Eating for Success: BODYSIM Recipes
As we embarked on building BODYSIM, the team started exchanging recipes that hit key macro goals while still tasting great. Most of us love to cook, and we realized that it’s not hard to step up the nutrition of what you’re eating, and it can still taste great, but you need to start following some guidelines. Of course, some things like dessert can be a little trickier, but we learned how to use just the right amount of sugar substitute, or add the right type of protein to not mess up the texture.
As a result, we have a curated set of high-protein low-fat recipes that are accessible directly in BODYSIM, with step-by-step instructions and pictures. Not only do these recipes follow the guidelines we have found to be so helpful, but you can add the ingredients to your cart instantly (with Walmart+ or Amazon!). These recipes work because they share common principles around Flavor, Techniques and Ingredient Swaps.
BODYSIM recipes deliver “flavor without the fat” by using acid, umami, sugar and spice. Many traditionally American or homecooked meals taste bland, and we use fatty sauces and ingredients to make them taste better. As we were developing recipes, some of us tested a few popular meal kit companies and ended up with a surprising number of tiny bags of fried onions and sauces we didn’t use. Using acid, umami, sugar and spice, we can make meals and dishes taste great without these fatty add-ons.
Acid
What we know from the best chefs and culinary science, is that many otherwise bland dishes just need a little acid to wake up their flavors. Acids make dishes much more flavorful and alive while adding practically zero calories (unlike cheese, mayonnaise, ranch, butter, and other flavor crutches). When adding acid to a dish, you’ll even notice you want less salt. Culinary acids come in many forms and so you’ll see them prominently in BODYSIM recipes: lemon juice, fruits, vinegars, fermented and pickled foods, tomato products, and so on.
Umami
You’re probably familiar with spicy, salty, sour, and sweet, but perhaps less familiar with the fifth flavor: umami. Umami is the flavor typically associated with roasted meat, and it gives foods a depth of flavor and a richness without the fat. You’ll see umami rich ingredients in BODYSIM recipes for this reason, things like: soy sauce, miso, Worcestershire sauce, tomato paste, mushrooms, beef broth, caramelized onions, browned meats, and so on. You’ll see this trick can really turn ultra-low fat ingredients like ground turkey into something gourmet, like sumptuous meatballs.
Sugar
As we’ve previously mentioned, BODYSIM is not keto, and we prefer carbs to fats. For this reason, you’ll see us using sweet ingredients to enliven dishes without the fat. You actually see this principle at work in classic sauces like cocktail sauce or BBQ sauce, neither of which require added fat. Sweetness doesn’t just come from refined sugar, but also fruits and tomatoes, which you’ll see show up in what might seem like unexpected places. One example is our Panko Broiled Fish recipe that cooks in 7 minutes using frozen fish topped with a blend of Panko, hot sauce, and a little orange marmalade.
Spice
We also add flavor without the fat by using spice. Spice doesn’t just mean hot-spicy to us, you’ll see a variety of herbs, spices and blends featured prominently in BODYSIM recipes. Spice blends add complexity, depth and pizzazz to tantalize your taste buds, again without fat. You’ll see us use classics like Montreal steak seasoning (a blend of garlic, coriander, pepper, cayenne and dill), as well as more exotic blends from other global culinary traditions like Chinese Five Spice powder (star anise, cloves, cinnamon, Sichuan pepper, fennel), Egyptian Dukkah (coriander, cumin, sesame seeds, hazelnuts) and Moroccan Ras el hanout (saffron, rose petals, star anise, fennel, white peppercorns, cardamom, …). Even common dishes like roasted sweet potatoes taste amazing without marshmallows and brown sugar with our simple blend of cinnamon, chili powder and ground fennel seed.
Technique
We’ve also spent a lot of time adapting the way you prepare recipes to be lower-fat. Nonstick skillets, spray oil, sous-vide, crockpot…we use these and other strategies to eliminate unnecessary sources of fat from your every day. The next time you watch a fiery competition cooking show, notice just how much oil they squirt into every frying pan to start a dish. At over 100 calories and 13 grams of fat per tablespoon of oil, that is a major potential source of dietary fat. But we also use these techniques to boost convenience. Some of our sous-vide recipes make use of pre-marinated proteins for 1-step cooking, or suggest methods for perfectly hard boiling an 18 pack of eggs at once.
Smart Swapping
Lastly, we’ve developed a principled approach to ingredient swaps. While it might be tempting, you can’t just swap out a nonfat product. Based on careful research and taste-testing, we’ve identified the best possible way to make a swap, resulting in significantly improved macros. In many dishes where you’d expect to see mayonnaise, we use nonfat Greek yogurt or blended cottage cheese to make an egg salad, burger spread, or crab cakes. We also favor certain ingredients over others. If we have to pick a crunchy seed, it’s going to be pepitas. If we have to pick a nut, it’s going to be pistachios. If we have to pick a grain, it’s going to be quinoa. Each of these are the most reasonably available variety of their category with the best macros. This doesn’t mean you can’t occasionally enjoy a macadamia nut, just that it’s not a typical part of the menu because it all adds up.
The BODYSIM approach to recipes will definitely require a little extra pantry space as you start to accumulate some new products, but we can assure you that it’s worth it to bite into a just-right textured scone while keeping your macros right on track (and not having to make up for it later in the day or the week).