10 HEALTHY FAST FOODS

Healthy alternatives to fast food

Turkey burger

Chicken burgers are another fast food temptation that is hard to resist. Yet a chicken burger from one of the biggest fast food restaurants has 470 calories and 243 of those calories are made up of fat. As a healthy alternative, swap the fast food chicken burgers for a homemade turkey burger. To make your turkey burger, mix turkey mince with an egg and spices to your taste. Then form the mix into burgers, grill and serve on a roll with salad and salsa.

Chicken kebab

After a night out the shining lights of a fast food takeaway shop can be too alluring to resist, especially if you’ve been drinking. To make sure you don’t succumb to a kebab after a night out, prepare a healthy kebab dish before you go out so you have something to eat when you get in.

Begin by knocking up a tasty marinade and add this to your chicken breasts. Once marinated, skewer the chicken and cook using a griddle pan. Leave the chicken to cool and then store it away until later that night. When you get in add the chicken to a wholemeal wrap, pop on some minted natural yoghurt and a dash of lemon juice to finish.

Pizza wrap

Mountains of meat, layers of cheese and towers of toppings may make for a decent tasting pizza, but this fast food isn’t exactly a light option, even if you do opt for a thin-crust pizza.  A healthy alternative to a pizza treat is making a pizza using a wholemeal tortilla. For your topping add some tomato puree, rocket, mozzarella and some roasted red peppers

Chicken nuggets

Chicken nuggets may be tasty, but they’re not very good for you. If you love to indulge in chicken nuggets then you should try to make your own. Homemade nuggets can taste like the fast food versions, but can actually be quite nutritious.  All you need is chicken breasts, breadcrumbs, olive oil and a little Parmesan to make the best nuggets you’ve ever tasted.

Mexican bean burger

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, one quarter-pound cheeseburger contains 303 calories and shockingly 123 of those calories are fat. On the other hand, a Mexican bean burger only comes in at around 195 calories with just 3 grams of fat. To make your bean burgers you’ll need to combine kidney beans, chilli powder, breadcrumbs and an egg. Once the burgers are cooked pop each one in a bun and add some sauce and salad.

Polenta chips

Whether you like your chips thin, fat, curly or straight, they are one of the unhealthiest of fast foods. A healthy alternative to this calorific dish is polenta chips, which per serving tend to only add up to around 180 calories. All you need to make these healthy chips is some polenta, oil, chicken stock and seasoning.

Oven chicken

A bucket of fried chicken may not seem that bad for you because how bad can chicken be, right? Well, although the chicken itself is not unhealthy, the frying process is. If you’ve got a fried chicken craving then rather than grabbing some fast food, add some sesame seeds, flour and oil to your chicken and bake it instead until cooked. You’ll get the same satisfying crunch as you do from fried chicken but will slash the fat and calorie content.

Onion rings

Whether you eat onion rings as a snack or as a side to a meal, they can make you pile on the pounds. To swap this fast food for a healthy alternative try baking some onion rings using panko. Cut your onions lengthways into rings and soak them for twenty minutes and then coat each ring in whole-wheat flour and then egg. Once your onion rings have been fully coated, sprinkle some panko breadcrumbs onto the rings and then pop in the oven for baking – it’s that simple.

Fish and chips

If buying a hot bag of chips is something that puts a big smile on your face then this news might wipe that smile off: a 400 gram serving of chip shop chips contains around 956 calories and that’s not even including the battered fish. 956! As an alternative to this calorie-heavy dish try serving sweet potato chips, with breaded fish and minted mushy peas instead. It packs a punch as far as flavour goes and is a far healthier alternative to this fast food.

Milkshake

If you’re a fan of milkshakes look away now: the average milkshake contains around 300 calories. We hope you were sitting down for that. Swap this 300 calorie drink for a fruit smoothie. All you need is a blender, some milk, a little ice and some of your favourite fruit to make a creamy, delicious and nutritious milkshake alternative.