From its clearly Oriental origins, steam cooking quickly spread throughout the world, including Italy. Today it is highly appreciated as a more nutritious and definitely tastier alternative to traditional boiling in water. This is because with steam we can cook while maintaining the quantity of vitamins and mineral salts naturally present in food almost unaltered. Steam-cooked food is healthier, allowing us to use a lower amount of fats and seasonings. Let's look at 5 healthy steamed recipes, particularly indicated for low-calorie diets.  

Steam cooking: all the benefits

Before discovering together how to cook many healthy and tasty recipes with steam, it is good to understand all the peculiar characteristics and benefits of this cooking method. To begin with, steam has its advantages not only for practicality, but also and above all for the health of our entire body. Steamed recipes, compared to the traditional boiling variant, are in fact much lighter and more digestible, perfect for those following a diet plan aimed at regaining shape, strength, and energy. Nutrients, as mentioned, remain unaltered, precisely by avoiding direct contact with boiling water. 

Healthy and tasty steamed recipes

There are many light recipes for a low-calorie diet, but not all of them can be called tasty too. With steam cooking, we can make even the tastiest dishes much more healthy, and valid even in the diets of those watching their figure. Ariete has selected 5 to cook directly in its practical Healthy Steam food steamer, choosing ingredients known to be good, genuine, and nutritious. Ranging from vegetables, meat, fish, to dried and seasonal fruit.

Steamed Sea Bass

Steamed Sea Bass (or Branzino) is a fish main course that is certainly tasty, but at the same time healthy and low-calorie. Thanks to steam cooking, which does not affect the taste and properties of the ingredients of this dish. Using a food steamer, it will also be very easy to prepare the potato side dish at the same time, due to the presence of different baskets. To start, we must first clean the sea bass: gut it, scale it, and remove the gills. In a bowl mix thyme, chopped parsley, thinly sliced garlic, a grating of fresh ginger and one of the peel of half a lemon, together with extra virgin olive oil. The mixture must be inserted inside the belly of the fish, sprinkling it with salt.

Place the sea bass in the steamer basket with some cherry tomatoes cut in half and covered with the leftover chopped herbs. Then cover the surface of the fish with a few thin slices of lemon. At the same time fill the lower basket with water, and place the peeled potatoes in the upper basket. Cover and cook for about 20 minutes being careful not to open. Slice the potatoes and place them next to the sea bass, seasoning with a drizzle of oil and a pinch of pepper.

Cauliflower salad 

Among the quick and easy healthy recipes, the cauliflower salad is a true classic, to be served as an appetizer or main course. Let's start by cleaning and reducing the cauliflower into small florets, which must then be steamed, leaving them rather crunchy. Place them in a large bowl and in a smaller one combine lemon juice squeezed with the citrus juicer, minced garlic, and oil. Add some anchovy fillets and mix well. Drain the tuna in olive oil and break it up over the warm florets. Now we just have to season with our emulsion and stir carefully.

Tuna meatloaf with tomatoes and green beans

The tuna meatloaf with green beans and tomatoes is rich and tasty, but also has a low-calorie content and can be conveniently stored in the fridge. Just crumble the well-drained tuna into a bowl and mix it with eggs, the grated zest of half a lemon, breadcrumbs, and parmesan. We will have to knead until the mixture is completely homogeneous and moldable. Give it the shape of a meatloaf and wrap it in parchment paper, closed with kitchen twine. Cook everything in the Healthy Steam steamer for about 40 minutes, and serve once cold with salt, oil, and chopped basil.

Shrimp and vegetable salad

A very fast recipe, which allows us to bring to the table a tasty side dish of shrimp with vegetables. First of all, in a bowl mix two jars of yogurt (perhaps homemade with the Ariete yogurt maker!) and a spoonful of mayonnaise, season with salt and pepper and add arugula and finely chopped shallots. Meanwhile steam the shrimp for about 10 minutes. Wash and drain the salad, dress it, distribute peeled and julienned apple and the shrimp on top. Season with the yogurt sauce and serve.

Plums with almonds

To close this tasty and healthy roundup of healthy recipes, a fruity treat always cooked with steam. We must pour half a liter of water into the steamer and bring it to a boil. Divide some fresh plums in half, remove the stones and sprinkle them with 60 grams of sugar. Once this is done, cook them in the basket placed on the bottom one for 10 minutes, avoiding the plums becoming too soft. Then arrange them on a plate and sprinkle with about 100 grams of almonds chopped with Ariete's Gratì.