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Low-calorie recipes

Under 350 kcal per serving, without the sad-diet energy. Real flavour, careful fat, plenty of vegetables — the kind of light cooking you actually want to make again.

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Russian Fermented Tomatoes (Solyonye Pomidory) with tomatoes, garlic and dill — Russia recipe

🇷🇺RussiaMedium

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Russian Fermented Tomatoes (Solyonye Pomidory)

Solyonye pomidory (солёные помидоры) are Russian fermented tomatoes: small whole tomatoes soured in a cold salt brine with dill, garlic and horseradish leaves, and no vinegar. Russians call this the cold method, kholodny zasol, and the same tomatoes are also called kvashenye pomidory. They are not marinovannye pomidory, marinated tomatoes, which get their sourness from vinegar or citric acid. Here the acid is made by the ferment itself. This version fits one 3-litre jar. This is the Russian home method: about a week in the warm, then the cold. It is not a process tested by a food safety service, and US food safety services advise against cucumber pickles made on the same schedule. The note below explains what that means and who should not eat these tomatoes. The hands-on work is about 40 minutes. The rest is waiting: 5 to 7 days of fermenting at room temperature and 4 weeks in the fridge, about 5 weeks in all. The jar is kept cold from the day the bubbling stops. It is never sealed airtight with a metal canning lid and never stored in a cupboard.

40 min20 kcal12 serves

🌱Vegan🌿Vegetarian🌾Gluten-free

Russian Sauerkraut (Kvashenaya Kapusta) with white cabbage and carrots — Russia recipe

🇷🇺RussiaMedium

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Russian Sauerkraut (Kvashenaya Kapusta)

Kvashenaya kapusta (квашеная капуста) is Russian sauerkraut: shredded white cabbage and grated carrot, salted dry and left to sour in their own juice, with no vinegar and no added water. In English it also goes by Russian sauerkraut or Russian fermented cabbage. This batch is 2.5 kg of shredded cabbage, 250 g of carrot and 65 g of salt, which comes to about 2.4 % of the vegetables by weight. Count on about 1 hour of work, then 5 days at room temperature and 2 days in the fridge. Many Russian kitchen recipes end the warm stage after 3 days; this one runs it for 5, so the cabbage has more time to turn sour before it goes into the cold. The USDA procedure for sauerkraut ferments for 3 to 4 weeks; this is the shorter Russian method, so the cabbage is kept in the fridge and never in a cupboard. It has no sugar and no spices in it.

60 min30 kcal24 serves

🌱Vegan🌿Vegetarian🌾Gluten-free

Russian Vinegret Salad with beets, potato and carrot — Russia recipe

🇷🇺RussiaAdvanced

Salads

Russian Vinegret Salad

Boiled beets, potatoes, and carrots diced small and tossed with briny dill pickles, sauerkraut, green onions, and a simple sunflower oil dressing. This salad has been on Russian holiday tables for over a century. It is earthy, tangy, and satisfying cold — the kind of thing that gets better by the day and tastes best made a day ahead.

75 min195 kcal6 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌾Gluten-free

Saganaki with kefalotyri or graviera cheese, flour and olive oil — Greece recipe

🇬🇷GreeceEasy

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Saganaki

Saganaki is a Greek appetizer of firm cheese (kefalotyri, kefalograviera or graviera) dredged in flour and pan-fried in olive oil until the outside forms a thin golden crust and the inside turns soft. The 250 g of cheese here makes two slabs, enough for four as a meze at half a slab each. The dish takes about 10 minutes from start to finish and must be eaten immediately — the crust stays crisp for only a few minutes before it softens as the cheese cools. A squeeze of fresh lemon over the hot cheese just before serving cuts through the richness and is not optional. Saganaki is the name of both the small two-handled frying pan traditionally used and, by extension, the dish itself.

10 min270 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian⚡Quick

Salsa Macha with guajillo chiles, ancho chiles and peanuts — Mexico recipe

🇲🇽MexicoMedium

Sauces and Dips

Salsa Macha

Salsa macha is a Mexican chili oil from Veracruz — dried chiles, raw peanuts, sesame seeds, and garlic fried in oil, then coarsely blended into a thick, chunky paste. The name likely comes from macho ('bold' or 'strong'), though some cooks trace it to machacar, the pounding motion used to crush ingredients in a molcajete. Active cooking takes about 25 minutes; the salsa then needs at least an hour of hands-off resting for the flavors to settle before it's ready to eat. It tastes smoky, nutty, and fruity from the dried chiles, with a heat that builds slowly rather than hitting all at once, and keeps for up to a week in the fridge (never store it at room temperature), tasting better after the first day. Makes about 400 g; a serving is about 2 heaped tablespoons (40 g).

25 min240 kcal10 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌱Vegan🌾Gluten-free

Samosa with plain flour, ghee and potatoes — India recipe

🇮🇳IndiaAdvanced

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Samosa

Flaky, crispy pastry cones filled with spiced potato and peas, deep-fried until dark golden. The dough uses a technique called moyan dena — fat is rubbed into the flour until the mixture resembles wet sand before any water goes in. That step is what makes the crust flaky rather than bready. The filling is mashed potato with green peas, cumin, green chilli, coriander, and amchur powder for the characteristic sour edge. The frying is two-stage: low heat first to set the dough from the inside, then medium heat for color. Serve hot with mint chutney and tamarind chutney.

75 min310 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌱Vegan🌶️Spicy

Satsebeli with tomatoes, walnuts and fresh cilantro — Georgia recipe

🇬🇪GeorgiaMedium

Sauces and Dips

Satsebeli

A Georgian tomato-and-walnut sauce whose name means for dunking. Ripe tomatoes are reduced and blended with walnuts, garlic, cilantro, basil, and Georgian spices like blue fenugreek into a tangy, pourable sauce served with grilled meat, potatoes, and bread.

30 min55 kcal12 serves

🌱Vegan🌾Gluten-free⚡Quick

Sauce Mornay (Classic French Béchamel Cheese Sauce) with unsalted butter, all purpose flour and whole milk — France recipe

🇫🇷FranceMedium

Sauces and Dips

Sauce Mornay (Classic French Béchamel Cheese Sauce)

Sauce Mornay is the classic French cheese sauce — a béchamel enriched with grated Gruyère and Parmigiano-Reggiano. The name is usually linked to the Marquis de Mornay, a regular at the Parisian restaurant Le Grand Véfour, where the sauce is said to have been introduced in the 19th century; the exact attribution is still debated. Mornay is the workhorse of French haute cuisine: the base for cauliflower au gratin, eggs Mornay, sole Mornay, endives au jambon, fish gratins, cheese soufflé, and the cheesier version of croque monsieur. Silky, glossy, pale-cream — never bright yellow (that means the cheese broke). Vegetarian, ready in about 25 minutes (40 if you infuse the milk first). Yields about 500 ml of sauce, serves 6 with vegetables, fish, eggs, or pasta.

25 min180 kcal6 serves

🌿Vegetarian⚡Quick

Sauerkraut Shchi with beef, sauerkraut and potato — Russia recipe

🇷🇺RussiaAdvanced

Soups

Sauerkraut Shchi

The soul of Russian cuisine — a rich, dark soup made from braised sauerkraut and beef on the bone, slow-cooked for hours. Gets better overnight, develops incredible depth of flavor. The only soup that improves with freezing.

240 min350 kcal8 serves

🌾Gluten-free💪High protein

Savillum (Ancient Roman Cheesecake) with ricotta, honey and poppy seeds — Italy recipe

🇮🇹ItalyMedium

Sweet Dishes

Savillum (Ancient Roman Cheesecake)

One of the oldest written cheesecake recipes: an ancient Roman cheesecake of ricotta, flour, honey and one egg, written down by Cato around 160 BC. This version uses less flour than his, so it comes out softer. It bakes for about 45 minutes, then gets glazed while still hot with more honey and a scattering of poppy seeds. The texture sits between a baked cheesecake and a dense honey pudding — nothing like the cream-cheese version, and far better than a 2,200-year-old recipe has any right to be. The hour covers mixing and baking; the ricotta needs at least 30 minutes of draining before that.

60 min295 kcal8 serves

🌿Vegetarian

Sbiten (Russian Honey Spiced Drink) with honey, water and cinnamon — Russia recipe

🇷🇺RussiaMedium

Beverages

Sbiten (Russian Honey Spiced Drink)

Sbiten is an old Russian hot drink: water simmered with warming spices — cinnamon, cloves, ginger, allspice, black pepper, and usually a bay leaf, sometimes hops — and sweetened with honey. You simmer the spices low and slow until the kitchen smells like a medieval apothecary, then take the pan off the heat and stir in the honey. Street sellers once carried it around hot in cloth-wrapped flasks, until tea became the everyday drink in Russia. The result sits somewhere between spiced honey tea and mulled wine without the wine — warming, aromatic, and made from little more than pantry staples.

30 min120 kcal4 serves

🌾Gluten-free⚡Quick🌿Vegetarian

Scallops with Garlic Butter with scallops, butter and garlic — France recipe

🇫🇷FranceEasy

Fish and Seafood Dishes

Scallops with Garlic Butter

Large sea scallops seared in a screaming-hot pan until golden, then finished in garlic butter with lemon and fresh herbs. Ready in about 20 minutes. The crust is what makes them — moisture and a cold pan are the two things that ruin it.

20 min260 kcal4 serves

🌾Gluten-free⚡Quick

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