Dirty Healthy Veggie

This week I have been exploring healthy vegetarian dishes but without compromising on indulging in a family classic.

Mac and cheese has been a classic in my household, it's always a dish I can quickly put together that guarantees empty plates.

But, as its January and the nationwide trend is to lose weight & healthy lifestyle, it is not a dish that normally meets the criteria. There is a few lower fat versions on the market but they all seem to miss that indulgence I crave from this dish. That se me the challenge to create a classic Mac & Cheese, with the authentic indulgent flavour, that was suitable for low calorie January!

Here at The Ingredients Consultancy, we have the answer using a combination of our specialist ingredients, and have the recipe below:

300g Macaroni pasta, Cooked al dente

For the Bechamel sauce:

40g butter
40g plain flour
300ml milk
300ml Water
6g Citrus Fibre AQ Plus - HerbaFood
1.5% LCG-101 Cream Concentrate - Jeneil

Now for the Cheeeeesy part....

90g Milk low fat Cheddar
3% CHG-5090 Matured cheddar concentrate paste - Jeneil

Once the bechamel is made and cooked through, add the macaroni and combine.
Place into a oven proof dish and top with breadcrumbs and bacon and bake in the oven for 10 mins
Stir Through the now crispy bacon
Top with chopped parsley and/or chilli flakes

Utilising our unique concentrated ingredients within the dish I was able to achieve the intense flavour we come to expect with such dishes, but at the same time I have managed to reduce the cheese and cream within the dish by 75% from my current recipe.

By doing so I have also reduced the fat and calories resulting in a much healthier dish.

Jeneil also have available vegan concentrates of Mozzarella, Cream cheese and Sour cream. This enables a vegan product to still achieve the flavoursome, fatty mouthfeel of a product.

Using Herbafoods Citrus fibre within the bechamel, this allows us to further reduce the fat content of the product by replacing with a water based suspension, without losing that mouthfeel and texture of a full bodied sauce.