One of the difficult things about wanting to eat right is that often, you feel as if you must sacrifice flavor or sacrifice your favorite foods in order to eat healthy recipes. In reality, living a healthy lifestyle involves making little changes in your life that will add up to a greater effect. One way you can start making little changes in your life when cooking is by using substitutions for ingredients in order to create healthy recipes that don’t sacrifice flavor for health. Here are a few common substitutions to help you in cooking.

Using Less of the Greasy Stuff

Many recipes call for some sort of grease, such as butter or oil, which helps to bind ingredients in a recipe and aid in heat transfer when cooking. These items are essential in many recipes, and you often can’t substitute them entirely. However, even fats are good in moderation, and you can still replace part of the ingredients when cooking with healthy recipes. To substitute for butter or oil in a recipe, try replacing half of the amount listed with applesauce. Also, when merely using butter or oil to lubricate a pan, get some nonstick cooking spray instead.

Egg Substitutions

Eggs are interesting little packages of nutrition, with plenty of good things inside them, both for keeping you healthy and for binding foods and creating emulsions. However, egg yolks do contain a lot of cholesterol, which many people try to avoid for health reasons. For healthy recipes that call for eggs, substitute two egg whites for one full egg, and you should be good to go.

Yogurt Works Well

Plain yogurt can be used in many recipes that call for cream or even in the place of mayonnaise in salad dressings. Yogurt is healthy, often low-fat, and still adds plenty of great smoothness and texture in recipes. For healthy recipes, substitute mayonnaise or cream with yogurt in equal amounts. Keep in mind that when yogurt boils, it will start to curdle, so while you can simmer cream sauces all day, a sauce with yogurt should not be overheated.

Lowering Salt Content

It can be pretty tricky when trying to lower salt content in a dish. After all, it really does season food well, but you can still reduce the amount of salt you use in healthy recipes and at the dinner table. Rather than use salt to season a dish, try an herb mixture, or create your own using garlic, onions, and celery. These foods all have a little kick to it that will help to flavor your dishes without the use of salt. Keep in mind that you can’t always get rid of the salt entirely in a dish, but a little change over time will still help your health over all, and that’s the point of using substitutions to create healthy recipes.