Table Of Content1001
LOW-CARB
RECIPES
Hundreds of Delicious Recipes
from Dinner to Dessert That
Let You Live Your Low-Carb
Lifestyle and Never Look Back
Dana Carpender
Bestselling author 500 Low-Carb
Recipes
Contents
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1
Ingredients You
Need to Know About
CHAPTER 2
Beverages
CHAPTER 3
Appetizers and
Snacks
CHAPTER 4
Eggs and Dairy
CHAPTER 5
Breads
CHAPTER 6
Salads
CHAPTER 7
Soups
CHAPTER 8
Sides
CHAPTER 9
Fish and Seafood
CHAPTER 10
Poultry
CHAPTER 11
Beef
CHAPTER 12
Pork and Lamb
CHAPTER 13
Sauces and
Seasonings
CHAPTER 14
Sweets
INDEX
INTRODUCTION
What’s the hardest thing about your low-
carb diet? And what’s the most common
reason that people abandon their low-
carb way of eating and all the health
benefits and weight loss that come with
it? It’s boredom. After a few weeks of
scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast,
a hamburger with no bun for lunch, and a
steak—no baked potato—for dinner, day
after day, people get fed up and quit.
They just can’t face a life of food
monotony. Does this sound familiar?
If you’ve been getting bored with your
low-carb diet, this is the book for you.
You’ll find dozens of exciting ways to
vary a hamburger, a steak, pork chops,
chicken, and even fish. You’ll find a
wide variety of side dishes and salads.
You’ll find snacks and party foods that
you can eat without feeling like you’re
depriving yourself. You’ll even find
recipes for bread—really, truly bread—
not to mention muffins, waffles, and
pancakes. In short, this book has recipes
for all sorts of things you never dreamed
you could have on a low-carb diet.
Did I come up with these recipes for
you? Heck, no! I came up with these
recipes for me.
Who am I? I’m a person who, through
circumstances that surely could have
happened to anyone, has spent the past
several
years
writing
about
low-
carbohydrate dieting. In fact, I spent so
much time answering questions for the
curious that I finally wrote a book, How
I Gave Up My Low Fat Diet and Lost
Forty Pounds! To supplement the book,
I started an “e-zine”—an Internet
newsletter—for low-carb dieters, called
Lowcarbezine! So for the past few
years, through the wonders of the
Internet,
I’ve
been
writing
and
developing recipes for a growing
audience of low-carb dieters around the
world.
I’ve always loved to cook, and I’ve
always been good at it. My friends long
ago dubbed me “The God of Food.” So
when low-fat, high-carb mania hit in the
1980s, I learned how to make a killer
low-fat
fettuccine Alfredo,
curried
chicken and mixed grain pilau, black
beans and rice, blue corn pancakes, low-
fat cheesecake—you name it.
And I got fat—really fat and sick and
tired. Thank heavens, in 1995 I got smart
and tried going low carb, instead. Within
two days my energy levels skyrocketed
and my clothes were looser. It was
overwhelmingly clear that this was the
way my body wanted to be fed and that
this was the way of eating that would
make me well. I had set my foot upon a
path from which there was no turning
back; I was low carb for life.
The only thing that nearly derailed me
was a terrible sense of Kitchen
Disorientation. I had to discard the vast
majority of my recipes when I dropped
the grains, beans, potatoes, and sugar
from my diet. For the very first time in
my life, I’d walk into my kitchen and
have no idea what to cook—and I had
always known what to cook and how to
put together a menu. It really was pretty
scary, and it certainly was depressing.
But I set out to become as good a low-
carb cook as I had been a low-fat cook.
What you hold in your hands is the
end result of years and years of trial and
error, of learning what works and what
doesn’t and of experimenting to find out
which substitutes are yummy and which
are just plain lame.
This is not, for the most part, a
gourmet cookbook, which means that the
recipes you find here are recipes you’ll
actually use. You’ll find a lot of fairly
simple recipes and a few more complex
ones for special occasions. There’s lots
of family fare here—pork chops, meat
loaf, burgers, and chicken. You’ll find
lots of meals you can cook on the stove
top in a simple skillet and plenty of
salads you can make ahead and stash in
the refrigerator, ready to be pulled out
and served when you dash in the door at
a quarter-to-dinnertime. You’ll find
many one-dish meals that are protein and
vegetables combined, from main dish
salads
to
thick,
hearty
soups
to
casseroles. You’ll also find ethnic
flavors from around the world right
alongside comfort foods you won’t
believe are low carb!
Why Is There Such a Wide Range of Carb
Counts in the Recipes in This Book?
If carbs are your problem, then they’re
going to be your problem tomorrow, next
week, next year, and even when you’re
old and gray. You cannot think in terms
of going on a low-carb diet, losing your
weight, and then going off your diet—
you’ll gain back every ounce just as sure
as you’re born. You’ll also go back to
blood-sugar swings, energy crashes, and
nagging,
insatiable
hunger,
not
to
mention
all
the
health
risks
of
hyperinsulinemia. In short, you are in
this for life.
So if you are to have any hope of
doing this forever, you’re going to need
to enjoy your food. You’re going to need
variety, flavor, color, and interest.
You’re going to need festive dishes,
easy dishes, and comfort foods—a
whole world of things to eat.
Because
of
this,
I’ve
included
everything from very low-carb dishes,
suitable for folks in the early, very low-
carb “induction” stage of their diet, to
“splurge” dishes, which would probably
make most of us gain weight if we ate
them every day but which still have far
fewer
carbs
than
their
“normal”
counterparts.
There’s another reason for the range
of carb counts: Carbohydrate intolerance
comes in degrees, and different people
can tolerate different daily carbohydrate
intakes. Some of you, no doubt, need to
stay in that 20-grams-a-day-or-less
range, whereas many others—lucky
souls—can have as much as 90 to 100
grams a day and stay slim. This
cookbook is meant to serve you all.
Only you can know, through trial and
error, how many grams of carbs you can
eat in a day and still lose weight. It is up
to you to pick and choose among the
recipes in this book while keeping an
eye
on
the
carbohydrate
counts
provided. That way, you can put together
menus that will please your palate and
your family while staying below that
critical carb level.
