Create a Healthy Fast Food Menu for Home
Fast food is quick and easy, but most of it really isn't that healthy. Yet, depriving yourself of it all the time is a bit of a bore, so there is a solution––make your own fast food at home. It won't be quite as fast, but it can be many times healthier!
Steps
- Make a list of the tasty fast food that you normally order when you want to eat out. Common examples include:
- Burgers and fries with sugary soda drinks or milkshakes
- Pizza
- Fried chicken
- Fish and chips
- Tex Mex
- Curry and fried food such as samosas or onion bhaji
- Hot dogs, etc.
- Reinvent the fast food meals you and your family eat. You have a lot of power to reinvent and improve the healthiness of fast food in your home environment. Select the options you enjoy the most and then follow some of the examples in the following steps to improve the fast food menu served at home.
- Always use the best and freshest ingredients for optimal nutrition.
- Prefer healthier oils over saturated, trans-fat or solid fats. A recent study in the British Medical Journal stated that olive and sunflower oils are good oils that do not appear to be implicated in heart disease. All the same, try to avoid deep frying very often.
- Revamp the burger and fries option. Burger and fries doesn't have to be a fat, sugar and empty calorie experience. It can be a truly satisfying and tasty one that has plenty of nutrition:
- Choose quality burger meat to make burger mince from. Make your own patties and use olive or sunflower oil to fry them, or bake them.
- Choose vegetable based burgers instead of meat ones.
- Select wholemeal or wholegrain buns over white buns.
- Add lots of salad ingredients, including sprouts, tomatoes, different styles of lettuce, etc.
- Bake the "fries" (or chips/wedges) instead of frying them. Cut fresh potatoes into big wedges and bake on a parchment covered tray. If you need oil, brush a little olive oil over them prior to baking.
- Make a low-sugar or sugar-free ketchup for the burger.
- Add plenty of salad fillings to the burger.
- Try these recipes: Make a Salmon Burger, Grilled Foreman burger or a turkey burger. For more homemade burger ideas, see Burgers.
- Curtail the fat-soaked pizza and turn it healthy. Pizza can be fattening if you're not careful how much you're eating take out versions. Here is how to improve it:
- Choose a thin, wholemeal pizza base. Try to make a wholemeal base using wholewheat, spelt, or other wholegrain flour in place of white flour.
- Use non-stick trays or parchment paper on the pizza tray instead of adding more fat to prevent sticking.
- Choose lean meats. Instead of pepperoni, salami, sausage and bacon, choose lean lamb strips, shredded chicken breast, ham or prawns.
- Reduce the amount of cheese used by at least half or use low-fat cheese. Alternatively, don't even add cheese.
- Use vegetable toppings instead of meat toppings.
- Don't have with garlic bread but do have with plenty of fresh salad.
- Don't forget other Italian fast options such as pasta or lasagna with lots of vegetables in the sauce and homemade garlic bread using real butter (not adulterated) or olive oil and fresh garlic.
- Make homemade fish and chips. Make homemade fish fingers and make baked chunky chips. Don't add too much salt and be sure to have with a salad on the side and some homemade ketchup (tomato sauce).
- Create fried chicken with healthy oils and shallow frying. Instead of deep frying, fry in shallow oil, using a healthy oil like olive or sunflower oil.
- See Make Mexican Baked "Fried" Chicken and check out the escalopes option in How to make fried chicken for the shallow frying method.
- Eat with plenty of salad or steamed vegetables.
- Go Mexican, not Tex Mex. By returning to the roots of Tex Mex, you can unearth the much healthier Mexican versions that would be eaten daily and are filled with nutrients. Some examples include:
- Mexican rice
- Homemade tortillas
- Mexican pie
- See How to cook real Mexican food for some more ideas.
- Enjoy more Asian-inspired fast food choices. Many Asian take-outs are healthy if you avoid fried fatty or high calorie meals. Making these meals at home is easy and can include:
- Curries made with reduced ghee or other fat amounts, brown rice, salads accompanying the curry, less meat and more vegetable content, etc.
- Sushi (try both fish/seafood and vegetarian versions; if you're a novice sushi maker, it isn't "fast" but it will speed up with practice)
- Bento boxes (although this takes a bit of work and isn't quite "fast")
- Stir-fries (use healthy oil, lower the meat amount, use brown rice and don't overdo sauces with too much sugar in them)
- Soups, such as miso soup.
- Make cinema food. This can also be made at home for cinema nights:
- Nachos can be relatively easy to make by blending tomatoes, chillies and garlic, then adding vegetables of your choice (onion, pepper and more chilli is often tasty).
- Warm the salsa through, then pour some chips in an ovenproof dish, pour the salsa on top and sprinkle with just a little Monterey Jack cheese or highly flavored favorite cheese. Fresh nachos can be very tasty.
- Make popcorn at home. Instead of adding fat, add spices such as cinnamon or squeeze small amounts of lime juice and sprinkle pepper on the popcorn.
- Consider the small things, too. Do you get onion rings? Consider baking onion rings rather than frying them.
- Do you like doughnuts? Change to watermelon doughnuts to reduce the fat content.
- If you love cheesecake, make a light version at home and stick to only having one piece each for dessert.
- Complete the "fast food" experience by having fruit juice and carbonated water mixed together to make a refreshing, but healthy fizzy drink. You could also have ice-cream for dessert if you wish, choosing a fruit based sorbet option without dairy or small portions of a quality dairy ice cream.
- Learn from your experiences. Try different ways of putting together the fast food meals at home. Keep notes of which work best and what sorts of substitutes you and your family like most.
- Taste test! Does it taste similar? Better? Fresher? Is it more economical? Is it more satisfying than fast food? What do the other people think of your attempt? What could you do better next time you make it?
- Keep a folder of your favorite fast food home recipes, either hard copy or digital. Include an ingredients list to help with quick shopping.
- Build on your experiences. Attempt them once a week until you get them perfect, and don't forget to adjust your recipe if you see fit, along the way!
- Reserve fast foods at home for irregular, special treats. Once or twice a month is probably a good average for at-home fast food treats that contain a lot of fat or raised levels of sugar, although if you've really super improved the healthiness, more often is possible, especially with Asian style and traditional South American cuisine.
- Always favor fast food imitations that are filled with nutrients and that are simple.
- Get children involved in making homemade fast foods; teach them that cooking is easier than getting takeouts.
Tips
- Experiment with making your own condiments; "special" sauce can easily be made by mixing ketchup and mayonnaise.
- Not enough time? No worry! You can make your own burgers (or other products) and Freezing Food them. But be sure to give enough defrosting time on the day of consumption, and never make fresh food to freeze more than three months in advance.
- Get a flame-grilled taste by barbecuing your burgers. Only use a barbecue in appropriate weather and never use them indoors.
- Not everything has to be homemade––Make Oven Fries are readily available and are not too expensive. Just be sure to choose ones baked or cooked in vegetable oil.
- You could also get little paper cups for your sauce, like they have in McDonald's, to add authenticity.
- You will never be able to recreate a fast food product exactly; a lot of the processes used in fast food production are beyond the capabilities of a small, household kitchen, but you can make stuff that's fresh, and tastes better, so you shouldn't really aim for an exact match anyway!
- You could also draw upon ideas from other food establishments such as Subway and have a sandwich night.
Warnings
- Fast food can be unhealthy for you, so if your replication isn't as good, don't resort to lots of fast food. The occasional take out isn't bad, but lots of fast food can have negative health effects.
- You do not need to utilize the cooking methods that fast food places use, either. Cooking in the oven, baking, grilling or barbecuing can be tastier.
Things You'll Need
- Recipe journal
- Fast food recipes which have healthy variants - many good cookbooks and websites have plenty of recipes like this
- Quality, fresh ingredients
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