Contents
INTRODUCTION
Breakfast
FAKEAWAYS
Quick MEALS
STEWS and SOUPS
Bakes & ROASTS
SNACKS AND SIDES
Sweet TREATS
WELCOME TO
Pinch OF Nom
Pinch of Nom started out a few years ago over a
cup of tea at the kitchen table. After a decade of
working in the restaurant world, we wanted to
create a place where we could share our
recipes. Now we have a community of over 1.5
million using the site to find easy recipes and
enjoy slimming, delicious food. And we’re loving
every moment!
Back when we were working long shifts in a high-pressured
restaurant kitchen, it was always easiest to grab unhealthy food
on the go. Eventually the time came when we both needed to
lose weight, so we decided to join a local weight-loss group.
Immediately we noticed a lack of easy and delicious recipe
ideas - and it was the same online. We were so surprised by
how many people were relying on expensive ‘low-cal’ ready-
meals, lacking in flavour and variety.
One day Kate disappeared into the kitchen and came back with
cheesecake-stuffed strawberries. So delicious and portable,
they were a huge hit with our weight-loss group. After sharing a
few more recipes with friends to great success, we had a small
idea. What if we put our recipes onto a website and shared them
with others? Our mission became to create easy, healthy and
tasty dishes for ordinary people to enjoy.
We were amazed at how many people started to visit. Within
around 6 months the website was drawing in over sixty
thousand people a month. The tiny idea had become big. Bigger
than we had ever imagined.
Suddenly, people were starting to lose weight. The Pinch of
Nom Facebook group was growing at a rate no one had
foreseen. As the group grew, it became apparent that many
people who had not yet reached their goal weight and who
jumped on and off the ‘weight-loss wagon’, felt neglected by the
large diet industry companies. Soon others volunteered to join
us to form the Pinch of Nom team, and we started to create a
space where those who were still on their journey (like us) were
just as important as those who had reached their destination.
The aim of this book is to provide delicious, light recipes that
don’t feel like diet food. If you slip off the wagon, we want to
make you feel as if climbing back on isn’t so hard! You might put
the book down occasionally, but it’ll be just as easy to pick it
right back up again.
Pinch of Nom is now much bigger than the two of us, both in
terms of the team that runs it and the community that has grown
from it. We are continually blown away by all the support and
the love that feeds through that community on a daily basis.
This book wouldn’t have existed without every single member of
our Facebook group, every visitor to the website and every
person who has contributed to Pinch of Nom: team members,
volunteers, taste testers and commenters that have provided
constructive criticism to improve the recipes and content on the
site.
This book is for you. We hope you love cooking the recipes as
much as we’ve loved putting this all together.
The FOOD
HEALTHY RECIPES that DON’T TASTE LIKE
DIET FOOD
As a classically trained chef, Kate has always
looked at recipes and dishes, then worked out how
to improve or recreate them. We’ve worked together
on transforming some of our favourite dishes into
healthy indulgences - including turning high-calorie
takeaways into ‘fakeaways’ that are even tastier
than their calorific counterparts.
Switching out a few key ingredients has a massive
impact on the calorie, fat or sugar content of food. It
tastes just as delicious - especially when flavours
are enhanced with clever spicing and seasoning.
22 ALL-TIME FAVOURITES and 80 BRAND-NEW
RECIPES
We have included our most popular recipes from the
website in this book, as it wouldn’t be a Pinch of
Nom book without them! The rest of the recipes are
brand-new labours of love that we hope you love as
much as we do.
QUICK, UNPRETENTIOUS FOOD
You can prepare most of the recipes in this book in
under 30 minutes. It was important to the Pinch of
Nom team that the recipes were easily accessible
and so we’ve used ingredients that you can use
time and again to save on cost. So many chefs
forget that we don’t all have a pinch of white truffle
at home! We only use less familiar ingredients
where they add a unique touch to the dish - and
we’ve tried to include them more than once, so you
don’t have a pile of dusty ingredients at the back of
the cupboard.
DEVELOPED and TESTED in PINCH OF NOM
HOME KITCHENS
Early on in the Pinch of Nom history, we decided
that our recipes should always be authentic. With so
many untested ‘diet’ recipes floating around using
stock photography, we decided that every recipe
should be made, tested and photographed without
artistic licence, which is the approach we’ve used
for the cookbook.
How Our RECIPES WORK
EVERYDAY LIGHT
At Pinch of Nom, we believe in the ethos of
‘everything in moderation’. With this in mind, our
Everyday Light recipes are those you can have at
any time: they’re easy on the calories, filling and
perfect for every day. You may notice some of these
recipes are higher in calories than those in the other
categories. The reason for this is that some calories
are ‘used up’ on vegetables and other ingredients
that conform to zero point-style foods applicable to
the UK’s most popular diet programmes.
WEEKLY INDULGENCE
These are recipes you can add to your weekly meal
plans but have one or two ingredients that make
them slightly more indulgent, so should be used in
moderation. A good basis of any diet should be that
you don’t have to miss out on enjoying dinner
parties or the odd treat here or there.
SPECIAL OCCASION
Our Special Occasion recipes have your back!
Lower in calories than regular desserts, snacks or
treats, this section still comes out tops against high-
calorie versions. However, the aforementioned
ethos of ‘everything in moderation’ should come to
mind with these. Save these recipes for pushing the
boat out and for ... you guessed it ... special
occasions!
CALORIES AND VALUES
Our calorie counts are all worked out per individual
serving. This does not include accompaniments for
specific recipes, such as rice or potatoes. This is
because we give these notes as a serving
suggestion only. You can easily swap out rice and
pasta for veggie low-calorie alternatives, such as
cauliflower rice.
We have not included ‘values’ from mainstream diet
programmes as these are everchanging and we