Healthier Stuffing?
Stuffing is one of everyone’s (at least one of mine) favorites to eat with the big, gut busting Thanksgiving meal every year. Only problem is, stuffing is typically very calorie dense, loaded with simple carbs (bad carbs), and also loaded with fat thanks to the butter that needs to be added to give it texture, flavor, and consistency.
However, I may have some ideas for you to make a better, healthier, lower fat, higher fiber stuffing for your Thanksgiving turkey this year. I actually have made this and slight variations of this recipe for a couple years now, and it adds the same great flavor to my turkey as the more fattening version of the Thanksgiving fave.
First of all, if you want to take the super easy way to make it, buy the Stove Top Whole Wheat Chicken flavored stuffing mix. This is truly made with whole wheat croutons, so it does contain a little more fiber than your traditional white bread crouton stuffing. This means that less of the potentially fattening carbs is digested and used by your body, because the soluble fiber in effect aborbs the bad stuff and helps expel it from the body quicker. It’s “slower burning”, in other words.
If you don’t like that, you can buy whole wheat croutons at a health food store and use this same concept. You could add a chicken or vegetable broth for flavor if this is what you choose. If you use the Stove top whole mix, then you will want to add some or all of the following spices to really bring out the flavor of the turkey nicely, as well as to add some more healthiness to it, since many of these herbs actually have therapeutic properties when digested by the digestive system.
Here are the herbs :
Sage, Oregano, basil, garlic, thyme, rosemary, and savory. I also like to add a little (just a squirt) of olive oil to add a healthy shot of omega 3 fats to the mix and help to fill us up and keep us feeling fuller, longer.
Instead of using regular butter, you can use Land O’ Lakes light butter spread. Tastes pretty good, just like a lighter, fluffier version of their regular, full fat butter in a stick. Next, I like to add some organic wild rice or brown rice (slow cooked, important) to add a little more texture, give it a nuttier flavor, and also to add more fiber to the stuffing.
What you get is a little bit more filling, and it adds some really easily digested, and easily utilized “real foods” to your stuffing. It is also terrifically spicy, so you don’t sacrifice the flavor and your turkey is still full of flavor.
