WHENEVER I WALK INTO A HIGH-END HEALTH
food store, I drool. I would love to buy all of my food from those beautifully curated aisles where the oranges are assembled in perfectly aligned pyramids, the lettuces glisten with dewy drops of water, and the endcaps boast cold-pressed juices bursting with vitamins and goodness.
However, just like so many families in America, we have a mortgage, bills, and four kids to budget for. So I made it my job to figure out a way to create food for my family that is just as healthy and good as what is being sold in fancy, premium markets, but that also respects my need to be a smart, price-savvy shopper. That’s why I decided to make the focus of my second cookbook, Supermarket Healthy, eating well based on using your everyday supermarket to make cost-conscious and consciously minded buying decisions.
Budget living is about spending with purpose and intent and being mindful about how you spend your dollars. Healthful eating is about eating with purpose and intent and being mindful about how you choose the ingredients. In Supermarket Healthy, these two paths intersect, and the result is more than 125 recipes that you can feel good about cooking and eating.
I am a big believer in not overspending, and much of my career has been based on my natural inclination to save money. I grew up on a budget, and that savvy coupon-cutting mentality will always course through my veins. I know that I am not alone. I’m not the only one who wants to cook within my budget while still feeling good about the food I buy, eat, and prepare for my family and friends.
Supermarket Healthy celebrates dishes that are as friendly to your waistline as they are to your wallet. Because, lucky for us, the neighborhood grocery store has become a healthy cook’s resource for all kinds of key ingredients, from quinoa to organic produce and buzzy superfood items such as omega-rich chia seeds and wild salmon.
I’ve created every recipe keeping nutrition in mind, but this isn’t a diet cookbook and it’s not meant to be. Quite simply, this is a cookbook that addresses the fact that when you eat better, you feel better. It is my hope that with this cookbook, you’ll also discover that you don’t need to spend a lot to feel your best.
Melissa d’Arabian
MAKING SUPERMARKET HEALTHY WORK FOR YOU
Cooking on a budget is empowering. Combine that with eating better, making every bite count, and supplying your body with quality protein, long-lasting carbohydrates for energy, and lots of vitamins and nutrients, and you have a way of cooking that not only feels great but also is great!
As I did in my first book, Ten Dollar Dinners, I have stocked Supermarket Healthy with loads of extra-value features to give you additional buying power at the store.
Strategies
Throughout the book, you’ll notice three color-coded strategies that will pop up at the bottom of recipes: Supermarket Strategies, Kitchen Strategies, and Entertaining Strategies.
SUPERMARKET STRATEGIES are ways to make your grocery store work for you. These include buying tips, ways to save, and insights about making choices at the store. These boxes are green.
KITCHEN STRATEGIES are things to keep in mind in your kitchen. These are time-saving tips, make-ahead advice, and at-home swaps so you don’t have to run to the store for that one ingredient, and advice for how to introduce new flavors to kids. These boxes are blue.
ENTERTAINING STRATEGIES are tactics for serving and stretching food, as well as easy spins on a dish to make it party-friendly. These boxes are orange.
Blueprints
While recipes are wonderful and so important, sometimes it’s nice to exercise your creativity and take a recipe off-roading into uncharted territory. A feature in Supermarket Healthy is recipe blueprints that show you how to break down a recipe into a sequence of easy-to-follow steps. Think of it as a choose-your-own-adventure recipe. Switch up the ingredients or vary the method ever so slightly, and you have a brand-new recipe.
Nutritionals
Another tool in Supermarket Healthy is basic nutritional information that runs with each recipe. While Supermarket Healthy isn’t a diet cookbook, the nutritional panel should serve as a good resource to help you build a meal, or weekly menus that balance lean meals with slightly more indulgent ones. This book was created with a health-conscious perspective and a focus on good fats, slow-burning complex carbohydrates, ample protein, and lots of vitamins and nutrients.
HOT-BUTTON ISSUES
It seems impossible to write a book about healthy grocery-store eating without considering some hot-button topics such as the importance of eating organically, avoiding genetically modified ingredients (GMOs), and eating gluten-free. As a mom, of course I want the best for my family, but ultimately we all have to decide what is right for our own families and go with it.
Organic
Even if you’re on a budget, buying organically grown fruits, vegetables, and grains is totally possible. Just like conventionally grown ingredients, organics go on sale too, so always shop the aisles and compare apples to apples. You can also make a “dirty dozen” list of fruits with the highest traces of pesticide residues and make it a priority to purchase them only when organically grown. Some produce such as bananas have removable peels, so can fall lower on the “buy organic” list. Additionally, you can simply factor in the extra cost of organic ingredients by incorporating one or two meat-free days a week. Meals based on beans and grains are very economical and may provide you with enough wiggle room to purchase organics.
GMOs, Artificial Flavors, and Artificial Sweeteners
In our family, we try to avoid genetically modified ingredients and do our best to abstain from foods made with artificial flavors and sweeteners. When we want to indulge in something sweet, I feel best when I serve my family a treat that is homemade. Of course, I allow my girls to have the occasional crazy-colored cupcake at a friend’s birthday party, but when I have the ability to control the ingredients in a recipe, I just prefer to cook with natural and unadulterated products. That doesn’t mean I’m a purist, by any means; I still occasionally use white granulated sugar and white flour in my recipes. I just believe in making the less healthy options the exception rather than the rule.
Allergies, Sensitivities, and Restrictions
As a society we are more aware than ever of how food affects our bodies. The result is that people are able to create eating plans that best support their well-being. For instance, in my family alone (including my sister’s kids, who live a few houses away from us), we have three vegetarians, a gluten-free eater, and two lactose-intolerant eaters. So I’ve learned to adapt recipes and to create meals that meet the various needs of all the people around our table.
The recipes in Supermarket Healthy naturally lend themselves to this kind of adaptation. If a recipe calls for a tablespoon of butter but is otherwise dairy-free, of course you can use your judgment to substitute olive oil or canola oil for the butter.
To make something gluten-free is a bit trickier. As I was writing this book, I discovered that one of my daughters had a gluten sensitivity—and so began my education in the world of gluten-free ingredients, and how ingredients you’d never even guess could contain trace amounts of gluten (soy sauce, oats). There are many recipes in Supermarket Healthy that are gluten-free, or that with a quick adaptation can be made gluten-free (such as by substituting gluten-free pasta for wheat pasta). If you are highly sensitive to gluten or have celiac disease, you will also need to consider cross-contamination risks.
Buying Local
Purchasing produce from a locally based grower is great for the environment, your community, and your health. When food has a shorter distance to travel from the farm to your table, it is fresher, retains more vitamins and nutrients, and doesn’t leave as big a carbon footprint on the earth as it would if it were flown in from another continent. I love taking my girls to the farmers’ market! I find that when they get to interact with farmers and choose a carrot with dirt still clinging to it or funky-colored vegetables (purple green beans! green cauliflower!), they can better appreciate where food comes from. Additionally, when there is a bumper crop of corn or zucchini, the price per pound at your farmers’ market is likely to be competitive with what you would pay at the grocery store. Though even when at a slightly higher price, farmers’ markets have good value when you consider the cost per nutrient. The entertainment factor is big for my family, too—we can easily enjoy a few hours at the farmers’ market and spend a lot less money than we would if we all went to the movies!
A Few Words: Smart Indulging
I don’t think there are any foods that are off-limits in my house. Small quantities of rich cheeses, prime cuts of beef, whole milk, and dessert (I could never give up dessert!) help us feel content and satiated. What’s really interesting, however, is if you divide the total quantity of the indulgent ingredient by the number of servings in the recipe, the calories and fat per person are likely negligible because you’re consuming only a small portion.
A perfect example is bacon. If you purchase pork bacon, look for leaner center-cut bacon (or chop off the ends of the regular bacon when you get home). If a recipe calls for only a slice or two of bacon, then I’ll always choose pork bacon over turkey bacon because I get so much more flavor-bang for the buck, which means I can use less. When all is said and done, one or two slices of bacon in a whole recipe add a ton of flavor while contributing only a few grams of fat (and I feel extra good about buying the nitrate-free version!).
Some other ingredients that I strategically include in my cooking that aren’t traditionally seen as “light” are butter, cream, whole milk, chocolate, coconut milk, and even puff pastry. Using these rich ingredients on occasion makes me feel that no sacrifice is needed to eat more healthfully. I can eat a wide variety of foods as long as I do so in moderation and keep portion control in mind.
THE SUPERMARKET HEALTHY PANTRY MUST-HAVES
Here’s an overview of a few healthful ingredients that are nice to have on hand to give breakfasts, lunches, and dinners a nutritional boost. I’ve only included items that you might not have in your pantry. Common denominators like butter, milk, olive oil, and bread crumbs I’ve left off the list since you probably have them at the ready. If you want a more extensive list, check out my other cookbook, Ten Dollar Dinners.
DRY STORAGE
Almond butter
Almond flour
(finely ground raw, skinned almonds that can be purchased or made in the food processor)
Canned fish
(salmon, sardines)
Dried beans and legumes
(black beans, white beans, brown lentils, red lentils)
Grains
(bulgur cracked wheat, long-grain brown rice, instant brown rice, millet, quinoa, wild rice)
Oil
(coconut oil)
Pasta
(buckwheat, rice noodles, seaweed-based noodles, whole wheat)
Seeds
(chia, flax seeds, hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds)
Sweeteners
(agave syrup, date sugar)
Umami ingredients
(chili-garlic sauce, fish sauce, soy sauce, Sriracha, tamari sauce, Worcestershire sauce)
Vinegars and cooking wine
(mirin rice wine, rice vinegar, sake, sherry vinegar, vermouth)
White whole wheat flour
(a mild-tasting flour made from a hard white wheat)
Whole wheat panko-style bread crumbs
Whole wheat pastry flour
(a lower-protein whole wheat flour)
REFRIGERATOR
Bold cheeses
(cotija, feta, Parmesan, pecorino, ricotta salata)
Fresh fish
(cod, salmon, shrimp, snapper, tilapia, trout, tuna)
Leafy greens
(hardy greens like kale, spinach, Swiss chard)
Milk
(unsweetened almond milk, unsweetened soy milk)
Milled flax seeds
Miso paste
Raw, unsalted nuts
(almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, pecans, pine nuts, pistachios, walnuts)
Reduced-fat dairy products
(cottage cheese, cream cheese/Neufchâtel), mayonnaise, plain Greek yogurt, sour cream
Smoked trout
FREEZER
Bacon
(pork and turkey)
Chicken
(boneless, skinless breasts)
Edamame
(shelled)
Fish
(cod, salmon, shrimp, snapper, tilapia, trout, tuna)
Fruit
(ripe bananas, blueberries, mangos, peaches, raspberries)
Pork
(tenderloins)
Vegetables
(peas, chopped leaf spinach)