Kitchen Coach: 5 Ways to Make Recipes Healthier

Dietitian Kitchen Coach Jen Haugen

Have you ever wished for a kitchen coach? (Maybe you are wondering what a kitchen coach actually is! — Keep reading!)  Often when I was working as a supermarket dietitian, I would take customers on a healthy food tour of the grocery store sharing all the foods to include in their kitchens for health and giving them simple strategies to help their families eat healthier, but there was always one more question at the end of our tour.  “Now could you just come to my house and show me how to use these foods in my kitchen?”

Well, now I can. 

I looked up the definition of a coach, and here’s what I found: A coach is someone who instructs or trains someone to perform.  Someone who is there to share with you ways to improve your performance.  Someone who helps you every step of the way and helps you through your struggles.

And I”m excited to tell you I’m now offering kitchen coaching services (tell your friends and family!)!  I’ve always wanted to be able to help people in their kitchens create meals that are full of flavor, easy to prepare and are balanced for health.  As your kitchen coach, I work with you one-on-one in your kitchen, from my kitchen through video chat services that are completely HIPAA compliant, to instruct and train you on how to improve your performance in your kitchen.  We work together on your health and kitchen goals!  

With kitchen coaching, you will not only save time and money, but also improve your health.   It all starts in your kitchen, where I learn more about your health goals, and we work in our kitchens together to improve your kitchen performance.  The kitchen is the foundation of health in our home — much of our health depends on what’s prepared in the kitchen.  That’s why the all appointments take place there.

As your kitchen coach, I instruct and train you on how to make those health goals actually happen by what happens in your kitchen.  Through recipe demonstrations, easy meal planning strategies, and cooking techniques, we work together to achieve your goals.

Whether you are interested in learning how to cook healthier meals for your family, learning how to meal plan, or you want real-life solutions to change how you prepare meals because of a medical condition like high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, weight loss, or others, I provide you with the strategies and coaching you need in the kitchen to become successful.  You can schedule your appointment simply by visiting my services page choosing the package that’s right for you.  You can even start with a kitchen consultation where you will get a jump start towards your health goals.  It’s all virtual — so you can see me in my kitchen and I can see you in yours. 

One thing we work together on in our kitchen coaching sessions is recipe modification.  Everyone has a favorite recipe that we don’t want to give up, but there may be some things we can do to modify the recipe to make it a healthier one.

Here are five tips for recipe makeovers, making your recipes healthier and easier:

Dietitian Kitchen Coach Jen Haugen


Change the ingredients. Can you swap out an ingredient and not know the difference?  Take for example, a Mexican Street Corn recipe I recently made.  It called for 1/2 cup mayonnaise.  I swapped 1/4 cup of plain, non-fat Greek yogurt in for half of the mayonnaise.  Change in flavor? No.  Change in calories? Yes.

Reduce an ingredient.  In some recipes, you can reduce sugar, for example, by a third, without any change in flavor.  In fact, you might enjoy a slightly less sweet version of the recipe. 

Shift your perspective.  Maybe it’s not a bowl of ice cream served with a scoop of fruit on top.  Maybe it’s a bowl of fruit served with a scoop of ice cream.

Add an ingredient. Maybe when you are making your favorite spaghetti recipe, you add spiralized zucchini noodles to add vegetables while reducing calories or carbohydrates.

Substitute an ingredient.  Maybe you swap white rice for brown rice.  Or maybe you try plain Greek yogurt in place of sour cream.

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