I love sweet and sour sauce, but all the packets or jars that you can buy at the supermarket are high in calories. I experimented with different ideas and this was my favourite and extra easy to make!
If you follow Slimming World, Weight Watchers (WW), Noom or any other weight loss plan you can usually count this as free or easily within your allowances, of course always check your plan for advice.
Why you need vegetables to lose weight
Everyone knows vegetables are good for you, don’t they? They are healthy and filling for very few calories!
The best vegetables are those with low-calorie density. Basically, we are talking about healthier vegetables – potatoes don’t count but butternut squash is much healthier for example!
This means if you eat 100g of spinach, for example, it is just 23 calories and obviously, 100g of anything would fill you up significantly. On the other hand, 100g of crisps, which would be just as filling, is around 536 calories!
Find more tips about the best vegetables for weight loss.
Budget shopping tips
I try to ensure that all of the recipes I make are accessible for everyone. By this, I mean that they do not use obscure, hard-to-find ingredients.
I also believe that recipes should use as few ingredients as possible and avoid expensive ingredients. We would all much rather spend money on holidays than on expensive ingredients wouldn’t we?
Buying herbs and spices in bulk is something I really recommend. It can save a lot of money in the long term but also mean you never run out! I find putting them on Amazon subscribe and save helps too!
Shopping around to see which shops have offers on your usual products can make a big difference to your weekly shopping bill. Additionally don’t forget to check out the yellow sticker reductions and freeze what you can.
Frozen vegetables are nutritionally just as good as fresh usually so do keep an eye for those too to save money. Do you have any particular frozen vegetables you love? They do tend to make this recipe a bit runnier though so bear that in mind before you use them.
Adaptations to this recipe
If you would like to make a Slimming World sweet and sour chicken then you could adapt this recipe to make that quite easily by swapping the ingredients. In the same way, you could use pork, beef, Quorn or anything else you fancy.
Is this unofficial Slimming World sweet and sour sauce a tweak?
Some Slimming World consultants deem this recipe as a tweak as it uses a drink in a recipe however I personally do not think that is the case as they do not class diet cola chicken as a tweak so where is the difference?
It is of course up to you if you would class this as a tweak or not!
Other recipes you may enjoy
If you like tasty Chinese food then why not check out my Chinese fakeaway selection here and create a whole menu full of takeaway alternatives? It includes beef in black bean sauce, chicken and mushroom curry and seaweed.
If you are looking for more recipes with rice then do check out my list of rice recipes from around the world. If you are not confident at boiling rice or making risotto I have a foolproof guide to boiling rice here and a risotto guide here.
I have so many tasty healthy recipes that I am sure you will love. Check them all out here.
Weight loss and Exercise Support
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!
PrintSweet and Sour Vegetables
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: 4 portions 1x
- Category: Main Meal
- Method: Hob top
- Cuisine: Chinese
- Diet: Low Calorie
Description
A delicious, easy healthy sweet and sour recipe that you can easily adapt to include meat, Quorn or vegetables of your choice.
Ingredients
500g Passata
500ml Sugar-free Orangeade
4 green and red peppers deseeded and cut into chunks
1 pack of baby corn cut into chunks
1 pack of Sugar Snap peas,
1 Pak Choi (roughly chopped)
1 Handful of Beansprouts
3 Red onions (Quartered or cut into bite-size chunks)
Instructions
Add a 500g carton of passata, 500ml of sugar-free orangeade, and vegetables to a large frying pan and cook on medium heat until vegetables are tender but not too soft. This usually takes around 15 minutes but the choice is yours.
Equipment
Keywords: sweet and sour, chinese, fakeaway
Loved the balance of sweet and sour flavours in this. Often crave Chinese food when I’m sticking to SW, so this was a fantastic find. Thanks Jen!
★★★★★