttermilk, or blended cottage cheese.
For sautéing and pan-searing, use canola or olive oil instead of butter or other vegetable oils.
Scale down butter and oil by one-third in recipes for baked goods. Example: If a recipe calls for one cup of butter, cut the amount to two-thirds.
Substitute two egg whites for one egg to cut saturated fat and reduce cholesterol.
Switch to skinless cuts of chicken.
Use round or loin in recipes. These cuts tend to be leaner.
Choose USDA Select meats because they have less internal marbling and fat than USDA Choice or Prime.
-- Colleen Rush