Carnivores out there are sure to love a meaty dish for their dinner. I am vegetarian but I know how important a good bit of meat is to my two boys! It’s seen as a good way to round out a long, hard day and give you some energy.
That said, we’re all conscious of our health, so we’d like to know which cuts of meat are sure to be the best for our diet, and how best to cook them. Here’s my guide to the healthiest cuts of meat.
Red Meat
Red meat can be a difficult thing to buy on a health-conscious diet. It’s typically very fatty, and a lot of different, unhealthy procedures go into the production of a large number of red meat products.
For example, smoking and salting bacon makes it much less healthy and has been linked to a wide variety of negative health consequences. Therefore, those procedures are something we want to avoid.
The healthiest way to go is a very lean, unsmoked minced beef. This will often be less than ten per cent fat (by weight), which means that it can offer a powerful, meaty flavour, without adding a shedload of empty calories.
Furthermore, ground beef is a versatile ingredient that you can add a lot of flavour to! If you were using it in a pasta dish, like spaghetti bolognese, you can add a huge amount of spices and flavourings to give it a powerful kick.
In a bolognese sauce, the meat is the most calorific part, so picking some good, lean beef up from your butcher will enable you to make a much healthier sauce.
When cooking, add it to the pan first, followed shortly by onion and garlic. Add your tomatoes next, followed by your Italian spice blend. Allow the dish to simmer for roughly an hour, and you’ll end up with a rich, powerful sauce, filled to bursting with flavour.
Poultry
There isn’t much difference between different pieces of chicken that you might pick up at the supermarket. Sure, some will be higher in fat content than others, but the most important part of cooking a healthier poultry dish are the ingredients that you add to it during the cooking process.
That said, a lean piece of chicken, ideally boneless and skinless, will have some calorie difference from a fattier piece like a thigh with the skin on it. For that reason, aim for boneless pieces like fillets or chicken breasts.
When using those pieces of chicken, a good recipe is often to make some form of curry or stew. These are also good places to flex your healthy eating muscles as if you swap out some of the higher-fat ingredients, you can end up with a much more healthy dish.
For example, in a Thai-style curry, try swapping cream for fat-free yoghurt or coconut milk. The texture is very similar, the flavour’s great, and it’s much healthier!
If you know what to look out for, you can definitely make healthier choices when buying meat for your meals. Aim for lean meat as well as non-smoked, and non-salted pieces of meat, and your food will be much healthier straight away.
There’s plenty of information out there, as well as plenty of great recipes, so get cooking!
More you may find helpful
For recipes using lean beef why not try healthy beef bourguignon, beef stew or beef in black bean sauce. All my recipes using mince can be found in my mince guide.
Popular chicken recipes I have shared are Malaysian red pepper and chicken curry, BBQ chicken and Spanish chicken though there are lots more.
Don’t forget to also consider turkey mince as a lean option, I have a few turkey mince recipes too.
I have a lot of weight loss guides and support if you want to exercise including if you have a condition like fibromyalgia.
Have a good look around and see how I can help you achieve your weight loss goals. Request my free resources to get you started too!
