Recipe
3 Low-Calorie Snacks By Chinna Dua To Stay Healthy This Year
Healthy eating can be a tumultuous and mundane task when all you have is bland food. Thank goodness for people like Mrs. Chinna Dua who can tactfully create tempting yet nutritious meals. She's a doctor by profession, a self-taught baker, and cook, and creates the most subtle and delish food with love.
She was kind enough to prepare 3 low-calorie dishes for us to review. All of three of them are simple enough for one to make, regardless of your skill level. They're quick, they're easy, and they're healthy!
Kulla (Kulliya)
- Prep Time: 20 mins
- Cook Time: 5 mins
- Total Time: 25 mins
- Servings: 6
Ingredients
- Cucumbers long
- Potatoes narrow and oval
- Tomato narrow and oval
- 1/4th cup Chickpeas- small white variety
- 1 tsp Matar Masala
- 1/4th tsp Kala Chaat masala
- 1/4th tsp Black Salt
- Salt
- 1/8th tsp Red Chilli Powder
- Lemon juice to taste
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These bite-sized snacks are perfect for serving at parties as an appetizer or satisfying your midnight craving. They're fresh and nutritious, and can also be made using sweet potatoes, bananas, melons, and filled with paneer, dry keema, only chickpeas, only green peas, only pomegranates and the likes. Let your imagination run wild!
Matra
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 15 mins
- Total Time: 30 mins
- Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 2 cups Matra/ dried white peas
- 5 cups Water
- Salt to taste
- 3/4 tsp Haldi/ Turmeric powder
- 5 tsp yellow chaat masala
- Imli/ Tamarind chutney/Sonth to taste
- 1/8 tsp Hing - optional
- 2 tsp Refined oil - optional
- 3/4 tsp Jeera/ Cumin seeds - optional
- Chopped onion 1 cup
- Diced tomatoes 1 cup
- Julienned garlic 1/2 cup
- Chopped coriander leaves 1/4th cup
- Green chilies 1/4th cup
- Lemon juice
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An integral part of the Indian chaat, matra is a light and delicious snack for all purposes. The best part is that matra is customisable to one's taste and mood.
Cheela
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 15 mins
- Total Time: 30 mins
- Servings: 2
Ingredients
- 1 cup Besan or Gram flour
- 1/8 tsp Ajwain or Thymol seeds
- 1/2 tsp Jeera or Cumin seeds
- 1 tsp chopped Onion
- 1/4 tsp chopped Green Chillies
- 2 tsp chopped tomatoes
- 1/2 tsp Coriander
- 175 ml Water
- 1/4 tsp Red Chili Powder -optional
- Salt to taste
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Cheela is probably one of the most filling yet delectable snacks of all time. You can play around with the recipe by mixing moong daal atta (lentil flour), whole wheat flour, ragi atta or bajra atta. You can also add shredded spinach, thinly sliced mushrooms, corn kernels, thinly shredded cabbage to the batter.
What I fancy the most about these low-calorie snacks is the fact that even a beginner, who only knows how to boil water, can easily master these dishes. They don't require any sort of an exotic or expensive ingredient, everything is available at one's convenience in a kitchen.
Not only do these recipes breathe life into ordinary food but also cater to people's tastes as they are highly customisable. I think it's time to don your chef's hat, arm yourself with cooking equipment and get moving!