Try these tips from food pros to make lighter summer party foods like potato and pasta salads, deviled eggs, and burgers. Clean up your grill and get ready to make and enjoy Memorial Day treats. The bad part is that many summer dishes are full of calories, bad fat, or extra sugar. Instead, use these easy tricks from health and food experts from all over to make your dishes lighter but still yummy.
Instead of thick, mayo-filled coleslaw, Jackie Topol, a food and health pro in New York, says to make your slaw with apple cider vinegar, pure olive oil, Dijon mustard, and some honey. Topol adds color and health to her slaw with purple cabbage and thin slices of veggies like red and orange bell peppers.
Food experts enjoy mixing up their potato salads in different ways. "I often change mayo-based salads for summer cookouts to make them lighter and healthier," says Katie Sullivan Morford. Morford also likes using olive oil dressings instead of thick mayo ones. "A tasty Dijon vinaigrette is great with halved, just-cooked new potatoes, minced chives or other herbs, and cherry tomatoes," she says. "No one will want the mayo."
Karman Meyer, who writes about food and sleep, prefers sweet potatoes over white ones. This change makes the salad more colorful and rich in vitamin C and beta-carotene. Meyer also likes to add other fresh veggies like diced green bell peppers, sweet corn, and avocado for more nutrients. Once the salad is ready, mix it with a Greek-yogurt dressing and cumin instead of mayo for fewer calories.
Many tips exist to make this popular summer salad lighter. Jill Weisenberger, a dietitian from Virginia, packs her pasta salad with vegetables. She tosses in raw carrots, red onions, cherry tomatoes, and more to add size and nutrition without more calories. She says this also helps meet vegetable intake goals and cuts down on food waste by using any veggies you have.
Elizabeth Ward from Boston also likes to make her pasta salad lighter with some clever ways. She uses whole-wheat pasta and garbanzo beans. She also mixes in low-fat cottage cheese with the feta cheese she loves, cutting down the fat in her salad.
If you want to eat more fish, diet expert Mandy Enright, who made the couples food blog and show Nutrition Nuptials, says swap your old beef or turkey burger for one with oily fish like salmon or tuna. To do it, "cut a pound of salmon or tuna into bits and put it in a food mixer. Push a few times to cut to the look of ground meat. Add spices as you like and make round shapes."
To cut down on food waste, White often puts what's left of smoothies into ice pop molds with bits of fruit.