Diet Hamburger Recipe
Our Low Calorie Version
Written by Sky Taylor, Diet Bites
Innocent Hamburger Gets Unfair Wrap
YES! You CAN Enjoy Your Hamburgers & Lose Weight Too!
There is so much diet and weight loss advice being thrown at dieters in the real world that at times, it's difficult to separate fact from fiction. Take the hamburger; this little guy has been unfairly shredded from most diet and weight loss plans. Let's look at the facts....
The typical hamburger contains lettuce, pickles and onions from the healthy Vegetable Group, meat from the healthy Protein Group, a bun from the healthy Grain Group, tomato from the healthy Fruit Group and a hamburger may even contain cheese from the healthy Dairy Group. WOW!
The innocent hamburger with cheese contains foods from all the healthy food groups! Amazing! So...why do hamburgers get such a bad wrap?
The Big Fat Calorie Difference
Well, for starters, much of the time hamburgers are purchased at the local fast food restaurant, and it would be very rare to find a hamburger containing extra lean ground beef. The expense of the higher quality, leaner ground beef would jack hamburger costs skyward and these days, everyone is searching for the best deal meals. But when extra lean ground beef is used over fatty ground beef, here's the big fat difference:
- One 3-ounce serving of 70% lean and 30% fat ground beef which has been pan broiled contains 202 calories and 13.21 grams of total fat, of which 5.318 grams is saturated fat.
- One 3-ounce serving of 95% lean and 5% fat ground beef which has been pan broiled contains 139 calories and 5.11 grams of total fat, of which 2.320 grams is saturated fat.
In Summary
Diet Bites contains a plethora of articles detailing calorie and fat-saving techniques for delicious Diet Hamburgers. Let's do a quick recap:
Opt for whole grain buns for extra nutritional values and review the calorie content on the labels before purchasing. Some bigfoot-sized buns contain more than twice the calories as their peers.
Toast the bun under the broiler without adding butter or margarine to the bun OR spray the bun with butter-flavored cooking spray before toasting. If you use this method for pan-toasting, you can turn off the heat when the bun is reaching that toasty stage and simply allow the bun to slow-cook which will create a very crusty, very tasty bun.
Go easy on the salt, particularly if pickles are added and concentrate on the cracked pepper.
Opting for a low fat cheese such as skimmed mozzarella can slash fat and calorie content greatly.
Watch the sauces. Opt for light Mayo over full-blown or better yet, mustard or ketchup - or both. Spicy mustard offers a delicious bite to the burger. And if you're wild about salsa, grab your sombrero and do the Salsa Dance! Minimal calories and one spicy hamburger.
When dining out, order the kid's hamburger with mustard. Fast food burgers tend to hover around the 500-600 calorie mark while the kid hamburger contains about 350 calories. Don't be shy - ask for a nutritional guide so you can better determine the amount of calories and fat content you'll be consuming.
Now - let's move forward to our tasty Mushroom Hamburger recipe.
Mushrooms make an excellent meat-replacement choice as they tend to have an earthy flavor.
And when fatty ground beef is used in a burger, opting for mushrooms over ground beef can save about ½ the burger calories.
The common button-type mushrooms contain a teensy 15 calories per cup, when sliced. These make a great burger option and can be cooked on the stove top in a non-stick skillet with a little cooking spray, if necessary.
Or, opt for the big boy - a portabella mushroom for a teensy 18 calories. Portabellas grill nicely, too and fit perfectly into a small whole grain bun.
Using our Hamburger Diet Tips above, simply replace the ground beef for the mushrooms of your choice to create a delicious Mushroom Hamburger.
Tasty, light in fat content, low in calories, too. Speaking of which, our delicious Diet Mushroom Hamburger recipe contains about 250 calories based on a 130 calorie bun, 20 calories worth of light Miracle Whip, lettuce, tomato, pickles, onions, a portabella mushroom and a slice of low fat mozzarella cheese. What a Diet Deal!
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