Are you looking for ways to cut down on your calorie and carb intake with your sandwiches? Whether these sandwiches are prepared for lunch or your post-workout grub, the following tips can help you make them healthier.
8 Ways to Make Your Sandwich Healthier
1. Go topless.
Not you. The sandwich.
Taking off the top half of your sandwich significantly lowers your carb and calorie count. Plus, it also lets you put in a lot of healthier ingredients on your sandwiches such as extra veggies and proteins.
2. Pita is the way to go.
To even bring down the calorie count some more, you may use pita bread instead of whole-wheat bread.
A small pita bread that’s about two to four inches wide contains about 70 calories while a piece of whole-wheat bread has about 80. It may not seem significant enough but in the battle against calories, every little bit counts.
3. Use romaine lettuce and tortilla to lower calorie count.
For those looking to cut down on their calorie intake, wrapping a sandwich up in lettuce reduces the calorie count by as much as 120 to 200 calories. Of course, the reduction will depend on the type of bread you normally use.
If you want to incorporate some more healthy carbs in your meal, use tortilla instead of two bread slices. Whether they’re whole-wheat or multigrain, just make sure that the one you’re getting is actually lower in calories compared to bread. Some tortillas contain more calories than a couple of bread slices combined.
4. Eggify it.
A great way to make your sandwich healthier is to add an egg to it. A piece of egg, whether hard-boiled, scrambled, or fried, can give you about six grams of additional protein and healthy fats to your meal. This makes your meal more satisfying and leaves you feeling full for a longer period.
5. No to deli.
One thing about deli meat is many of them are high in sodium. Even though most deli meats are low-maintenance sources of protein, the high level of sodium in them is unhealthy for you. Excessive sodium can lead to an increased risk of high blood pressure, heart failure, and stroke, among others.
If you want your sandwich to be chunky and meaty but don’t want to put in the long hours of cooking meat, canned chicken, tuna, or salmon with zero sodium will do.
6. Choose condiments that have lower calories.
Most of us use condiments to add some flavor and moisture to our otherwise dry sandwiches. If you want to enhance your meal with condiments, whether sandwiches or not, make sure you choose those that have lower calorie-counts and are overall healthier such as mustard, guacamole, and hummus to name a few.
7. Or skip them altogether.
Or you can just skip the condiments and go for sun-dried tomatoes, caramelized onions, and other similar concentrated ingredients. These have relatively low-calorie content, are extremely potent, and don’t require much to get the flavor you’re looking for.
8. Add more veggies.
When you’re in doubt, adding more veggies to the mix never hurts. Just like with salads, low-calorie crunchy and watery veggies are always a good thing to add to your meal. And similar to salads again, almost everything tastes good in sandwich form so don’t be afraid to experiment and get creative.
We hope that this guide helps you healthify your sandwiches to keep you in great shape and condition physically. Happy eating!
