I love taco salad, but it’s easy to see that if I want to keep the calorie count down I have to make a few simple swaps then I can have a large filling salad for less than 300 calories.
Obviously it’s all in what you are willing to sacrifice, but one thing I am starting to realize is I am a creature of habit. I have put my taco salad together the same way each time I have made it, simply put because that’s just the way I have always done it.
After leaving the items out that drive up the calorie count and making a few substitutes I realized I didn’t even miss the missing items! I enjoyed the taco salad without the high calorie content! I left out the tortilla chips I would normally line the bottom of my taco salad with, and substituted extra lettuce for a true salad. I don’t eat sour cream so I left that out but used fat free sour cream for my husband. I also used fat free cheese verses regular cheese! Talk about saving a ton of calories! I also doubled up on the vegetables to make the salad more filling!
My taco salad would have normally been many calories now it’s calories! That’s a huge redux!
Original Taco Salad:
- 1/2 cup of taco meat 150 calories
- 1 cups of Taylor organic greens 3.5 calories
- 1/2 medium Roma tomato 17.5 calories
- ¼ Kraft Cheddar Shredded cheese 110 Calories
- 2Tbs Sour Cream 60 Calories
- 3 Jumbo Black Olives Sliced 25 Calories
- 10 Mission Tortilla Chip Yellow Rounds 140 Calories
Taco Salad Redux:
- 1/2 cup of taco meat 150 calories
- 2 cups of Taylor organic greens 7 calories
- 1 medium Roma tomato 35 calories
- 2Tbs Fat Free Sour Cream 25 Calories
- 3 Jumbo Black Olives Sliced 25 Calories
- ¼ Kraft Fat Free Shredded Cheddar cheese 45 Calories
The moral of the recipe redux is a total calorie savings of 219 calories! That’s equivalent to an extra meal or a great snack in calories! Take a look at the recipes you normally cook and you just might be surprised how many calories you can shave off your meal by just making a few substitutes that you won’t even notice!
