Score Big with this Skinny Game Day Menu

Tailgating is a sport of its own, with more than 70 million Americans hosting or attending tailgate parties to root on the home team. But here’s the Game Day dilemma: How can you enjoy yourself and serve up great-tasting food without racking up the calorie and nutritional penalties? Julie Upton, MS, RD, CSSD from Appetite for Health is here to help with a winning strategy.

The four food groups of football—beer, wings, pizza and chips and dip can really pile on calories. In fact, a tailgate party can set you back some 1,500 calories—and that’s all before kickoff. By the fourth quarter, it’s not uncommon to eat and drink several days’ worth of calories. Some simple substitutions in your Game Day menu can make you the “MVP” of the party. Here's what to serve and what to sideline, and several winning recipes to try.

Blitz on Chips and Game Day Dip: Opt for baked chips instead of fried to slash calories and fat and make your dips with nonfat plain Greek yogurt in place of sour cream. Using a cup of nonfat Greek yogurt in place of regular sour cream shaves off 315 calories and 45 grams of fat from your dip recipes.

A Few Skinny Dip Ideas:

Skinny Artichoke Dip
Creamy Cold Parmesan Spinach Dip
Hot Spinach Dip
Skinny Taco Dip 
Hot Spinach and Artichoke Dip
Skinny Buffalo Chicken Dip
Southwestern Black Bean Salsa

Wings pack in about 75 calories—not counting the dip! Bench Wings and Put Burgers on Your Playbook: For a main course to serve and ones to sack, go with burgers made from ground sirloin or 95% lean ground beef; or make a turkey or salmon burger.

Try these leaner tasty options...

Buffalo Turkey Burgers with Blue Cheese Broccoli Slaw
Chicken Parmigiana Burgers
Turkey Burgers with Zucchini
Spicy Black Bean Burgers with Chipotle Mayo


If you’re serving pizza, make sure it’s veggie-rich and ask for half the cheese and meat toppings. Or eliminate the bread altogether and serve these Zucchini Pizza Bites.

Score with Extra Light Beer: As an official food group of football, beer is required if it's a real football party. There are 150 calories in a bottle of regular and 95-100 in most light beers. But if you try a new extra light choices, like MGD 64, Budweiser Select 54 or Beck's Premier Light you'll not only have a skinnier sip, you'll help damper the appetite-stimulating impact of alcohol.

Guest Post from Julie Upton, MS, RD, CSSD from Appetite for Health 

Santa Fe Turkey Stuffed Peppers

Santa Fe inspired stuffed bell peppers loaded with a zesty filling of ground turkey, corn, black beans, hot peppers and tomatoes, topped with melted cheese and scallions.

These were sooo good I heavily debated saving this recipe for the cookbook! They have just the right amount of kick, but you can certainly turn the heat up a bit more if you like.

High in protein and fiber, one serving filled me up with a side of sliced avocado and a little sour cream on top, but if you want more carbs, a side of cilantro lime rice would be perfect!

Click Here To See The Full Recipe...

Skinny Pumpkin Granola

              

Making your own granola is easier than you think, and the beauty of doing it yourself is you can customize it to suit your taste and it's6 so much cheaper than buying it in the store.

Since pumpkin is so popular this time of year, I thought it would be fun to make a pumpkin version using oats, quinoa, maple, pumpkin spice, cinnamon, pecans, pepitas and dried cranberries.

Granola is great to eat alone as a snack, or over yogurt, but my favorite way to eat granola is with some fresh fruit and almond milk; it's one of my favorite quick breakfasts.

I paired this with some fresh chopped apples and pears, if you have some pumpkin butter, you can even stir some in... yum! (FYI, the cute spoon is from For Such A Time Designs)

The trick to keeping a bowl of granola cereal light is the ratio of fruit, milk and granola. First I fill my bowl with fresh fruit, then top it with 1/3 cup of granola and then some unsweetened almond milk. It's a great way to get your serving of fresh fruit and has lots of fiber to keep you feeling full longer. I've included the nutritional info both ways, for your convenience.

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Oatmeal Raisin Walnut Cookies

Don't you love the smell of homemade oatmeal cookies baking in the oven!

Once a month I contribute a skinny dessert recipe to Dash Recipes. If you love a moist, chewy oatmeal cookie, you'll just love these! Under 200 calories, and 5 points plus for 2 cookies. Please visit Dash Recipes for the complete Skinny Oatmeal Walnut Raisin Cookies Recipe.

I usually use quick oats in my oatmeal cookies because I prefer the end result, but rolled oats will work just fine in any of these recipes.  

For the chocolate lover, these Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies will hit the spot!

For the pumpkin obsessed! These chewy, Pumpkin Spiced Oatmeal Cookies made with quick oats, pumpkin, and chopped pecans will bring delight with every bite.

And my personal favorite, Banana Nut Oatmeal Cookies taste like banana nut bread, but in a cookie.

Enjoy!

Zucchini Lasagna

By replacing the lasagna noodles with thin sliced zucchini you can create a delicious, lower carb (gluten-free) lasagna that's loaded with vegetables, and you won't miss the pasta!

This recipe is from the archives, but needed a photo-makeover. I also like to make some of my older recipes over to see if I can improve them. I made slight adjustments to the original recipe, so if you have an old printout, you may want to re-print it. This feeds eight, and is quite filling. Everyone in my house likes it, including my picky daughter.

The first time I made this, I didn't grill the zucchini first, but there was a lot of liquid so I found grilling it first greatly improved it. I soaked up as much of the liquid as I could with paper towels before layering the ingredients. I think the next time I make this, I'll try it with turkey sausage in place of the ground beef, I bet it will be spectacular!

Tip: Using a mandoline is a must to slice the zucchini thin, and it's quick and easy. You can also make the sauce ahead of time if you want to speed this up for a weeknight.

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Skinny Chicken Pesto Bake

Baked chicken breast topped with skinny basil pesto, tomatoes, mozzarella and parmesan cheese. Quick and easy, serve this with pasta or zucchini noodles (zoodles) for a low-carb meal.

This is a great way to use up your end-of-summer basil. If it's still warm out, you can also do this on the grill.

As the weather turns cooler, I've been making and freezing skinny pesto in small batches to keep on hand throughout the year. You can freeze them in ice cube trays and measure them out or use small containers like I did here. Enjoy!

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Mushroom Stroganoff

A quick and easy meal, perfect for Meatless Mondays! A combination of Shiitake, Baby Portabella and Cremini mushrooms with noodles in a light creamy sauce.

I played around with Mushroom Stroganoff a few times last week (until we were sick of it) for a Meatless Monday option. Now don't get me wrong, I love Beef Stroganoff, so for me it was a challenge to get the flavor of the beef without using any meat as well as keeping it creamy yet light. The bonus of making it without the beef is that you can eat more for less calories and fat.

Using a variety of mushrooms gave nice textures and flavor and the Worcestershire sauce and tomato paste helped give me some of that beef flavor I was looking for. I love Ronzoni Smart Taste noodles, I think they have the best taste but No-yolk and Healthy Harvest are also good options.

As a kid, I always topped my Stroganoff with grated Parmesan cheese. This is completely optional, but I personally think it makes any noodle dish go from good to great. Hope you enjoy!

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