I love Macaroni and Cheese. It’s creamy cheesy deliciousness!
It’s also awful for you.
My challenge today was to take a Mac & Cheese recipe and swap out ingredients to make it healthier.
I chose Ina Garten’s (aka Food Network’s Barefoot Contessa) recipe.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/grown-up-mac-and-cheese-recipe/index.html
The first thing I did was to point this out using Weight Watcher’s etools recipe builder. It came out to 38 points per serving – OUCH!
The next step was to start substituting ingredients. I halfed the portion of bacon and used turkey bacon instead. I choose a 75% fat free cheddar and used Laughing Cow Swiss instead of the Gruyere. I did use regular Blue Cheese. I also subbed low-fat milk and light butter. Finally I didn’t use bread, I used already made bread crumbs.
Ina’s recipe makes two servings. I turned mine casserole dish into eight servings. It was the perfect side to veal and broccoli and came out to only five points!
Was it as good as I expected? No.
But it wasn’t bad.
That being said it was my first attempt at basically making up a recipe. I can’t wait to experiment with this again. Next time I will eliminate the bacon and use either a few drops of truffle oil or a low fat cream cheese instead. I found the dish a bit dry so I want to give it some moisture.
This was a great way to improve my confidence in the kitchen. I was also able to see how point-filled some recipes can be but how easy it is to make a few changes to make healthy alternatives.
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