How to Make Diet Food Taste Good

It’s January and  a lot of people have started diets. Or if you’re like me it’s just an on-going process. I’m one of those that needs it to be a way of life. And the success of that varies with the needle on the scale. I do have a few ideas that I use to make the low cal stuff taste better and thought I would share:

Microwave popcorn- Air popped popcorn saves you a ton of calories and can be a good, filling snack. But it’s a little like eating Styrofoam peanuts. So, what I do, is make the popcorn. Taste. Make a face like I just ate Styrofoam peanuts. Then melt about two tablespoons of butter and drizzle all over the popcorn. I usually drizzle the butter in layers over the popcorn so it can be evenly distributed. Really helps to get rid of that packing peanuts affect.

Baked Potato with Salsa- This is so simple and can work with lunch or dinner. The potato is filling and the salsa adds some nice spice that most diet foods lack. But it can get a little boring after a while. I found if you take left over beef roast and add some oil and taco seasonings and then slice it over the potato with melted cheese and avocado– that plain baked potato is perked right up.

Salad- When you first start eating salads as a way to cut down on calories, it seems like such a wonderful thing. Crunchy greens are good for you! And the produce aisles provide so much variety that you can add something different each day and never have the same salad twice. But the thing is, no matter how creative you are, there is a point where you find yourself holding the fork  and having to push your head towards it with your free hand because another bite of salad is just more than you can bear. I only recently found a solution for this that I am excited to share.

I was in St Louis attending a writer’s conference. The dinner served was covered in gravy and mushrooms. Because I was raised right I just sat there and chatted with my table mates.  I sat there with a smile like there wasn’t a plate of chicken flavored lard  with thick slices of fungi sitting right in front of me.  So I went back to my hotel and thought I’d have something off the bar menu. It was late and I thought maybe just a salad. The bar menu had one salad.

With fried chicken.

FRIED CHICKEN SALAD!?!?! Uh, can we say Brilliant?!

It was delicious. It tasted so good, it was almost like not eating salad at all. So, if you’re salad routine needs a little somethin’ somethin’– I recommend adding fried chicken.

Do you have any tricks of the trade for making your diet routine work?