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Low calorie beef stroganoff? Low fat beef stroganoff? Is that even possible? Isn’t beef stroganoff high in calories? Isn’t beef stroganoff known as a high fat comfort food? The traditional recipe is. But not our Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle beef stroganoff. Read on to see how we make this recipe healthier, with fewer calories and better macros (more protein!)…
How many carbs are in beef stroganoff?
The first ingredient change that reduces calories and makes beef stroganoff healthier is the choice and quantity of starchy carbs. Egg noodles are a traditional choice for the carb portion of this meal. Now, I realize some health foodies or rigid dieters might be thinking, “But Tom, noodles are processed foods aren’t they? Aren’t those bad carbs?”
Yes, egg noodles and pasta are processed foods. However, carbs are not fattening. Excess calories are fattening. Also, the bleached white flour noodles are the more processed kind. Whole grain pastas and noodles are less processed and more nutritious. They even have a little fiber. I took it even a step further. I shopped around until I found a brand of egg noodles that only had two ingredients: 100% whole wheat and egg whites! That is definitely not an ultra-processed food. And they’re even lower in calories than the noodles made with egg yolks.
Even better, since egg noodles are made with whole wheat and egg whites, it increases the protein content of the recipe. When you add lean beef, this is not only a low calorie recipe, it’s a high protein recipe. Even more good news is that egg noodles are super cheap! You can find some kinds for around a buck for a 12 ounce bag.
Here’s another way I turned this into a low calorie recipe: The first time, I used 8 ounces of (dry) egg noodles. That was two-thirds of the 12 ounce bag. (Most classic recipes call for 8 to 10 ounces of noodles). For both caloric and practical reasons, I decided to cut the amount of noodles to the 6 ounces you see in this recipe. This worked out better for practical purposes because it was exactly half of the 12 ounce bag. That left the other half of the bag (the remaining 6 ounces) for the next time.
This little change in ingredient quantity reduced the amount of carbohydrate relative to protein and veggies. Since we use a large quantity of lean beef and veggies (the mushrooms and onions), you don’t even notice the reduced noodle amount and there is zero change in taste. That’s a double win! Plus this entire batch of low-calorie beef stroganoff still divides up into at last 4 generous servings.
Six ounces of whole wheat egg noodles have 540 calories and 111 grams of carbs. Split into four servings, thats only 28 grams of carbs per serving.
As I mentioned, egg noodles are traditional, but if you want to try a different (starchy) carb, you could serve the beef and sauce on top of mashed potatoes instead. If beef stroganoff is comfort food and if mashed potatoes are comfort food, then this combination is comfort food squared! Wait, are you worried that mashed potatoes will turn it into a calorie bomb? Not our mashed potatoes. check out the Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle mashed potatoes recipe here:
Creamy Lean And Healthy Mashed Potatoes (with half the calories
What cut of meat is best for beef stroganoff? What’s the best way to cook it?
The type of beef used most often in classic stroganoff recipes is sirloin. Honestly, this is probably the best type. Other traditional cuts include sirloin tips, boneless rib eye (sometimes called scotch fillet), or beef tenderloin.
I sometimes use top sirloin and that is pretty lean, but more often I choose top round steak. I do this because it’s the leanest cut of beef you can find. Round steak may be slightly tougher, and it’s used more often with slow cooking (because it gets fall apart tender after a whole day in the crockpot)…
But for me, it’s worth it to get the lower calories and lower fat. All my recipes are created with health, plus fitness and body-building macros in mind, which is why I modify traditional recipes so much. I want the calories lower, the macros better and the dishes healthier. If you want to use a traditional cut or meat, go right ahead, just remember the calories and fat will be slightly higher higher than what I have posted.
(Burn the Fat Inner Circle members have access to our meal planner software, which is not only great for meal planning, but also recipe creation and customization. Click here and learn more)
If you want to be a real low calorie rebel, try chicken breast. You can follow the same recipe to make super low calorie chicken stroganoff.
For best flavor, the ideal way to cook the beef is to get a quick sear on it first. With the heat on medium high, add the beef to the hot skillet and leave it untouched for about a minute or so to get that nice browning before you flip it and stir for even cooking. If you slice the beef in very small, thin strips, it won’t even take a minute to sear.
I like to use cast iron for searing beef, but you can use any skillet you want as long as it’s big enough to handle this whole batch of ingredients. Some people, including myself, like to stir the noodles right into the sauce, others serve the noodles on a plate and spoon the sauce on top. If you do the former you need a big skillet with room for the noodles. I use 12 inch wide by 2 inch deep cast iron.
Once you’ve cooked the onions and seared your beef, then flip it and cook it for about 2 more minutes, stirring occasionally until it’s done. Avoid overcooking. If it’s still a little bit rare in spots, that’s okay because it will cook for several minutes more after you add the mushrooms and liquids. For best results, season the beef directly with salt and pepper before cooking, or simply season to taste when you add the sauce ingredients.
Beef stroganoff recipes usually call for anywhere between one pound (16 oz) and one and a half pounds (24 oz) of beef. I use the meal planning software at Burn the Fat Inner Circle to calculate macros per per batch and per serving in each recipe and I tweak certain ingredients (including the protein) to get the exact macros I want. The goal is usually to get between 30 and 50 grams of protein. For my own meals, I like to get at least 40 grams (I would call that a high protein meal). To make a batch of high-protein, low calorie beef stroganoff that serves four, I used a pound and a quarter (20 oz) for this recipe.
How else can you make beef stroganoff lower in calories?
When I’m developing healthier, lower calorie recipes, I like to look at the regular version first so I can see how it is traditionally made. Once I’ve seen that, I can look for places to make ingredient substitutions or to alter the cooking method.
I discovered that the traditional way to prepare beef stroganoff is to cook the onions, mushrooms, and garlic in a lot of butter (crazy amounts of butter!) In the bodybuilding and fitness circles I travel in, olive oil is considered the healthier fat. That’s largely due to the higher monounsaturated fat content in olive oil compared to the high saturated fat content in butter.
There’s little harm in using some butter occasionally if it’s a must-use ingredient for a certain recipe. But I recommend avoiding using half stick or more of butter like so many traditional recipes suggest. You’re halfway to a calorie bomb if you do that.
Besides, why use huge dollops of butter if you can use olive oil and still get the finished dish tasting delicious? After a few experiments, I even figured out that you can get away with as little as 2 teaspoons of olive oil and it gets the job done.
Another trick for reducing calories, or I should say, reducing calories per serving (lower calorie density) is to use a lot of vegetables – even more than the traditional recipes call for.
I use an entire cup of chopped onions. That’s a lot, but onions are awesome, and using a lot of them bumps up the food volume per serving while adding minimal calories. If you’re not a huge onion fan, that’s fine, you could easily get by with only half a cup.
I use a lot of mushrooms as well, because this is another vegetable low in calorie density but high in volume. At my local grocery stores, the mushrooms usually come in 8 ounce boxes. I use the whole box because I want a lot of veggies in my low calorie beef stroganoff and also use that amount for practical reasons. If I use the whole box I don’t have to worry about leftovers going bad. (Fresh sliced mushrooms don’t last long in the refrigerator).
I suppose you could use canned mushrooms in a pinch, but fresh is better. Use white, baby Bella, cremini, or any other kind of mushroom you like. Also, slice them thin, or chop them them up into smaller pieces if you prefer.
Use even more mushrooms if you wish. I prefer the more traditional stroganoff with just onions and mushrooms. However, you could feel free to throw in any other veggies you like: broccoli, asparagus, bell peppers, anything. More veggies is never a bad thing for cutting calories density, especially in recipes that include noodles, pasta and or creamy sauces.
What is the sauce in beef stroganoff made of?
Another thing I learned by looking at traditional cookbook beef stroganoff recipes is that the classical method calls for cooking the beef first, then removing it from the skillet (which is often done with stir frys as well). Then you proceed with cooking the onions, mushrooms and garlic, followed by adding the flour, sour cream, broth, mustard and Worcestershire, which is what makes the stroganoff sauce. I did that at first, but then found it worked just as well cooking the onions first, then adding the beef, and then adding the rest of the ingredients.
I know that some people in the health and fitness space omit the flour, but another thing I discovered is that the flour is one of the ingredients that helps thicken the sauce. Getting a thick sauce that sticks to the meat and noodles is the ultimate result you want. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want a watery sauce. There’s only two tablespoons of flour for the whole batch. But if you want to leave out the flour, it’s your dinner.
The classic beef stroganoff recipes also usually use wine, but we keep our Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle recipes alcohol free, so we skip that.
You don’t see Worcestershire sauce and Dijon mustard as part of the sauce in traditional beef stroganoff recipe, but unless you don’t like them, I highly recommend including both because they enhance the flavor a lot!
Now here’s another way we get some substantial calorie savings: Most beef stroganoff recipes use full-fat sour cream. For our low calorie beef stroganoff we use low fat sour cream, which saves us even more calories. I know that fat free sour cream is available, but I took the middle ground on this one. You can make this even lighter if you use the non fat sour cream, but it won’t be as rich.
It’s the sour cream that adds most of the thickness and creaminess to the sauce, so you can’t skip it and expect anything like traditional stroganoff. In traditional recipes, I’ve seen anywhere from a half a cup to one full cup of sour cream. A half a cup is most common.
Now on one hand, I want to use less low fat sour cream to keep the calories down. But on the other, I never want to be short on sauce or have a sauce so thin, it doesn’t coat the meat and noodles and just drains to the bottom of the plate. So what I did is to use three quarters of a cup. If you want even more sauce and thickness go ahead and bump the low fat sour cream up to one full cup. Per serving it doesn’t add that many more calories.
One more tip. You’ll notice in the instructions it says to turn the heat down when you add the sour cream. The reason is because if it boils, it may curdle (especially the low fat variety).
In the fitness and bodybuilding nutrition space, a common substitute for low fat sour cream is low fat (or non fat) greek yogurt. Yogurt is an option and nonfat yogurt will bump the protein even higher, but I strongly prefer the low fat sour cream both for taste and texture.
How do you make beef stroganoff sauce thicker?
My first couple of attempts at beef stroganoff were not completely successful. They tasted great, but I was just not satisfied with the sauce. (I was following the lead of other people’s recipe ingredient amounts and ratios and I didn’t like it). I came to my own conclusion that the key to getting the perfect thick sauce is to use an approximately equal amount of sour cream and beef broth.
I was following classic recipes that called for two cups of broth. The sauce was plentiful, but way too watery and adding thickener didn’t help. I scaled down to 1.5 cups of broth. Still too watery. If you skip the broth, you’ll probably feel like there is not enough sauce. The broth stretches your sauce without adding any more calories. When I reduced to one cup of broth that was better. But I finally figured out that a 1 to 1 ratio of sour cream to broth was ideal. If you want to stretch it a little more, use 3/4 cup of sour cream and 1 cup of broth at most. Alternately, if you don’t mind the extra calories, and you wanna really generous amount of sauce, use 1 cup of broth and 1 full cup of sour cream.
In early iterations of this recipe, when I thought the sauce was a bit too thin, I tried using a corn starch slurry as a thickener. It sort of worked, but I wasn’t completely satisfied. Later I tried using Xanthan gum. With only one teaspoon, it did the trick beautifully. This ingredient is optional, but if you want the thickest sauce possible, give it a try.
What herbs are used in beef stroganoff?
Most traditional beef stroganoff recipes don’t use any additional herbs. However, the first time I ever made stroganoff, I made it with chicken (because I usually eat more of the leanest meats possible). Since thyme is a great match with chicken I included it and it was great. I decided then to keep including thyme in the beef stroganoff and it was great with beef as well.
I also rarely see garlic in beef stroganoff, but the way I see it, you can never ever go wrong some extra garlic. Plus, since this recipe is lighter /low calorie, I like to offset that with lots of aromatics, seasonings and any other flavoring that I can. So don’t forget the garlic either.
How long does it take to make beef stroganoff?
When I was reading some traditional cookbook recipes, I noticed that some said this takes 50 to 60 minutes. With my method, it has never taken that long. I never found it necessary to let it simmer long on medium low (though if it’s done early, it is okay to leave it on low until you’re ready to eat).
Also when you’re efficient and use two burners (you start on the beef in a skillet at the same time your pasta is boiling in the pot), you can whip this up in as little as 30 to 35 minutes and it could easily be an easy weeknight meal.
Here’s one final tip to keep cooking and prep time to a minimum: Mise en place. This is a French culinary term that means be sure to the recipe instructions and be familiar with the cooking method and sequence before you start. It also means have every ingredient out and in place before you even turn the stove on.
How many calories are in beef stroganoff? How many servings are in this recipe?
This is the best part. If you divide this whole batch into four, that’s only 477 calories per serving, and those are very generous and filling servings. Also, let me make that clear – that’s the whole dish, including the beef with sauce and the noodles. An equivalent amount of traditionally made stroganoff could easily have 600 to 800 calories.
Using the ingredients listed below, this will make four servings. If you’re a light eater or on a low calorie fat loss diet, you could easily stretch this batch to five servings. That would be only 382 calories. If you’re a bodybuilder on a muscle gaining diet, then expect this batch to be about 3 servings.
Give this one a try! The only thing better than beef stroganoff is healthy, low fat, low calorie beef stroganoff with high protein that tastes every bit as good as the classic recipe.
Enjoy!
Tom Venuto has been a trusted natural bodybuilding and fat loss expert since 1989. He is also a recipe creator specializing in fat-burning, muscle-building cooking. Tom is a former competitive bodybuilder and today works as a full-time fitness coach, writer, blogger, and author. In his spare time, he is an avid outdoor enthusiast and backpacker. His book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle is an international bestseller, first as an ebook and now as a hardcover and audiobook. The Body Fat Solution, Tom’s book about emotional eating and long-term weight maintenance, was an Oprah Magazine and Men’s Fitness Magazine pick. Tom is also the founder of Burn The Fat Inner Circle – a fitness support community with over 52,000 members worldwide since 2006. Click here for membership details
Low Calorie Beef Stroganoff
Equipment
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skillet cast iron
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pot
Ingredients
- 170 g whole wheat egg noodles (dry) (6oz)
- 567 g top round steak (or sirloin) (20oz)
- 2 tsp olive oil
- 227 g mushrooms, sliced or chopped (8oz)
- 142 g onion, chopped (5oz/about 1 cup)
- 1 Tbsp garlic, finely diced (approx 3-4 cloves)
- 2 Tbsp flour, all purpose
- 2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1.5 Tbsp Dijon Mustard
- 3/4 cup low fat sour cream (optional: up to 1 cup for more sauce)
- 3/4 cup beef broth (or stock) (optional: up to 1 cup for more sauce)
- 2 tsp thyme
- 1/2 tsp salt (or to taste)
- 1/2 tsp pepper (or to taste)
- 2 Tbsp fresh parsley or chives (optional for garnish)
- 1 tsp Xanthan gum (optional for thickening)
Instructions
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Get the water started for the pasta. (Optional: Salt water 1 to 2 tsp). Get all ingredients in place.
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Finely dice the onion and mince the garlic. Cut the beef in thin strips or small bite-size pieces. Season with salt and pepper.
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Add the egg noodles to the boiling water and cook according the package instructions. (usually 6 to 8 minutes depending on how firm you like it). Remove it to a colander when it's done.
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Meanwhile, as the noodles cook, heat a large skillet (preferably cast iron, but any large deep skillet will do) on medium high. Add 2 teaspoons of olive oil and sauté the onions for about 2 to 3 minutes, or until they begin to soften, stirring regularly.
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Add the beef to the onions in the skillet. Allow to cook at least a minute or so without stirring so the beef gets a good sear, then flip / stir and cook about about 3 more minutes or until it is browned and cooked through, stirring occasionally.
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Add the garlic and stir. Add the mushrooms and cook about 2 to 3 more minutes, or until the mushrooms soften, stirring occasionally.
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Sprinkle the flour over the beef, mushrooms and onions and stir.
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Reduce heat to medium-low. Add the dijon mustard, Worcestershire sauce, low-fat sour cream, and beef broth/stock then stir until it all mixes together.
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9. Add additional salt, pepper, and herbs to taste, and stir. Let it all simmer for about 3 more minutes or until all ingredients are thoroughly and evenly heated.
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Stir the cooked egg noodles right into the beef and sauce mixture, or serve a portion of noodles and spoon the sauce on top.
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Optional: Garnish with fresh parsley (or chives).
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Optional: add 1 tsp Xanthan gum to thicken.
Nutrition
The post Healthy Low Calorie Beef Stroganoff appeared first on Burn The Fat Blog.
from Burn The Fat Blog https://www.burnthefatblog.com/low-calorie-beef-stroganoff/
