Everyone wants to whip up a delicious dish, but what if you could combine all the great taste and flavour while keeping it healthy at the same time?

When it comes to creating a lean, tender, low fat end product, Kimbers' Farm Shop have all the answers. So if you're wondering how to lose the extra fat and bad calories we'll take you through our favourite techniques for cooking meat the healthy way.

What Are The Benefits of Cooking 'Healthy Meat'?

With all the various different cooking methods around, it can be difficult to discern which is the healthiest - ultimately, you want to avoid any techniques that add unwanted elements such as unhealthy fats and cancer causing substances to your cooking.

A good rule of thumb is to avoid overcooking, charring or exposing your meats to a naked flame. Although in the best cases you may get a crispy, smokey flavour, charring is not only an indicator of poor cooking practice, it also exposes you to potential carcinogens.

Preparation 

Prior to cooking, we suggest trimming white fat for the healthiest results and following these valuable cooking techniques to ensure your meats remain as moist and tender as possible...

Poaching

When poaching comes to mind, we often think of shelling eggs in boiling water - but it's also a valuable technique for cooking chicken. Far easier and more low maintenance than frying, poaching chicken is great for salads, sandwiches and meal prep if you need to store it away in the freezer for a later date. Take care to keep the poaching liquid at a simmer and not a fierce boiling temperature and you should produce something that's both extremely tender and retains all its flavour.

Stir-frying

Need something light, quick and effortlessly delicious? Stir frying is a rapid way of cooking small chunks of meat in super quick time. Perfect if you're in a rush and need a quick healthy dinner option to get you set up for the evening; use a dab of oil, cook your meat with veg and herbs, stirring everything in while bulking out your stir-fry with plenty of peppers, mushrooms, onions, cabbage and more for extra nutritional value.

Sous-vide

Sous-vide is perfect for controlling the temperature with restaurant level results. By placing your meat in a plastic sealed cooking vessel or glass jar and exposing your chosen meat to an accurately regulated temperature for long periods of time, anything you're cooking will remain juicy without drying out. This technique works by cooking your chosen cuts evenly on the inside without overcooking on the outside. Although this technique is slightly more complicated than other cooking methods mentioned, it's well worth it for the immaculate results.

Broiling

The antithesis to Sous-vide is broiling, which involves cooking on a high, direct temperature for a brief period of time - typically in the oven. Perfect for the most tender of cuts, the heat is applied from above and works perfectly for all different types of red meats and even fish. Broiling is considered a far healthier alternative to frying which typically adds additional fats and calories to meat.

Stews

Throwing everything into a stew is a simple yet effective technique for cooking meat in an extremely healthy way. Although stewing is a slower cooking method, you can add all the vegetables you like to create a super healthy meal. The stewing process also retains a lot of the vitamins and minerals, helping all the nutrients to infiltrate the meats while remaining in the cooking liquid.


Post By Ed Mason

Farming the same land for 300 years