natural juice

Healthy Burger recipes, and healthy coleslaw without the guilt!

You can't beat a nice juicy burger with a creamy coleslaw! I would live on this if it wasn't so fattening and have more calories than a bargain bucket from the colonel.

But being conscious of the food I eat coupled with my ambition in the kitchen, I have come up with a healthier way to make one of my favorite foods.

You will need:

500g lean steak mince

250g low fat greek/natural yogurt

½ a white cabbage

½ a red onion

2 carrots

1 tablespoon tomato puree

Low salt/ sugar seasoning (I used barbecue seasoning from Penzeys. These guys are a US company) You can season these burgers with anything really, but be aware that many ready made seasonings are loaded with salt and sugar.

Fresh Parsley

Ground black pepper

1 clove of garlic

Chili oil
Make the coleslaw first
OK, Coleslaw is a great way to get some veggies into your diet. Normally however, it is quite high in calories as it is made with mayonnaise, even reduced fat mayonnaise is pretty high in calories.

We are still going to have a creamy tasty coleslaw but it is going to be made with low fat natural yogurt. This transforms the coleslaw from a half hearted attempt at eating something that is good for you into a protein packed health food!

First thing to do is get your V slice or greater out. (I use a V slice, it is an awesome bit of kit, you can make your coleslaw and loads of other things in literally seconds!)

Step 1

Grab a big mixing bowl, Slice up the onion using the Greater or V slice. Once this is done, take a small hand full of the onion out and put it to one side for later

Step 2

Slice up the Cabbage, carrots (I don't bother peeling the carrots) into your mixing bowl with the onion

Step 3

Throw in the yogurt, pepper. Now you can finely chop the parsley, (I like to go pretty fine with the parsley but you can have it courser if you like) Throw the parsley into the bowl as well. I also like to add a drizzle of chili oil at this point, not too much, just a drizzle.

Step 4

Mix this up well, if you need to add more Yogurt at this point, go ahead. Once this is mixed well, put it in the fridge to stand. I have found that this gets all the flavors going.

Making The burgers

Step 1

When making burgers I find it is best not to handle the meat too much or it will make it a bit tough. So get another mixing bowl and put the meat in, separate the pieces

Step 2

Chop the garlic finely as you like and add this to the meat, add the tomato puree, and onion that you saved from earlier. Also you can now add your seasoning.

(you can be creative here, but as I said before, if you are on a calorie controlled diet you need to be conscious of what type of things you are adding. For example, I have tried these with peanut butter before... Yes this does sound strange, but they were like satay burgers, not too bad!. This obviously boosted the calories considerably.)

Step 3

Get stuck in and mix it up! Remember that the more you handle the mixture, the tougher it will be. But it is important to get all of the seasoning evenly distributed

Step 4

Make the mixture into a big ball. Half this and half again. This should give you four even "Blobs" of mince.

Step 5

Make these blobs of mince into balls and squash them until they are about 0.5 inches thick. If you have a burger press, great! Use that

Step 6

This is a tip to reduce the fat content a little bit more

Grab a baking tray and cover with tin foil (if you want to save on the washing up) Then get a "Wire rack" normally from your grill pan and place this over the top of the baking tray and tinfoil. Then put the burgers onto the wire rack. You should have something similar to this -

What this will do is cook out the excess fat, The burgers will not be sitting in their own fat, reducing the calories that little bit more.

Step 7

Put the burgers into a preheated oven at 180 Celsius/ gas mark 4 for around 25-30 Min's. This may vary on different ovens so try 25 mins, cut one in half and see if it is still pink in the middle.

Step 8

Once these are cooked, you can serve on a bun, or with a jacket potato to add some more carbs if needed

Nom nom nom! If you have a go at this, and want to let me know how it went, please leave a comment. If I have missed something also give me a shout.

Happy cooking and good luck!

By James Atkinson

If this has been useful to you, there are more articles on training, diet, healthy meal ideas and inspiration on my blog http://www.jimshealthandmuscle.com/
I would love to hear from you and I am always happy to help.

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When trying to cook healthy food it can be difficult to find meals that are low in refined sugar and saturated fat AND taste good enough to remove the temptation to eat junk food. A lot of "healthy cooking" can seem like a lot of work very little taste. It can be un-appetising at the best of times, especially when you're standing in a shop eyeing up the sausage rolls.

However, it only takes a touch of creativity to turn something like a boring chicken breast portion into something much more appetising. The foods, spices, tips and tricks below can all be used as an important part of any healthy eating plan, helping you to keep on the straight and narrow by adding taste to potentially dull dishes and keeping the calories down.

Spice Up Your Life

Whether you're using fresh basil or ground cinnamon, herbs and spices give healthier food the flavour it sometimes lacks, and have zero calories in them. They can be picked up pretty cheap, and last for a long time. These plants and powders can stop you from resigning yourself to a disappointing meal and using them might even spark off a whole new appreciation for food or a passion for cooking.

For example:

Marinating chicken completely changes the taste of the meat and stops it from drying out under the grill.

A sprinkling of garam masala on rye crisp-bread and cottage cheese makes this healthy snack a whole lot better and parsley, oregano, chives or paprika can all be used to spice up scrambled eggs.

If you don't consider yourself much of a cook then consider buying a herb and spice guide to teach you which flavourings go best with which foods. One final bonus of eating spicy food is that many spices have thermogenic properties, meaning that they make you produce more heat, thereby burning more calories.

Getting Saucy

Instead of reaching for the vegetable oil, ketchup or barbecue sauce, consider alternative oils and sauces to help bring out the best in your food. Lemon juice gives a citrus kick to anything you put it on, wasabi naturally reduces your appetite and vinaigrette can be chucked on vegetables, beans, meat or fish to make them much more appealing.

Coconut oil is a particularly impressive substance - it helps increase the flavour and juiciness of anything you throw it on, and has a very high concentration of medium chain fatty acids. These MCFA's are a kind of carbohydrate substitute that don't send your blood sugar levels soaring, making coconut oil a top-notch fuel for the body. Various vinegars can also provide a strong taste to a meal, and with such a variety to choose from - balsamic, wine, sherry, herb - you're likely to find something you like.

Like for Like

Sometimes you can't resist a meal with unhealthy components, even though you know that the rice in your curry is full of carbs and the flour you use is packed with gluten. However, substituting unhealthy ingredients for healthier alternatives can allow you to have your cake and eat it.

Black beans or whole wheat flour can replace white flour in a cake or cookie recipe while stripping out a lot of the gluten.

Avocado purée or mashed banana can be used as a replacement for butter in baking, providing the necessary texture while avoiding the high fat and salt content of the dairy alternative.

Quinoa is a great replacement for couscous - it's a whole protein with a delicious nutty taste that knocks the comparatively flavourless, gluten filled couscous out of the park.

Zuchinni ribbons or whole wheat pasta are perfect replacements for pasta

Cauliflower has a number of uses as a replacement food - if you steam and grate cauliflower it can go alongside a chilli or a curry in the place of rice, and mashed cauliflower is a much healthier alternative to mashed potato

Prosciutto or pancetta can be used to give you the smokey taste of bacon with far less sodium, and replacing ground beef with ground turkey will make any meal much healthier with hardly any difference in taste.

Sweet as Sugar

When it comes to finding an alternative to white sugar, artificial sweeteners like aspartame and saccharin should be completely avoided. However honey, maple syrup and molasses are all healthier ways to satisfy a sweet tooth than refined sugar. An even better alternative is agave nectar - a type of sugary syrup made from the agave plant. It has a very low glycemic index and tastes pretty good to boot. It can be added to teas or poured into porridge to sweeten things up without sending your insulin levels through the roof.

Locking Nutrients In

Steaming is much healthier than boiling, as it stops vitamins getting leeched out into water and also retains colour, consistency and taste in most vegetables. Eating food raw is actually considered healthiest, as any form of cooking tends to destroy some of the nutrients in foods. This may not be to everyone's taste, but cooking food a little less rather than charring meat on the barbecue or turning vegetables into limp mush will definitely help you get the most out of your meals.

Wrapping Things Up

We're so used to having strong flavours with no thought required when eating junk food, so when it comes to cooking healthy meals it can be hard to figure out how to make stuff taste good without taking cookery courses! It is a more involved process than just frying up some bacon or boiling some pasta, but the benefits that come from avoiding processed foods stuffed with additives make it well worth the effort. Hopefully you've now got some ideas on how you can make your next meal delicious, allowing you to look and feel great and still eat awesome food that you love.

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Whether you are looking to explore the world of cooking with a new cuisine, throw the perfect dinner party or create the ultimate team building experience, you will find the ideal solution for you at Braxted Park. For more information on the Cookery School at Braxted Park or the courses it runs, visit http://www.braxtedparkcookery.co.uk/

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