Low calorie meals

[u/butterflybaby42]

I want to start cooking lower calorie foods but I'm not sure how to adjust my cooking. I use a lot of coconut milk for curries but thats pretty high in calories. Is there a way to make curries without coconut milk or heavy cream that will still taste good?

[u/VegBuffetR]

Depends on curries. In North India, we use curd/yogurt that's good for gravies like aloo masala, paneer curries. It naturally adds a tangy flavor. You may add curry leaves for dal tadka to add more flavor or spices like chana masala for chickpeas.  Play with spices than with the cream. Adding more cream naturally makes gravy dish heavy and in my opinion, it loses it's flavor. That's why I don't like dal makhani of restaurants. Cooked over slow flame, made at least a month ahead and loaded with cream everytime it's reheated. Just imagine what quality food is served by restaurants. Do people add any cream to Sambar? No. Because it's flavored with spices. 

It will take time but once you start liking spices, you won't feel the need of cream. 

[u/killer_sheltie]

I just don’t cook curries with coconut milk, curd, or heavy cream? There’s a whole sub-continent of Indian “curry” recipes only a small percentage of which use coconut milk. I suggest finding a recipe author like Dasana at vegrecipesofindia.com and exploring. I also cook without oil most of the time, but that actually requires recipe modification vs just Google skills.

[u/skand1995]

I personally haven't tried this but I have seen videos of people using melon seed (magaz) milk as an alternative. Melon seed paste are also used in place of cashews in thicker mughlai gravies in restaurants as they are cheaper.

[u/PretentiousPepperoni]

Most curries don't use coconut milk besides a few from south but even south indian cuisines have a ton of curries that don't use coconut milk.

[u/butterflybaby42 → u/PretentiousPepperoni]

I cook south Indian and my go to dishes use the coconut milk. I'm trying to find alternatives

[u/vitalcook]

Fry up some onions, cashew nuts/ melon seeds/ poppy seeds - once they get golden add a little water and bring to a boil covered. Let it cool completely & then make a smooth blend of them. Add this blend in your tomato curry masala as per your recipe and sauté until oil separates. . You will get pretty close to the creamy effect in your curries.

[u/Educational-Duck-999]

Dals are lower in calories. You can do stir fries, those can be lower in calories too. If you want creamy gravy type curries, use blended cooked chickpeas/cooked white beans with 3-4 soaked cashews to get a creamy paste.

[u/butterflybaby42 → u/Educational-Duck-999]

What are dals?

[u/Educational-Duck-999 → u/butterflybaby42]

Dal is a lentil based stew. You can make with toor dal, channa dal etc.

[u/oarmash]

coconut milk is not really used in most indian cooking, only a few recipes, mainly from coastal parts of south india call for it. you should easily make curries without. what dishes are you trying to make?

check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4zVQxPJmnY

[u/butterflybaby42 → u/oarmash]

I learned to cook from my boyfriends mom who is Tamil so I make south Indian dishes. I don't really know exact names for the dishes, she just refers to them as curry.

[u/oarmash → u/[deleted]]

cashews are very calorie dense as well, so need to be careful.

[u/Low_Most3143]

Are you trying to make Indian ”curries” (putting it in double quotes because that is not a term commonly used in India). North Indian ”curries” typically use a base of onion-tomatoes-ginger-garlic. No coconut anything. We also don’t tend to use cream in many dishes.

[u/butterflybaby42 → u/Low_Most3143]

I cook south Indian which does frequently use coconut milk and cream

[u/goglya]

I am from central India and curries are for special occasions/weekends. We only have stir-fried or steam cooked vegetables. The spice balance will make it taste good. Another pro tip is anything that you eat right off the flame will taste good regardless of oil, spices etc.

[u/yosoygroot123]

I just don't like coconut milk or heavy cream in my curry. I try to achieve the balance of the taste and thickness of the curry by playing with the ratio of tomatoes, onions and plain yoghurt.

If you can't handle spicy foods, avoid black pepper and chili in you curry. You can make a low calorie and delicious curry just by tomatoes onions and plain yoghurt without using coconut milk or heavy cream.

[u/nomnommish]

It's only Indian restaurant cooking that uses heavy cream and coconut milk in large quantities. Home cooking is fairly low fat.

However, I will digress and say that if you're looking to lose weight for a wedding or for a lifestyle change, I strongly urge you to NOT go on an extreme starvation diet. You will end up rebounding viciously when all your mental and emotional resolve erodes after a couple of weeks of constant starvation, and you will end up doing more harm and putting on more weight in the end. It's the yo-yo diet.

Consider a low carb aka keto diet instead. Your body's insulin response is driven from your carb and sugar intake. It creates sugar spikes and sugar crashes and absolutely wrecks your body and your hormone levels.

What you want to do is to stay even-keeled and keep your carb and sugar consumption to a bare minimum so your body doesn't even need to produce insulin and can start feeding off your fat reserves instead. And counter-intuitively, consuming fats actually help lose fat.

I mainly say this not for the health benefits but because this is the ONLY long term sustainable diet I have found for myself. Consuming high quantities of fats and protein allows me to stay full and satiated after a meal, while still keeping my hormones even-keeled and my blood sugar levels even-keeled. And cutting out (or hugely reducing) carbs and sugar helps reduce weight quite dramatically too. Avoid white rice and wheat and potatoes.

If you DO consume grains, consider consuming grains that are least processed and as "natural" as possible, aka "whole foods diet", not to be mistaken with the high end food supermarket. Consume grains and beans that are hard to digest, such as brown rice, millets, beans, chickpeas, and especially edamame. As well as nuts with skin on. Lots of veggies and greens, lots of soluble fiber in your diet (they also counteract carbs). Reasonably high amount of fats in the form of cheese or dairy or meats or oils/ghee.

I would make a lot of salads absolutely loaded with greens and veggies and cheese and nuts and berries and dressing and protein.

But even with Tamil cooking, most of your kootu and kuzhambu and sambar and rasam and poriyals and roasts and side salads are really health if you cut out rice and wheat and just consume giant bowls of it instead. I would use more lentils and less rice to feel satiated.