Christmas is such a great time of year, with lots of parties, celebrations and fun to be had with family and friends. But, have you noticed how a lot of our Christmas celebrations revolve around food? It can be a tough time of year for people trying to manage their weight, and with so much food and alcohol on offer, it’s easy to gain a few extra kilos within a 1-2 week period.
So, we’ve created some fun, healthy recipes and meal ideas for your Christmas celebrations to keep your weight loss journey on track. Whether that be a Christmas day lunch, parties with work colleagues or friends or just some holiday fun in the kitchen with the kids, we’ve got you sorted.
Some ideas to lower the calories of your Christmas celebrations:
Ensure there are lots of different salads available and try to fill up at least half your plate with salad or veggies
Instead of your standard BBQ meat skewers, try some veggie skewers or alternate your meat skewers with veggies pieces. A few great combos are lamb with capsicum, cherry tomatoes and pineapple chunks.
As well as your standard Christmas desserts of puddings and custard have a fruit platter on offer. Cut the watermelon into Christmas trees (see our recipes below) and add some choc pretzel reindeers (recipe below).
Turn your grazing platter into a healthy snack station by adding fruit, nuts, grainy crackers, veggies, lower energy dips such as hummus and tzatziki, and some small portions of cheese/meats.
So, let’s get into it!
Pretzel Reindeers
Ingredients
Packet of pretzels
Rollo chocolates or similar
Googly eye candy
Red M&Ms
Method
Place a pretzel on a flat surface. Place a rollo chocolate in the centre of the pretzel and place in a pre-heated oven (200 degrees) for 30-60 seconds. Just enough time that the chocolate starts to become soft.
Remove from the oven and place 2 googly eyes and a red m&m as a nose. Then break a pretzel in half using a knife and attach these to the side of the chocolate as antlers.
Repeat until you run out of chocolates or pretzels.
Fruity Santa Hats
Ingredients
Strawberries and raspberries
Green grapes
Banana
Toothpicks
Mini marshmallows
Method
Remove the stem from the strawberries and cut the banana into 0.5cm slices.
Start by placing a toothpick through the bottom of the grape, then attach the banana and strawberry on top.
Finally place a mini marshmallow at the top of the strawberries (depending on how large the strawberries are, you may require an additional toothpick to attach the marshmallow)
Reindeer Celery Sticks
Ingredients
Half a bunch of celery stalks
1/3 cup peanut butter
Raspberries
Googly eye candy
Pretzels
Method
Cut the celery into 4cm long sticks.
Spread each stick with enough peanut butter to fill it.
Place 2 google eyes near the top of the stalk and a raspberry at the bottom of the stalk
Break some pretzels in half, and place 1 half on each side of the stalk for antlers.
Veggie Santa Dipping Platter
Ingredients
Half a cauliflower
1 red capsicum- thinly sliced
2 black olives
1 cucumber peeled
Punnet of cherry tomatoes
½ cup air-popped popcorn
1x hummus dip
Method
Arrange the cherry tomatoes toward the bottom of the platter (this will be Santa’s shirt)
Cut the cauliflower into 1-2cm chunks and arrange in a beard pattern above the cherry tomatoes
Slice the cucumber thinly and arrange above the beard (this is the face)
Arrange the popcorn above the cucumber as the rim of Santa’s hat
Arrange the capsicum slices above to form the hat and top the end of the hat with a piece of cauliflower for a bauble
Add 2 olives for eyes on the cucumber layer, half a cherry tomato for the nose and a slice of capsicum for the mouth
Serve with a hummus dip or tzatziki dip for dipping.
Merry Christmas, everyone! Looking for more recipes? Check out our eBook collection for more! For tailored advice recommended just for you, get in contact with one of our dietitians today.
