Who doesn’t love fried foods? French fries, chicken tenders, jalapeno poppers, and onion rings. Does it get any better than that? Too bad fried foods aren’t healthy…. But, wait. What if you could make healthy fried foods? You probably think there’s no possible way you could prepare your favorite snacks without feeling guilty about it. But, in this article, you’ll learn all the tricks on how to make fried food healthy.
The first step to making healthy fried food is to buy a large deep fryer with an immersed heating element. This ensures that your oil heats to the proper temperature. Deep fryers that have a heating element outside of the pot, heat the pot and then heat the oil. Also buying a large deep fryer ensures that your oil stays hot once the food goes in.
The second step is to ensure that you use healthy oil. It’s always better to choose oil, such as canola oil, rather than shortening. By choosing healthy oil, you ensure that your fried foods have less fat and calories. But, if you follow the next step, hardly any oil will penetrate your fried foods at all.
The third step is to make sure your oil is hot enough. This is one of the most important steps you can follow when preparing healthy fried foods. For many fried foods, this means keeping your oil at 375 degrees. When you keep your oil at the proper temperature very little oil penetrates your fried foods. The reason is as soon as the food hits the oil the outside of the food is seared preventing oil from getting inside. It’s easy to keep your oil at the proper temperature if you follow the first step and this next step.
The fourth step to making healthy fried food is to not overload your deep fryer. When you add too much to your deep fryer, the temperature of the oil falls drastically. When this happens, your fried food doesn’t immediately sear and the oil gets in. If you want to fry a lot of food in one time period, do so in batches. That way the temperature of your oil remains consistent.
The fifth step to making healthy fried food is to make sure you use enough healthy oil. This doesn’t mean that more oil will get into your fried foods. What it does mean is that your fried foods will be healthy. Why is that? When you have enough oil, you ensure that your oil temperature doesn’t drop. You also ensure that all of your fried food sears immediately rather than pieces sticking out of the oil.
The last step is to drain your healthy fried foods. While the above steps will keep things healthy, you still need to follow this step. As soon as you take the fried food from the oil, place it on paper towels and season. All the oil that was clinging to the outside of your snacks will be removed.
If you follow all the steps, you’ll have healthy fried foods. The truth is, you could fry enough snacks for four people and, if you measured your oil, you would see that you only used 1 teaspoon of oil. Only 1 teaspoon split among four people. What you need to realize is that deep frying isn’t unhealthy. There are just people who don’t fry foods in a healthy way.
