Healthy eaters often avoid quiche because it can be high in fat and calories. Just one serving of quiche can contain 500 calories and at least 33 fat grams. If you ate an Egg McMuffin plus hash browns from McDonald’s instead, you’d save 80 calories and 13 fat grams.
But with a few alterations, real dieters can eat quiche and still lose weight.
Brenda Reynolds of Nebraska sent me her favorite crustless quiche recipe and asked if I could slim it down.
“I love quiche and thought crustless would be the best way to go until a co-worker mentioned that the recipe has so much butter it doesn’t matter if it’s crustless,” she wrote. “I hope you can help!”
To slash calories and fat from this recipe, I use buttermilk in place of part of the butter. I also choose light butter and cut the amount in half. Those changes cut 94 calories and 11 fat grams from each serving of this quiche.
Stirring in EggBeaters instead of eggs cuts an extra 23 calories and 2.5 fat grams per serving.
Reynolds’ recipe calls for Bisquick baking mix, and I save a few more calories by substituting Bisquick’s Heart Smart baking mix.
I slice the amount of ham in half and sprinkle in reduced-fat cheese to shave off more calories and fat grams. Plus, I use a little less salt to reduce the amount of sodium.
Reynolds’ quiche contains 332 calories and 25 fat grams per serving, but my changes cut the calories in this quiche by 47 percent and trimmed the fat by 66 percent.
You can have a serving of my crustless quiche for 177 calories and 8.5 grams of fat.
Kathy Manweiler has lost 100 pounds. For more of her Don’t Say Diet recipes, go to www.wichitaaliveandwell.com.
Do you have a favorite food you’d like to see made healthier? Send your ideas and recipes, along with a daytime phone number, to kmanweiler@wichitaeagle.com or write: Don’t Say Diet, c/o Wichita Eagle, 825 E. Douglas, Wichita, KS 67202.
