Eat Healthier With A Crock Pot
It’s no secret that American diets are getting less and less healthy over time. But while fast food plays a big role in the trend, it also has a lot to do with our increasingly busy lifestyles. Too often, people come home from work too tired to make dinner, and end up eating frozen meals or ordering take-out. But it doesn’t have to be that way. With a crock pot, even the busiest families can still heat healthy, homemade meals every day.
It does sound ironic, but slow cooking can save you a good deal of time in the kitchen. It takes about 15 minutes to prepare your ingredients in the morning, and you can leave it on to cook for the rest of the day. And what’s better than coming home to a ready-made meal in the evening? Crock pot recipes are also cheaper in the long run, because they use less energy than stovetop meals and allow you to use cheaper meat cuts.
Still not convinced? Here are some ways you can eat healthier by switching to crock pot cooking.
Healthy appetizers
For many people, eating healthier often means cutting out a course or two from their meals. Well, you don’t have to—in fact, you can enjoy a full three-course dinner every day and still stay in shape. Start by preparing some healthy appetizers. Instead of fried finger foods and dips, start off your meal with a light soup or salad. These dishes fill you up easily, so you can resist the urge to load up on the main course.
Soups are especially ideal for the crock pot because it draws out the natural flavor of any ingredient. That means you can put in anything you want and still come up with a great-tasting dish. On a budget? Try making a crock pot vegetable soup recipe from your leftover veggies—it’s a nice way to clear up your fridge and save money as well!
Vegetarian dishes
Going vegetarian is easily one of the best ways to get healthier. Although you don’t have to give up meat altogether, you can replace a few meat dishes a week with vegetarian ones. Many people don’t like vegetables simply because they don’t know how to work with them. But with a crock pot, it’s easy to bring out the vegetables’ natural flavors and make a dish that’s so rich and tasty, you wouldn’t even know it’s vegetarian!
The best vegetables to use for the crock pot are beans and legumes, as well as root vegetables like potatoes and carrots. Beans are especially ideal for those new to vegetarian cooking, as they provide the bite and volume you usually get from meat. When making a crock pot beans recipe, make sure to soften them completely before adding sugar to keep the beans from hardening (sugar can stiffen beans over time).
Switching to seafood
Seafood is another good alternative for people who have trouble giving up meat. Most types of seafood are low in fat and loaded with nutrients, not to mention rich in natural flavor. They go especially well with vegetables, and spices so a seafood stew or soup makes the perfect main course for a healthy meal. You don’t have to limit yourself to fish; you can experiment with shrimp, squid, and other seafood varieties. Most of them cook very well in the crock pot.
As you probably know, fish cooks a lot faster than most meats. That means you have to be careful when using them in a slow cooker. Most crock pot seafood recipes take only about two to three hours on high, or three to five hours on low. Also, the smaller the cuts, the faster they cook—so you may want to use bigger cuts (or whole pieces if possible) to avoid overcooking.
Low-fat meats
If you can’t give up meat altogether, don’t worry—there are lots of low-fat alternatives to the usual cuts that can be cooked in a crock pot. In fact, slow cooking is great for meat dishes because you don’t have to add extra fat to enhance the taste. The low-heat, closed environment helps all the flavor seep back into the meat, so the dishes taste even better than their stovetop counterparts. You can also just trim off the fat or brown the meat to reduce fat content before cooking.
If you like a good barbecue, one good alternative is a crock pot pulled pork recipe. Pulled pork is made by tenderizing a piece of pork until it breaks into smaller pieces. In the process, the fat also melts off, leaving you with only the leanest pieces. Most people season pulled pork with barbecue flavors, although you can flavor it any way you want. Use it for sandwiches, as a topping for rice or noodles, or with a side of soup or salad.
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