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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.

All ⏱Under 30 min ⏱Under 60 min

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🇮🇱IsraelEasy

Sauces and Dips

Tahini Sauce

Simple tahini sauce — sesame paste thinned with water, brightened with lemon and garlic. Five minutes, no cooking. The trick is adding water gradually until it goes from thick paste to pourable silk.

5 min80 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian⚡Quick🌱Vegan

★4.5

🇯🇵JapanMedium

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Takoyaki with Seafood

Traditional Japanese octopus balls made from a light dashi batter, filled with seafood, green onion, and tempura crumbs, cooked in a special round mold until golden. Topped with takoyaki sauce, Japanese mayo, bonito flakes, and aonori.

45 min40 kcal24 serves

🥑Keto

★4.9

🇯🇵JapanEasy

Breakfast and Brunch

Tamagoyaki (Japanese Rolled Omelette)

A Japanese rolled omelette built in layers: thin sheets of sweetened, dashi-seasoned egg poured into a pan one at a time, each one rolled onto the last while still slightly soft, building up a spiral-layered log that shows the rings when sliced. The flavor is lightly sweet, subtly savory, and distinctly Japanese — nothing like a Western omelette. Tamagoyaki appears at breakfast alongside rice and miso soup, in bento boxes, and as nigiri sushi topping. The technique takes practice but the ingredients are few, the eggs always taste good, and the first imperfect roll is still worth eating.

15 min185 kcal2 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌾Gluten-free⚡Quick

★4.5

🇮🇳IndiaMedium

Meat Dishes

Tandoori Chicken

Bone-in chicken thighs and drumsticks scored deeply, marinated overnight in spiced yogurt, then cooked at high heat until the outside chars and the inside stays completely juicy. No sauce, no gravy — just the marinade working directly against the heat. The red-orange color comes from Kashmiri chilli powder, the flavor from ginger, garlic, garam masala, and kasuri methi. This is the dish that butter chicken and tikka masala are built on top of. On its own it's simpler and better. Serve with pickled onion, lime wedges, and mint chutney.

50 min340 kcal4 serves

🌾Gluten-free🌶️Spicy💪High protein

★4.8

🇨🇳ChinaEasy

Sweet Dishes

Tanghulu (Chinese Candied Fruit)

Tanghulu has been sold on Beijing streets since the Song dynasty, but most people outside China discovered it through TikTok — where the cracking sound became its own genre. Fresh fruit on a stick, sealed in boiling sugar that sets like glass. Three ingredients. You will probably mess it up the first time. The instructions below exist so you don't.

30 min145 kcal5 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌱Vegan⚡Quick

★4.4

🇯🇵JapanMedium

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Tempura

Vegetables and shrimp dipped in ice-cold batter and fried until shatteringly crisp. The batter must be barely mixed — lumps are good — and the oil screaming hot. Done right, tempura is light enough to eat endlessly.

25 min320 kcal4 serves

⚡Quick

★4.4

Tepache (Mexican Fermented Pineapple Drink with Piloncillo and Cinnamon)

🇲🇽MexicoEasy

Beverages

Tepache (Mexican Fermented Pineapple Drink with Piloncillo and Cinnamon)

Tepache is a traditional Mexican fermented pineapple drink built on pineapple rinds, piloncillo (unrefined Mexican cane sugar), Mexican cinnamon, and cloves. Wild yeast living on the pineapple peel does the work over 48 to 72 hours, producing a mildly sweet, lightly tangy, naturally carbonated drink with about 1 to 3 percent alcohol. Origins go back at least 500 years to pre-Columbian Mexico, where the drink was first made from corn (the name comes from Nahuatl 'tepatti', meaning corn drink); today every street vendor in Oaxaca and Mexico City sells it in big glass jars with ice. Active work is 20 minutes, fermentation handles the rest. Makes 2 liters, 8 servings of about 250 ml each.

20 min110 kcal8 serves

🌱Vegan⚡Quick🌿Vegetarian

★4.4

🇯🇵JapanEasy

Sauces and Dips

Teriyaki Sauce

A glossy, deeply savory-sweet glaze built from soy sauce, mirin, sake, and sugar, thickened with a cornstarch slurry until it coats a spoon. Homemade teriyaki takes ten minutes and tastes nothing like the bottled kind — the fresh garlic and ginger give it a brightness that disappears completely in shelf-stable versions. I keep a jar in the fridge and use it on everything from grilled chicken to roasted vegetables.

10 min60 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian⚡Quick

★4.8

🇹🇭ThailandMedium

Salads

Thai Spicy Beef Salad

A bold Thai salad of seared beef with red onion, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, fresh mint and cilantro, dressed in a bright lime-fish sauce dressing. Served on lettuce leaves or with jasmine rice — light, spicy, and deeply aromatic.

30 min210 kcal2 serves

🌶️Spicy⚡Quick

★4.7

🇹🇭ThailandMedium

Fish and Seafood Dishes

Thai-Style Salmon

Pan-seared salmon with a fragrant ginger-lime marinade and a glossy soy-honey glaze inspired by Thai flavors. The sweet-sour sauce enhances the richness of the fish without overpowering it.

40 min300 kcal4 serves

🌶️Spicy💪High protein🥑Keto

★4.7

🇬🇪GeorgiaMedium

Sauces and Dips

Tkemali

A Georgian sour plum sauce, the country's answer to ketchup: plums simmered soft, sieved smooth, and seasoned with garlic, chili, cilantro, dill, and mint. Tart and herbal, it is served with grilled meat, chicken, and potatoes.

40 min35 kcal12 serves

🌱Vegan🌾Gluten-free🌶️Spicy

★4.9

Tom Yum Goong (Thai Hot and Sour Shrimp Soup)

🇹🇭ThailandMedium

Soups

Tom Yum Goong (Thai Hot and Sour Shrimp Soup)

Tom Yum Goong (ต้มยำกุ้ง) is Thailand's most internationally recognised dish — a clear, fiercely aromatic hot-and-sour soup built on the 'tom yum trinity': lemongrass, galangal, and makrut lime leaves. The broth is simultaneously hot (from Thai bird's eye chillies), sour (fresh lime juice added off the heat), salty (fish sauce), and fragrant (the three herbs). Shrimp heads and shells, simmered first, create a naturally rich stock with a coral-orange color. Two versions exist: the clear broth (nam sai, น้ำใส) — the original — and the creamier version with evaporated milk or coconut milk (nam khon, น้ำข้น). Both are served in the same bowls of jasmine rice across Thailand, from roadside stalls to five-star restaurants.

30 min180 kcal4 serves

⚡Quick🌾Gluten-free🌶️Spicy

★4.6

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Vegetarian Keto Quick Spicy Gluten-free low-calorie High protein Vegan