Low Fat Substitutes for Sautéing & Cooking

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Kirsten Herbes, I’m a registered dietitian and health educator. When cooking meat browning and sautéing are the two most common options. Meat in itself generally has a large amount of fat simply because it does come from an animal, so when we add additional fat for browning and sautéing purposes, we’re increasing the fat in the recipe unnecessarily. Browning and sautéing serve two purposes, browning is mainly used for tenderizing the meat because it seals in the juices in the meat and also to give the meat flavoring as it sits in the pan and has the opportunity to brown on each side. There are a lot of different options we can use to reduce the fat that we add to the browning process and I’ll show you a couple right here. the first one again is a fruit puree such as applesauce, applesauce can be used for both the browning and sautéing purpose, you want to use about two-thirds of the amount that you would if you used a regular oil, you don’t need quite as much simply because it is a more liquid ingredient, it’s going to melt a little bit more in your pan, so you don’t want to over water you recipe. Another option would be simply to use a nonstick cooking spray again these come in many varieties, you can use an original flavor which would be the same flavor as normal vegetable oil. You can also use flavored varieties, they do make an olive oil based cooking spray which is going to be your best choice. You can also make your own cooking spray if you don’t feel like going to the store to purchase one, you simply need a spray bottle, fill it about two-thirds of the way with regular tap water and the remaining third should be made with olive oil and that will give you the same spray effect that you will have with a store bought product. Another thing that you could use is chicken broth or beef broth, make sure you look for a fat free or low fat variety, you can use this for the sautéing process and the browning process. you want to use a little bit less than you would use for the regular oil again because it’s a water ingredient but it’s going to give you very good flavor and it’s also going to help the meat brown in the pan. Another ingredient that you can use is wine, cooking wine or table wine either one will work. Now if you have an aversion to the alcohol don’t worry about that too much because as you use the wine, you want to put a little bit extra wine in the pan and let it cook until the wine portion has evaporated, this is what we call reducing. You will see that the liquid portion will evaporate out of the pan and you’re left with more of the solids that are in the wine, the grape solids that you’ll find in the wine. So there will be no alcohol left in your finished product. Lastly something else that you could use, and this is particularly helpful for the sautéing process is fruit juice. Apple juice, prune juice whatever you have handy works just fine, you want to start with about 4 cups of your fruit juice, put that in the pan again let it reduce until you’re left with only something that covers the bottom of your pan, these will be the solids in your fruit juice and this will aid in both the browning and the sautéing without adding any fat to you meat. "