For some people, the slightest mention of healthy foods is enough to kill their appetite. But the fact remains that healthy foods, even without the use of minimal fat, can be incredibly delicious. You just need to know how to prepare them correctly. 

If you want to adopt healthy eating habits but feel wary of the outcomes, looking into tried-and-tested culinary techniques can help you overcome this challenge. By ensuring that you get mouth-watering food for every meal, these techniques go a long way towards helping you maintain a healthy lifestyle. 

To help you maximize nutrition while preserving flavour, here is an overview of healthy cooking techniques: 

Broiling

If your healthy diet focuses on protein consumption, you might be making your way through chicken, fish, and steak cooking tips. In all of these protein-based dishes, you may have stumbled upon recipes that use broiling to cook the meat. During broiling, your food is cooked under overhead heat at high temperatures. This minimizes the use of oil while also ensuring an ideal texture for your protein. You can also use spice rubs and marination methods to infuse more flavour into your food. 

Steaming

Steaming cooks your food by exposing it to incredibly high temperatures of steam. This thoroughly cooks foods such as fish and vegetables while also preserving their natural moisture. In turn, you can benefit from a flavorful meal while using little to no oil. You can also incorporate steaming into your weight loss breakfast, lunch, and dinner recipes with ease. However, the technique may require some time to master, which calls for you to be prepared for some practice sessions.

Baking

Baking is often regarded as the oldest cooking method known to man. But its popularity remains unmatched to this day. From cupcakes to pizza and everything in between, baking brings some of your favourite staples to the table. When you bake with minimal oil, the technique also contributes to a healthy diet. In case you are looking for more inspiration, you can look into a vegetable dessert cookbook to help you try out new, exciting, and healthy recipes. 

Grilling

There are many reasons why grilling is better than frying, with the notable advantage of a decreased use of fat. But in addition to making sure that you can cook your food without it being drenched in oil, grilling also elevates its taste. This punch of flavour is another reason behind the popularity of grilling at parties. Besides grilling meat, you can also use this technique for even healthier ingredients such as eggplant and mushrooms, with fantastic results.

Convection Heating

Convection heating cooks your food by circulating hot air around it, which cooks it quickly and more evenly from all sides. When you use devices such as an air fryer, you can make convection heating to another level and give your food a crunchy crisp from the outside without using a frying pan. This can help you enjoy healthier variations of foods such as french fries and fried chicken which are often associated with heavy use of oil. 

Poaching

The method of poaching is commonly associated with eggs. But this technique can do more than contribute to your traditional eggs benedict. In fact, poaching can help you deliciously prepare proteins such as chicken, vegetables such as leeks, and fruits such as peaches in a different way than common cooking techniques. If you are looking for tips to plan healthy meals, being mindful of poaching your food can help you to a significant degree and bring more variety to your menu. 

Stir Frying

Frying with oil can make you side-eye this cooking technique from the start. But stir-frying is a staple of healthy cooking due to its use of minimal fat. The variety of stir-frying recipes out there also makes it a highly enjoyable cooking method that does not lead you towards monotonous eating habits. While you may still need to invest in a carbon steel wok for best results and minimal upkeep, this expense can prove to be worth it in the long run.

These healthy cooking techniques make sure that you are able to get the most out of each bite without compromising your well-being. When you plan your meals with all of these techniques in mind, you can also enjoy a variety of foods for a long time to come. 

Melissa Frank