Try healthier munchies for Super Bowl Sunday. (Photo: Tanya Constantine/Getty Images)
Super Bowl Sunday is a great time to gather with friends and family to talk trash and root for the Seattle Seahawks or the New England Patriots. But all of that finger food and those elaborate spreads can sabotage New Year’s resolutions to get fit or lose weight.
If you’re hosting and your crew insists on wings, consider baking or broiling them with herbs and a little hot sauce to reduce the fat. You can also substitute the wings with the Chipotle Chicken Lettuce Wraps, below.
Round out your spread with healthy options such as a nice, large bowl of salad along with vegetable and fruit platters. Fill a cooler with mini bottles of water.
Here are other suggestions adapted from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which publishes the Nutrition Action Health Letter, and two recipes from culinary director Kate Sherwood:
- Veggies and hummus. Try this recipe to make your own hummus with canned or cooked chickpeas. You can also buy a packaged brand like Sabra, Tribe or Athenos. Serve with platters of baby carrots, red pepper slices, cherry tomatoes or snow peas. Hummus typically has about 50 to 70 calories per two-tablespoon serving.
- Roasted chickpeas. This snack is high in fiber and a good source of protein with about 120 calories for a quarter-cup serving. The Good Bean Roasted Chickpea Snacks come in seven flavors, including Cracked Pepper, Thai Coconut and Smoky Chili & Lime. Saffron Road Crunchy Chickpeas offers flavors such as Korean BBQ, Falafel and Wasabi.
- Clementines. Put out a big bowl full of sweet, easy-to-peel, and kid-friendly seedless clementines or another variety of mandarin orange. Each has about 40 calories and a gram or two of fiber.
- Flavored waters. Spike seltzer water with fruit juice, or serve pitchers of spa water flavored with slices of citrus fruits, cucumbers, herbs such as basil or mint, and berries.
Football 101
Clueless about the “deflate-gate” debate or whether the Cowboys were robbed leading up to the Super Bowl? Don’t know a safety from a sack? Get some last-minute pointers from the classic football primer Get Your Own Damn Beer, I’m Watching the Game! A Woman’s Guide to Loving Pro Football by Holly Robinson Peete, actress and wife of NFL quarterback Rodney Peete. The Peetes also run the HollyRod Foundation, which focuses on autism and Parkinson’s disease.
Chipotle Chicken Lettuce Wraps
1¼ lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
5 cloves garlic, minced
½ chipotle pepper in adobo sauce (more to taste), minced
1 cup orange juice
¾ teaspoon kosher salt
16 Boston (or Bibb) lettuce leaves
4 oz. tortilla chips, broken up
3 scallions, sliced
Chicken wraps are a healthy alternative to chicken wings.(Photo: CSPI)
In a large non-stick pan, sauté the chicken in the oil until browned on both sides, about 3 minutes per side. The chicken will not be fully cooked, so remove it to a dedicated cutting board. Add the garlic and chipotle to the pan and sauté for 30 seconds, then stir in the orange juice and salt. Simmer until slightly thickened, about 3 minutes. Cut the chicken across the width into ½-inch slices and return them to the pan. Toss to coat with the sauce, and cook through, 2-3 minutes. Stack the lettuce leaves on a plate. Serve the chicken, scallions, and chips in bowls. To assemble, spoon a small amount of the chicken, scallions, and chips into a leaf of lettuce and wrap.
Serves 4.
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Nutritional information per serving — calories: 400; sodium: 460 mg; total fat: 18 g; saturated fat: 2.5 g; carbohydrates: 27 g; protein: 32 g; fiber: 3 g.
½ lb. chicken chorizo sausage, casing removed (or substitute with Italian chicken or turkey sausage with 1 tablespoon of paprika while sautéing)
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 bell peppers, chopped
1 15 oz. can no-salt-added cannellini beans
Freshly ground black pepper
For a spicy alternative to chili, try cannellini beans with the Spanish sausage chorizo. (Photo: CSPI)
Sauté the sausage in the oil, breaking it up into small pieces, until lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook for another minute. Remove the sausage and garlic with a slotted spoon and set aside. Sauté the peppers until they start to brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the beans with their liquid, and heat through. Stir the sausage into the peppers and beans. Season with plenty of black pepper.
Serves 4.
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Nutritional information per serving (1¼ cups) — Calories: 300; sodium: 370 mg; total Fat: 16 g; saturated fat: 2.5 g; carbohydrates: 21 g; protein: 17 g; fiber: 6 g.
About Fierce Fridays — Tips for Weekend Well-Being
We each cherish those precious days off at the end of the week, but increasingly those of us who are charter members of the sisterhood of the stressed and overworked are losing our Saturday and Sunday leisure time to weekend work and domestic duties.
To make sure that you do something every weekend that’s just for you, we’ll be sharing a little advice to make those 48 hours a great time to recharge your batteries, bring a little good news into your life, or discover a quick and easy way to improve your health.
