The average American eats five restaurant meals a week which equates to 260 restaurant meals a year! And there’s a million articles and resources dedicated to helping you eat healthy while dining out – it’s overwhelming and difficult to discern the truth sometimes!
We recently came across Hope Warshaw’s book named Eat Out, Eat Well which outlines how to make every restaurant meal healthy and satisfying. Warshaw offers practical advice for eating out including:
- Pitfalls of restaurant eating
- Skills and strategies for healthier restaurant eating
- How to eat gluten-free restaurant meals
- Healthier meal samplers for types of restaurants
- Menu lingo for ethnic cuisines
- Healthy options for all fare ranging from pizza to fast food and fine dining
Whether you’re eating in a restaurant or ordering takeout, the strategies and practical advice found in Eat Out, Eat Well helps turn restaurant meals from explosive calories to doable within any diet.
It’s no secret that we love dining out, so we’ve rounded up a few of our favorite dishes to enjoy locally without busting your diet!
- When ordered with a green side salad, each option below is less than 580 calories.
- Sesame-Crusted Ahi Tuna: Seasoned, coated with sesame seeds and seared in sesame oil; served with cucumber salad and Soba noodles with Asian dressing.
- Korean Beef Tenderloin Mini-Tacos: Cilantro-onion relish and a spicy chili garlic sauce.
- Burrito Bowl – Skip the tortilla and guacamole for an (almost) equally tasty bowl! A sofritas bowl with black beans, fajita vegetables, three salsas and lettuce comes in around 360 calories. Talk about a calorie bargain.
- Don Carlos Tacos – Blackened fish tacos, coastal slaw and citrus dressing. Ask for extra lime for a quick burst of flavor sans calories!
- Skinny Margarita – 1800 silver tequila, fresh lime, made with their house citrus agave blend, all for under 200 calories. Best skinny marg we’ve ever tasted! Ask for salt if you want it rimmed, this drink typically comes without the salty goodness.
- A restaurant full of shareable small plates, there’s plenty of options for a smaller, yet satisfying meal.
- Lettuce Wraps – Stir-fried shiitake mushrooms, water chestnuts, carrots, bean curd, garlic and ginger with your choice of protein.
- Grilled Hawker Skewers – Authentic and delicious, the skewers are cooked over real wood charcoal to give them a true smoky flavor that can’t come from a gas grill.
Photo Credits: Hawker’s, all other images taken by Spork.
Disclosure: Spork received a complimentary Eat Out, Eat Well book