Sauce options for down days?

[Cairopiper]

Hi everyone,

I've been doing Juddd since January and whilst I'm doing good with it, I do find it hard to keep coming up with interesting food ideas. There was great post on here a while back in the recipes section for down day menus which had great ideas but that seems to have disappeared. I'm very pleased the "who's on a down day" thread is very active as that's really awesome and full of ideas too.

Anyway, I digress

The one thing I cannot seem to find are any decent recipes for sauces to have with my veg on down days which are very low in calories. I've been buying a teriyaki & ginger stirfry sauce which is about 85 cals per 100ml but I like a lot of sauce so end up having the whole 175ml pack, hking up the cals on my down days. So just wondering if anyone knows of any recipes/ideas for sauces around the 50cal mark, preferably warm sauces like gravies/stir fry sauces that sort of thing.

Would really appreciate any help or input and hope this thread may one day be of use to someone else too.

TIA
Cairo
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[moonwatcher]

Hi. Do you like the lemon sauce that you get with takeaway lemon chicken? If so you can make a similar one using no added sugar lemon and lime squashes (or a mixed one I suppose), and real lemon juice (squeezed or jif). Thicken with arrowroot if you want it clear, or cornflour if you don't mind it cloudy. I used to sometimes use a thickener called guar gum, which you only need a tiny amount of. Sorry I can't remember exact amounts, except it was about two thirds lemon to one third lime, so you could experiment. I should think that would come in well under the 50 cals mark.

Probably will have some other suggestions, but am on my Kindle at the moment. When I am on my laptop and can type properly will come back with some more ideas.

 

[Cairopiper]

Hi Moonwatcher,

Thanks so much for that idea, sounds great and just the sort of thing I'm looking for. I love the lemon sauce from takeaway Chinese. Would love to hear any more suggestions you have

Cairo
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[moonwatcher]

Glad you like the lemon sauce idea. I have also done it with orange squash - I suppose it would work with any flavour squash.

I am trying a recipe tonight that uses orange juice, soy sauce, garlic and honey as the sauce ingredients. If it comes out OK I'll let you know. It is a slow cooker recipe from a 5:2 recipe kindle book I got on Amazon for £1.99. I have posted the link to it in my diary if you want a look. Don't want to post it again in case it breaks any forum rules!

What about making your own version of the teryaki sauce - with some teryaki or light soy, and some crushed root ginger or some lazy ginger, plus some garlic - real, lazy or powder. Add water and a stock cube and then thicken it with arrowroot, cornflour etc., same as the lemon sauce. You might need a bit of sweetener/sugar, depending on your taste. If you have some calories to spare you could add a little peanut butter and turn it into a satay type of sauce.

I make a chilli sauce a bit like the kebab shop type of chilli sauce by mixing tabasco and tomato puree together and thinning to the consistency I want. Sometimes I add garlic, ginger, herbs etc., You can use any chillis or chilli sauce, but tabasco is probably the lower calorie option, and quicker than chopping chillis!

For a creamy sauce I use either/or/a mixture of... low cal mayo, creme fraiche (ordinary or low fat - I prefer to use the ordinary and a bit less of it, but needs must on a DD!), greek yogurt, and add herbs, garlic, etc.

A lot of the calories in ready made sauces are from the thickeners, rather than the sauce ingredients themselves, especially if it is advertised as a low fat sauce, as they have to bulk it/thicken it with something, so they often add a lot of commercial thickeners.

Cornflour is about 30 cals for a level tablespoon I think, arrowroot is similar. I've just looked up the gum (I remember now I used xanthan gum, but you can use guar as well) and that is also 30 per tablespoon, but you probably wouldn't use as much of the gum as it goes quite gloopy if you overdo it!

A few bits of basic info - marmite or soy sauce will often make a 'thin' tasting sauce much ricer, for not many calories, so will a squirt of tomato puree (also sweetens it a little), vinegar or lemon juice works well to lift a sauce that isn't quite punchy enough (yep, I know vinegar sounds a bit odd, but it dies work - just add a little ar a time and it highlights the other flavours - not in a creamy sauce though!), cocoa powder works well in a tomato/chilli based sauce.

Sorry haven't worked out calories, but they are all pretty low.

Hope that helps.

 

[Cairopiper]

Wow Moonwatcher, those ideas are all so awesome!

I have a few of those things at home already (tomato puree, lemon juice, arrow root, soy sauce, garlic powder etc) so I'm going to experiement tonight with adding stuff to a pan, heat up and see how it all tastes.

Thank you so much for your help, hopefully my down days will be a little more interesting now food-wise.

You're a star

Cairo
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