Safe & easy-to-maintain cookware for very low-fat diet?

March 25, 2022 9:04 PM

It seems only cast-iron, carbon steel, stainless steel, and glass (and I guess some clay, depending on the coating?) can be said to be safe (with ceramic/silicone very much marketing safety, but less certain around providing it). Am in need of a decent skillet, pan, or wok that can handle *very* low-fat cooking.

The ceramic “non-stick” stuff wears quickly, on top of being of questionable safety.

Maintenance: at least one person who lives here wouldn’t likely season carbon steel properly like all the time (may include me).

The pan/skillet/w/e needs to be able to do egg white omelettes, bean-based dishes (should be ok - but how do you caramelize onions with 2 teaspoons of fat??) - idk, steamed and other low-fat things.

How low fat? The meal plan caps at 25 g of fat or less for the day, in total. So, looking at 1-5g per portion (and they can’t be like child-sized portions, it’s for someone with a big appetite). This is to accommodate drug-induced acute pancreatitis (cannot increase the fat to make it easier under any circumstances).

(Does carbon steel affect iron levels the way cast iron can? Need it to not increase serum ferritin.)
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I have NO IDEA how to make food tasty this way, btw. (Higher fat/low carb, that’s my wheelhouse - and, high temps). If you do know, I’d be thrilled if you could share specific recipes or cookbooks (I don’t have a lot of time to check reviews to see if people are rating their own tweaks or the actual recipe as written :/ which I would absolutely do, if I did have time. On that, recipes that are easy and fast would be very much appreciated.)

Thank you!

posted by cotton dress sock to Food & Drink (17 answers total)

Response by poster: I do have a crockpot! I hate using it! Also have an instant pot and hate using that. Considering getting a convection toaster oven/air fryer. Current oven’s broiler has bit the biscuit.
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:06 PM on March 25, 2022

Normal nonstick— PTFE or whatever is normal these days. Ceramic is more expensive but IME lasts no longer. Hand-wash only, silicone utensils, no higher than medium heat. They’ll last at least a year, but that’s fine, just replace them. Nonstick is always always a disposable implement.

For steaming, you can use whatever pot with a steamer basket inside. No fat needed.

Carbon steel is not easier than cast iron. Both would be a recipe (sorry) for heartache. Ditto air frying with limited oil.
posted by supercres at 9:29 PM on March 25, 2022 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Investigate steaming and poaching as cooking techniques, absolutely. A bunch of flavor can be imparted through steaming with alternative liquids to water, like stocks and dried spices and if possible for the diet things like beer and wine.

For example, you can steam low fat white fish fillets or lean chicken with dashi broth pumped up with some mirin, ginger, garlic, extra dried kombu and mushrooms, and have lovely moist proteins with lots of flavor. Shred and eat at room temperature or cold in lettuce wraps with pickled vegetables and scallions, serve hot with grains, top rice soups with big hunks of it, etc. For things like this I suggest a stainless steel steamer basket that fits into different pots, like this one from OXO

Cooking in paper packets is also a really great way to make flavorful low fat foods. Just look up “en papillote” and you will understand the technique. Very flexible. You just need parchment paper and baking sheets or containers of any type.

For omelettes I think you might have the best luck with one of those silicone omelette molds for making them in the microwave. You’re not going to make a lot of fluffy perfect things but they will be better than sad egg whites stuck to a pan. Eggs really very much need some kind of fat, even on the newest nonstick, in my experience. Unless you’re poaching them, which I’m not sure how to do with just egg whites, since there is no yolk for it to coagulate around. You might have success with some of the various kinds of egg cooking devices that basically amount to a silicone mold that you crack an egg into and then boil in water. Really depends on the result you’re after.

In this case of very carefully controlled levels of fat, I would reserve most of it for flavoring, honestly. Most of the time the kinds of fats that are good for cooking at high heat have a very neutral flavor. I’d rather have steamed vegetables with delicious extra virgin olive oil dressing, or boiled white beans in carrot and onion stock with a nice pat of butter on top, than stir fried veggies or grilled chicken with no flavor.
posted by Mizu at 9:57 PM on March 25, 2022 [23 favorites]

For a super-low-fat diet, I would make a porridge base and top it with something flavorful. For example: congee, rice farina, corn grits, wheat farina, polenta, Scottish oatmeal. Bob's Red Mill is great for this.

Low-fat broth, shredded proteins, and lentils or peas can go into the nice, filling porridge. The topping can be the flavor boost: herbs, protein, veggies, a touch of lemon or vinegar, in a modicum of fat.
posted by dum spiro spero at 10:00 PM on March 25, 2022 [2 favorites]

Even though you aren't aiming for weight loss, the vegan, super low fat recipes from Chef AJ will have a lot of tips on how to make food tasty without fat, and the website also sells cookware meant to support this style of cooking. You could adjust the recipes to add animal products of course and just use the cooking techniques and flavoring ideas.
posted by nantucket at 10:18 PM on March 25, 2022 [1 favorite]

I love a good quality non stick pan - just the smallest bit of oil or butter spread around the pan with a silicone spatula and you can cook pretty much anything well. Just don't scratch it, don't overheat it (if you're not burning the food you're fine) and don't run cold water into it when it's hot, and it will last for years. If you are roasting things in the oven, line the dish with nonstick foil - just a small spray of oil onto vegetables and they will brown deliciously.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 12:23 AM on March 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

I don't get what marks materials and uses as "safe" in your book, but I can offer Yottam Ottolenghi and Ixta Belfrage's Flavour and Ottolenghi's Plenty and Plenty More for getting flavour from vegetables. They may be UK-centric, using veg readily available here, and you may need to dial back the oil use which is often ornamental.
posted by k3ninho at 4:08 AM on March 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

how do you caramelize onions with 2 teaspoons of fat??

Are you okay with aluminum foil? For onions, peel them, cut the ends off and wrap each in foil such that they can stand up straight. Put a few drops of oil on the tops if you want before sealing the packet, but it's not mandatory. For garlic, take a head, cut the stem end off (or cut in half horizontally if you prefer), wrap and seal in foil with a few drops of oil on the cut side. Roast these packets in the oven until soft and delicious. It's not the exact same effect as caramelizing in a pan, but it goes a very long way.
posted by trig at 4:23 AM on March 26, 2022 [4 favorites]

I have NO IDEA how to make food tasty this way, btw.

I eat a very low fat diet, vegan in my case, and the thing to remember is that your tastes change over time. A lot of the food won't seem as tasty at first, but if you give it a few months, it will actually taste better. A few times I've ordered fried rice and lo mein from restaurants after eating this way for a while, and both dishes just seemed like overwhelming pools of oil - I could hardly taste anything else. As a person who used to eat bacon sandwiches and Coke for breakfast every single morning, I'm sure I would have loved them before. After a very rough day at the cancer center yesterday, I was so happy to know I had cold lentil loaf waiting for me at home and could make sandwiches — that is my comfort food now. I would not have thought this possible ten years ago.

I ended up switching to vegan partly because making animal foods very low fat and still tasty was hard (my reason for changing was that I didn't want to take blood pressure meds - it did normalize my blood pressure). If I wanted fried chicken, a low-fat chicken breast did not seem like a substitute. Switching to something completely different, like beans and rice, was way more satisfying for me. I would rather have a bowl of steel-cut oatmeal than an egg white omelet - I also like scrambled tofu, but that may be too high in fat for you. I'm sure that I would still love pastrami sandwiches with mayonnaise - it's making animal products low fat that can be hard sometimes. I am not saying you should switch this to a vegan diet - just saying that eating some vegan foods can be one way to make a very low fat diet more palatable.

My sources are all going to be vegan so YMMV, but the cookbook I turn to again and again is The Forks Over Knives Cookbook. I like the websites Shane and Simple and Brand New Vegan.

Brand New Vegan has my favorite recipe for oven baked French fries that are crispy. A video from Chef AJ, mentioned above, taught me to carmelize onions without oil. (I had read directions, but I didn't really "get it" until I saw the video.) You can also carmelize onions in the InstantPot without oil. These are not going to taste the same as carmelized onions made with oil, but they are good, especially if you eat this way for a while. And if you can add a small amount of oil to those, they may taste better (I haven't done it, so I don't know how it would work).

I use parchment paper for things like roasting vegetables in the oven and baking - that may not meet your standards for safety though.

Feel free to MeMail me if I can help in any way.
posted by FencingGal at 5:41 AM on March 26, 2022 [12 favorites]

I think you should start with the low-fat recipes and work backwards to the gear you need, not the other way around. This is a recipe problem, not a pan problem! As others have said, high-heat sauteeing in a pan probably won’t work for very low fat, no matter how good the pan. That said, I would also suggest you consider the risks of non-stick coatings vs the need to cook low-fat foods for health reasons. It’s probably not worth it to worry too much about the chemicals.
posted by haptic_avenger at 5:45 AM on March 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

We've had Calphalpon premier pots/pans (manufacturer link provided to specify product; one can find far lower prices elsewhere) for probably five years now and they're still doing great despite ungentle treatment that includes the occasional metal utensil and going into the dishwasher almost daily. For eggs they do require a light spray of some kind of oil, because otherwise the eggs come out more baked (? possibly we're just not very good at frying eggs), but in any case, the baked ones aren't stuck to the pan at all, they're just a different texture. The most effort I've put into cleaning anything is lightly scrubbing with one of those mesh sponges.
posted by teremala at 6:23 AM on March 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

Considering getting a convection toaster oven/air fryer

If low fat cooking is your aim, this would certainly be a good tool. We recently acquired a little three litre one and it's very quick and easy to use and clean and makes good food too.
posted by flabdablet at 7:05 AM on March 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

I got a T-fal nonstick frying pan years ago at university and it was almost uncannily nonstick. So much so that cooking with oil was actually a bit awkward since the oil would just bead up and slide around rather than stick to the pan in a sheen. It's taken nearly a decade of near constant use for it to feel slightly less nonstick, but that's I have to rub with the soft part of the sponge sometimes nonstick rather than I have to wipe it lightly once.

It did behave a little bit weirdly with egg-whites though - they'd have a tendency to spread a little much and then have a completely smooth contact surface which made for a weird and slightly rubbery texture. I'm not sure how that would turn out with omelettes though; I was mostly doing fried eggs.
posted by Zalzidrax at 7:09 AM on March 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

Sprays like Pam are good for keeping things from sticking. Silicone for baking seems to be somewhat non-stick. For flavor, worcester and other sauces, curry is perfect for bean dishes, acids - lemon, tomato, vinegars - are effective.
posted by theora55 at 7:16 AM on March 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

I use a MicroPro Grill, which is a kind of microwave browning pan that I use to make cakes, roasts, pizza, eggs, and many other foods. It has been my only method of cooking for more than a year. Because the surface is nonstick, it does not require any fats or oils for cooking. It has saved me and my family a lot of time and energy. In fact, I suspect the reason microwaves didn’t replace ovens has to do with lobbying and advertising than the effectiveness of ovens and stoves as heat sources.
posted by metatuesday at 8:21 AM on March 26, 2022 [4 favorites]

It feels like trying to cook on the stove with, uh, frying pans is just going to torture you with the expectation that things will taste a certain way because they look a certain way. Maybe move away from that? Also, most other ways of cooking involve less cleanup (because there's no splattering).

Delicious low-fat for me means fancy ramen: cubed silken tofu and mushrooms simmered for 10 minutes, then add maybe some petite peas, soy sauce, a pinch of yeast flakes maybe if I'm simulating chicken stock. After another minute, add the dried ramen noodles and boil for 4 minutes. Remove from heat, add celery greens, fresh spinach, or fresh parsley (any delicate green), and miso (read how to do the miso). It's gorgeous and delicious.

*** General tip on flavor without fat: make sure you have a balance of the four basic flavors: salty, sweet, bitter, and acid. Most people don't think enough about the acidic flavors out there (but don't go overboard): explore different vinegars, lemon juice/lime juice/orange juice, acidic fruits like kiwi and sharper apples, sourdough bread, etc.
posted by amtho at 8:43 AM on March 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

Best answer: but how do you caramelize onions with 2 teaspoons of fat??

This is way easier than the egg problem, just salt the onion and cook it on medium high, use water to deglaze as needed, scrubbing the bottom of the pan so it doesn't burn. As the water evaporates out and it starts to stick again, add more water, and repeat until it's how you like it. If I were in your shoes I might make a big batch and then freeze portions to drop into meals as needed cos it does take a while. You might have to substitute other thickeners instead of a roux (like corn starch) with that little fat though.

You might look into umami spices as well, there's a mushroom seasoning we like sold by trader joe's but stuff like this, kombu, miso will help to replace the flavor depth even if the "mouth feel" of fats will still be missing. Punch up your other flavors too, like citrus or spicy, and you'll be less likely to notice.

I don't think I would recommend cast iron for any low fat cooking, the amount of oil we have to add to ours while cooking anything remotely "sticky" gives me pause even as somebody without these restrictions, and it would be difficult to calculate the fats that "rub off" on the food from a seasoned pan. We use an Ozeri "stone earth" pan for eggs, and given how the oil beads on the surface I think a light glazing of spray oil would do fine, but given that you have an instant pot, you could also make a dozen hard boiled eggs in no time at all to just keep in the fridge for a quick breakfast or salad topping.

For recipes, you might get some ideas from low-fat vegan diets like Plantstrong (explicitly no added oils but you might want to be cautious about nuts) I have made their "raise the roof sweet potato lasagna" and it came out pretty well, but I can't speak to whether their paywalled recipes are worthwhile. The McDougall Diet is another low fat vegan program, but also cuts out salt and sugars. You may need to do some experimenting to find what works for your tastebuds. Most meats and dairy have a fair amount of fat so you will want to be sparing with it, but a small portion of skinless chicken breast shredded into a soup or stew will do a lot of heavy lifting flavor-wise and may be within your limitations.
posted by Feyala at 3:45 PM on March 26, 2022 [3 favorites]