If you have been consuming many deep-fried foods lately, you might be due for a routine check at the doctor’s office or multiple gym runs. Symptoms like weight gain, acne, bloating, and lack of energy will tell you that you’re indulging way more than you’re body can process.
However, there are ways to make your fried food cravings healthier. Those fried chicken, french fries, hard shell tacos, crabs, etc can all be turned into somewhat healthier by tweaking the cooking process slightly.
Read this article as we share eight masterful tips to make your deep-fried foods healthier yet not compromise on the mouthwatering taste.
1 Opt for Olive Oil
Let’s say you’re looking for a good quality deep fry fish oil—what are the elements you would pay extra attention to?
Our best bet is olive oil. Many foodies may tell you that olive oil makes deep-fried foods bland, indicating it will compromise the flavors of the particular dish. But the truth is, olive oil is a popular choice nowadays to make fried fish, chicken, potato wedges, eggs, and many more.
Olive oil is a nice trick to get your desired deep fries while making them healthier. It contains healthy nutrients like vitamins E and K, while more monounsaturated fat than polyunsaturated fat, unlike other vegetable oils.
Furthermore, olive oil has a higher shelf life which makes naturally makes it a safer and healthier choice.
When choosing the best olive oil for cooking or frying foods, always go for the virgin or extra virgin ones. ‘Virgin olive oil’ indicates less use of harmful chemicals in the oil extraction process, making it one of your best choices for deep frying oil.
2 Choose the Right Flour
The right choice of flour is the secret to making the perfect batter for oily food. The batter creates a crispy and crunchy coating around foods like prawns, tempura, etc. And to do this, most people resort to all-purpose or refined flour.
The availability of refined flour in local stores makes it a primary choice to make the batter. However, you should know that refined flour absorbs more oil than is needed in a fried dish, making the foods greasier and hard to digest.
It’s best to use gluten-free flour like cornmeal flour. You may also go for rice flour which is much more affordable, making it a great choice for batter and cooking healthier deep-fried foods.
Your family members may not like the less textured foods, but you can promote healthier eating habits by replacing just the flour ingredient.
3 Use Clean Oil to Fry Foods
Oil containing polyunsaturated fat declines in quality quicker than the ones with monounsaturated fat. The former is more available in canola oil whereas olive oil or peanut oil contains the latter. However, if you want to use clean and fresh oil to make deep-fried foods, it’s ideal to use it within six to eight months after opening the bottle.
The timeline of oil’s quality deterioration may vary depending on the manufacturer’s process of making and packaging. But all the same, old oil will collect debris inside which may make your deep-fries taste burnt.
Besides, you may get acidity and heartburn by eating foods made with old oil. Moreover, never fry anything with the same oil you once used to fry something before.
4 Fry Healthy Items
By eating healthy, you can improve your well-being with the right habits and choosing the right foods. And when it comes to deep frying, you must choose healthy food items and ingredients.
Luckily, you can always opt for healthier alternatives to meat and fish. Making potato or egg fries at home is common, but you can try frying some fruits and vegetables too.
Have you ever tried fried apples or fried olives? What about deep-fried breaded mushrooms or avocado? We bet you’ll want more and more of these once you’re done eating them up.
Speaking of deep veggie fries, you may try making veg tempura with olive oil. Besides, frying chickpeas, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, onion rings, etc., will make your snack time healthier without compromising the taste.
5 Fry without Oil
As consuming excessive oil puts your health through various risks, you may consider having fried snacks without oil.
Have you ever tried frying chicken or vegetable rolls without oil? It might sound weird but you can do deep frying without using oil at all. How so?
Well, you can use an electric air fryer to get the job done pretty easily. Moreover, now you can also use an oven to deep fry food items. Make sure you set the temperature at four hundred and fifty degrees while baking the items for twenty to thirty minutes. When the items inside turn crispy and red, fetch them out.
You might be skeptical about how it would taste, but trust us, you wouldn’t feel the absence of oil while eating. Instead, those deep-fried foods might even taste fresher and crunchier without greasiness.
6 Don’t Burn Oil Before Frying
When frying your food in a skillet or an air fryer, you have to be careful not to burn the oil coating on the food items.
Oftentimes, people make this vital mistake and end up burning a large portion of the food, which makes your deep-fried items unhealthiest of all.
Overburnt oil can inflict carcinogenic effects on your body while deteriorating your health.
To avoid this mistake, always set the fryer temperature at a maximum of one hundred and eighty degrees. Different items containing various ingredients including meat, fish, fruit, or veggies will appropriately fry at different temperatures, but they mustn’t go higher than the recommended temperature.
Usually, when you notice bubbles after a while around the food items in the skillet or fryer, it’s a sign that your foods are frying well.
7 Use Salt Carefully
One of the subtlest ingredients that skips our eyes when making and eating deep fried foods is salt. Too much sodium or iodine could be addictive and intaking too much of it can prove to be fatal. So, to make your deep fried dish healthier, you must be careful about using salt in them.
It’s not like you’re eating so many fried dishes containing salt which is harming you. Rather, one particular deep fried dish like fried chicken, beef, or mutton can be enough to put you at risk.
What happens is that your body gets addicted to a particular salty fried food, wanting to have it more and more.
Overlooking the importance of eating a reduced amount of salt may seem less important to you. However, in a few years or so, you might even be prescribed not to intake salt at all due to having too much sodium or iodine in your body already. Excessive iodine intake can lead to thyroid inflammation and even thyroid cancer.
8 Use Baking Soda or Carbonated Liquid
A nice and easy trick to ditch too much oil absorption in your fried foods is to use baking soda or carbonated liquid in the batter. Mixing baking soda with the batter will create gas bubbles while the food items are being fried in oil.
Nonetheless, those bubbles ensure that the fried items are not oil-soaked, making them less greasy and more enjoyable to chew on and swallow.
If you can mix baking soda or carbonated liquid with gluten-free ingredients in the batter, the flavor, and texture will not disappoint you.
A Healthy Deep Fry Dish Recipe
Here’s a bonus for you. Scroll down to explore a healthy deep-fried fish recipe, our personal favorite.
Fish Tacos
Fish Tacos do not need an introduction. Everyone loves it and if you can make it healthier, it will surely become a regular meal for your family dinners.
For this recipe, we are going to use haddock filets to make the fish tacos.
Cooking Instructions:
-
- Step 1: Take sliced tomato, chili, corn, and coriander in a large bowl. Add salsa and stir them well.
- Step 2: Take the fryer and preheat this to a hundred and ninety degrees celsius.
- Step 3: Slice the haddock filets into four strips each and marinate them with paprika and avocado oil for 8-10 minutes.
- Step 4: Now take each filet strip and dip it into cornmeal or rice flour, breadcrumbs, and whisked eggs.
- Step 5: Now it’s time to fry the coated filets in vegetable oil for 5 minutes until they turn brown and crispy.
- Step 6: Drain the oil and soak the fries in an absorbent paper or kitchen towel.
- Step 7: Serve the fried haddock filets in taco shells with tangy salsa.
Final Words
Deep fried foods are not the best food choices. We understand it’s difficult to deprive yourself of your deep-fried food cravings, hence a healthier take to meet your cravings is a win-win really.
Lastly, excessive oil and salt can put you at risk of various heart diseases. So, keep your health in check by consulting a doctor regularly.
Read More:
8 Food combinations that make you healthier
