How to replace expensive ingredients in gourmet dishes - the secrets of Alexey Dushka

A variety of nuts, presented in stores, have long and successfully become part of many dishes. These products are filled with useful substances. You can eat them during a diet, trying to diversify your diet.

If the kitchen does not have the type of product needed for cooking or you are allergic to it, you should know how to replace nuts in order to achieve the desired taste of the dish and not harm yourself.

Salad with walnuts, chicken and pineapple

An appetizing appetizer that will decorate the festive table and delight guests with its taste. Cooking will not take much time. Pre-boil the chicken breast and eggs. Then combine all the ingredients with mayonnaise sauce - a hearty, tender dish is ready!

There are several ways to serve the dish, which I will introduce you to below.

You will need:

• Chicken breast – 1 piece
• Canned pineapples - 1 can
• Nuts - 70 grams
• Cheese – 150 grams
• Mayonnaise - 150 milliliters

Cooking process:

Cut the meat into small cubes and mix with mayonnaise.

Cut the pineapples in the same way.

It is very important to drain the syrup and lightly squeeze the pineapples with a spoon to prevent the finished dish from leaking due to excess juice.

Pour in mayonnaise.

Place a container for forming salads on a dish. Divide the prepared products in half, lay out in layers:

• chicken

• pineapples

You can diversify the snack if you add boiled eggs and grains of canned sweet corn between the fruit and cheese layers.

• cheese

• nuts, chopped in a blender or chopped with a knife

Repeat layers. Place the salad in a cool place for one hour. Then remove the form and serve.

Garnish with a sprig of fresh herbs or place on a platter in a “pineapple” shape. Such an original presentation is an excellent solution for a festive table.

The dish looks very beautiful served in transparent portioned salad bowls, on the bottom of which circles of boiled eggs or pieces of pineapple are pre-laid. In this case, the remaining ingredients are simply mixed and carefully placed in a bowl.

Be sure to prepare this amazing and truly delicious dish for your guests! If you like salad with chicken and pineapple.

What is the nutritional value of pine nuts?

Pine nuts are composed primarily of fat, accounting for about 68% of their composition. What is important is mainly monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. They have a positive effect on the human body. They also have a beneficial effect on the functioning of the heart and the entire circulatory system, and improve the condition of the skin and hair. The remaining ingredients of pine nuts are easily digestible proteins (14 g / 100 g) and carbohydrates (10 g / 100 g). There is also dietary fiber at 3.7g/100g, which meets up to 10% of the daily recommended requirement.

Pine nuts are a valuable source of vitamins and minerals. Just one handful per day to meet your body's daily requirement of: vitamin A, vitamin B1, magnesium and zinc. Pine nuts, unlike many other nuts, are a rich source of vitamin K. Its deficiency is responsible for the development of cancer. Vitamin B3, or niacin, supports the nervous system and improves skin condition. An important component of pine nuts is zinc. It plays a special role in men's menus because it improves fertility. Pine nuts are also a valuable source of magnesium, phosphorus, copper, vitamin E and B vitamins.

Festive appetizer with beef

A simple, but nevertheless very tasty salad with a minimum amount of ingredients. If you boil the meat the day before, it will cook in just 5 minutes. This is very important when you are setting a rich table for a large number of guests.

A hearty, appetizing dish will be a wonderful treat for your family and friends at a New Year's dinner.

You will need:

• Beef pulp – 600 grams
• Nuts - 80 grams
• Cheese – 100 grams
• Mayonnaise - 150 milliliters
• Garlic – 3 – 4 cloves
• Salt pepper

Cooking process:

1. Cut the meat.
2. Chop the nuts.
3. Grate the cheese.
4. Pour mayonnaise into a bowl, add crushed garlic, stir. Let the sauce sit for 15 - 20 minutes.

1. Transfer to a salad bowl, pour garlic sauce over the meat, add nuts, and, if necessary, salt and spices.
2. Sprinkle generously with cheese and garnish with a sprig of fresh parsley.

Let the delicious snack brew for at least an hour and you can treat your guests. The combination of meat with garlic sauce and nuts is simply divine! And the cheese complements the taste with a pleasant creamy note. Guests are usually satisfied and ask to share the recipe. Cook with pleasure!

How to replace expensive ingredients in gourmet dishes - the secrets of Alexey Dushka

We don’t always manage to go to a restaurant, but we still want to treat ourselves to delicious dishes. In this case, you can prepare something unusual at home yourself, but you can often face the problem of the lack of the necessary “overseas” ingredients in the supermarket or their high price. Food expert and host of the 1+1 channel Alexey Dushka shared his secrets on how to replace expensive ingredients in gourmet dishes.

Rating: 3.33 out of 5 based on 3 votes

We continue our series of useful tips about food from food expert and host of the “1+1” channel Alexey Dushka. Previously, we wrote about how to choose dairy products, as well as how to choose quality wine.

This time we have practical advice from Alexey Dushka on how to replace expensive ingredients in gourmet dishes. Take note of the following recommendations.

1. Pine nuts in Pesto sauce can be replaced with walnuts or pumpkin seeds

Green pesto sauce is now at the peak of popularity: it is added to pastas, salads or snacks. As a rule, the classic recipe involves grinding pine nuts, garlic, salt, grated Parmesan cheese and fresh basil leaves in a mortar. Pine nuts are not cheap now, but you can find a good alternative to them. For example, I experimented with two options: homemade walnuts and pumpkin seeds dried in a pan. And I liked both even more than the cedar ones. Walnuts give a rich tart taste and aroma, while pumpkin seeds give a lighter sensation with the aroma of childhood memories when grandma baked them in the oven. Of course, the taste is not very similar to expensive pine nuts (70 hryvnia per 100 grams), but the consistency is reminiscent of the original.

2. Instead of capers, you can use pickled cucumbers

Today in the store you can find capers for about 80 hryvnia per 100 grams. But they are often included in recipes for Mediterranean salads or restaurant sauces, adding an unusual bitter-sour taste and aromatic notes of pepper, mustard or horseradish to dishes. Therefore, if you want to bring the taste of cucumbers as close as possible to capers, you can add one of the previously listed ingredients, ground into powder.

3. A mixture of turmeric and red pepper can replace saffron

Saffron is the most expensive spice in the world; 10 grams of this spice costs about 3 thousand hryvnia. But you don’t have to spend so much money; you can get a similar taste by mixing turmeric and red pepper.

4. Coho salmon instead of salmon

Many people buy salmon to prepare gourmet red fish dishes, so I would not recommend replacing it with cheap ocean mackerel or herring (although mackerel costs three times less, and at the same time it contains more healthy Omega-3 than expensive salmon ). Now an equally tasty red fish - coho salmon - has begun to be imported to Ukraine. It has a more delicate texture, but is as tasty, red and refined as salmon. And even it contains almost the same amount of useful omega acids as in its expensive analogue: 1.5 g per 100 grams of fish. And coho salmon costs only about 230 hryvnia per kilogram, which is half the price of salmon.

5. Artichokes can be replaced with green peas and walnuts

Artichoke dishes are incredibly popular in Mediterranean cuisine. Not only are artichoke fruits hard to find even in large supermarkets in cities with a population of over a million, but they also cost about 120 hryvnia per piece. And it’s worth considering that artichokes shrink by almost half during cooking. So if you need to add them to a salad or pizza, you can replace this product with green peas - they have the same neutral taste as an artichoke. And for a spicy, nutty flavor, you can add nutmeg to the salad.

These are some practical tips that will come in handy for those who like to pamper themselves with delicious dishes.

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Also read about whether you can be fired in Ukraine for taking photos on social networks.

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Recipe with prunes

Salads with prunes are my favorite. The sweet taste of dried fruits goes perfectly with meat and other products. Let's prepare an original layered holiday salad that will definitely surprise your guests.

For cooking, I usually use champignons, but they can be replaced with oyster mushrooms.

You will need:

• Chilled boiled poultry fillet – 500 grams
• Mushrooms – 500 grams
• Cheese - 200 grams
• Prunes – 200 grams
• Onion – 1 head
• Nuts - 1 cup
• Mayonnaise - 200 milliliters

Cooking process:

1. Cut the breast into pieces.
2. Cut the onion and mushrooms into equal small cubes and fry in butter.

Stirring, saute the mushrooms over medium heat. Do not cover the pan with a lid. The liquid should completely evaporate.

1. To soften prunes and make them meatier, pour boiling water over the dried fruit for 5 minutes. Then cut into strips.
2. Grate the cheese into large strips.

1. Lay out the prepared products one by one: mushrooms - chicken - mayonnaise - prunes - cheese - mayonnaise.

Sprinkle the finished dish generously with nuts. Let it soak well, putting it in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. And you can taste it!

Seeds

Roasted pumpkin or sunflower seeds can be added to many dishes and fresh salads. They, of course, differ in taste from nuts, but their beneficial substances will be necessary for the body.

It is important to consider the calorie content of each of these products, especially for those on a diet. The seeds can be pre-roasted or added fresh – it’s a matter of taste.

Salad: beets, prunes, walnuts and garlic

This dish is a real vitamin bomb! Very tasty, nutritious and also easy to prepare. Take pitted prunes after soaking them in hot water for a few minutes. You can lightly brown the nuts in a dry frying pan - this technique will reveal their taste and aroma.

You can serve the appetizer on the New Year's table in tartlets.

You will need:

• Tartlets – 15 – 20 pieces
• Beets – 2 – 3 pieces
• Garlic – 2-3 cloves
• Nuts – 100 grams
• Prunes – 16 – 20 pieces
• Mayonnaise – 2 – 3 tablespoons

Cooking process:

1. Boil and cool the beets. Rub with large straws.
2. Grind the nuts in a mortar.
3. Cut the prunes into strips.
4. Combine the ingredients, add the garlic squeezed through a press. Season with mayonnaise.

Before serving, arrange vegetables into tartlets. Sprinkle with nuts and garnish with fresh herbs. Bon appetit!

Cooking in Georgian

The main feature of this vegetable snack is the aromatic dressing. Nuts, garlic, hot peppers are ground in a blender, combined with wine vinegar and water. The resulting nut sauce makes the dish incredibly tasty. And the bright, rich colors of fresh vegetables make them elegant and festive.

Treat yourself and your loved ones to one of the masterpieces of Georgian cuisine.

You will need:

• Tomato – 3 pieces
• Cucumber – 3 pieces
• Onion (or sweet red) – ½ head
• Parsley, cilantro, basil

For refueling:

• Nuts – 100 grams
• Garlic – 2-3 cloves
• Hot pepper – 1 pod
• Khmeli-suneli – ½ teaspoon
• Wine vinegar – 1 tablespoon
• Salt pepper
• Water (or pomegranate juice) – 100 milliliters

Cooking process:

Prepare the dressing. To do this, combine the necessary ingredients, except water, in a blender bowl and beat until smooth.

Don't forget to remove the seeds from hot peppers to make them taste milder.

Then gradually add water or juice. The consistency of the sauce should be like thick sour cream.

Cut the cucumbers into slices, tomatoes into slices, and onions into half rings. Combine vegetables with coarsely chopped herbs, pour hot sauce over them, stir.

Vitamin Georgian salad is ready! It will be a great addition to meat dishes on the holiday table. Your guests will be surprised by the taste of familiar vegetables in a sauce that is unusual for our traditional cuisine. Cook with love!

With celery and apples

A signature dish at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in the mid-19th century was a salad of celery stalks and apples, dressed with lemon juice and cayenne pepper. At that time, the recipe for the traditional snack did not include nuts; they were added a little later. It was in this variation that the dish became famous throughout the world.

A definite plus is its lightness and minimum calories, which makes the dish different from heavy mayonnaise salads on the holiday table.

You will need:

• Celery stalks - 300 grams
• Apple (sweet and sour) – 1 – 2 pieces
• Nuts - 130 grams
• Mayonnaise 30% - 3 tablespoons
• Juice of half a lemon

Cooking process:

1. Peel the celery from the outer thick skin and cut into small pieces.
2. Cut the apples into slices.
3. Mix the products and place them in glass bowls. Sprinkle with chopped nuts.
4. Sprinkle with mayonnaise and lemon juice.

“Waldorf” will diversify the daily menu and will also decorate the holiday table. Add chicken, cheese or seafood to a light dish and get a more satisfying treat. Bon appetit!

Recipe 3: Nuts with mushrooms

Walnuts are best combined with pickled mushrooms.
We will only fry onions here. The salad will also be very satisfying, like all mayonnaise salads. Ingredients:

smoked chicken breast (250 g), pickled mushrooms (200 g), eggs (3 pcs), onion, walnut kernels (80 g), salt, pepper, mayonnaise.

Cooking method:

Beautifully fry the quartered onion into rings. You can get extra flavor by adding some chicken herbs. Heat the nuts in the oven or microwave and chop with a rolling pin. Mix the ingredients, add salt and season with mayonnaise. Sprinkle the salad with a small amount of nuts, add the rest to the salad.

Turtle with chicken and walnuts

An original salad that meets the two main requirements of housewives - to feed and surprise. There are many cooking options. My family loves the salad with Korean carrots, which add some heat and piquancy to a hearty appetizer.

The festive decoration will attract the attention of guests, and the taste will not disappoint.

You will need:

• Boiled chicken fillet - 1 piece
• Korean carrots – 200 grams
• Cheese - 100 grams
• Hard-boiled chicken eggs - 4 pieces
• Nuts - 150 grams
• Mayonnaise

Cooking process:

1. Cut the fillet into cubes.
2. Grate the cheese and eggs into large strips.
3. Chop half the nuts.
4. Combine the ingredients and season with mayonnaise.

Place the salad in a heap, in the shape of a turtle’s body, on a round flat plate. Sprinkle with chopped nuts, draw a mesh pattern with mayonnaise - this will be a turtle shell.

Sprinkle fresh chopped herbs around. Make a “head” from half a boiled egg, designating “eyes” and “mouth”, for example, from black peppercorns. Cut the remaining part of the egg into 4 parts, make “legs”.

Place the salad in the refrigerator for 3 hours to soak. Cook with pleasure!

Salad “Tenderness”

The recipe for this salad, like most others, is extremely simple. But a successful combination of products makes it very tender and satisfying. For the “Tenderness” salad with prunes and walnuts you will need the following ingredients:

• chicken fillet – 1 piece;
• fresh cucumber – 1 piece;
• prunes – 150 grams;
• walnuts – 80 grams;
• eggs – 5 pieces;
• mayonnaise.

You will need a transparent deep plate. The salad will be laid out in layers in the following sequence (each layer is smeared with mayonnaise):

1. Chicken fillet, boiled and cut into strips.

2. Steamed and chopped prunes.
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3. Walnuts (chopped).

4. Egg whites, grated on a coarse grater.

5. Cucumbers cut into strips.
6. Egg yolk, finely grated.

The salad should stand for at least 2 hours in the refrigerator to soak well. You can decorate the dish with chopped nuts.

With the addition of pomegranate seeds

The sweet and sour taste of pomegranate seeds in combination with nut kernels gives it a special piquancy and softness. The bright color of the vegetables that make up the salad makes it especially festive.

Before cooking, boil the meat and vegetables. Let them cool well, then start slicing.

You will need:

• Poultry fillet – 300 grams
• Potatoes – 1 – 2 pieces
• Carrots – 1 piece
• Beets – 1 piece
• Onion – 1 head
• Pomegranate – 1 piece
• Nuts – 250 grams
• Mayonnaise
• Apple cider vinegar (or table vinegar 9%) – 2 tablespoons
• Sugar – 1 teaspoon (without a slide)
• Salt - to taste

Cooking process:

Cut the meat into pieces. Grate the vegetables on a coarse grater. Chop the nuts.

Cut the onion into cubes and marinate for 20 minutes.

To prepare the onion marinade, mix 50 - 70 milliliters of water, sugar, vinegar.

Lay out the ingredients in layers, adding salt to taste and spreading with mayonnaise: potatoes - onions - carrots - meat - nuts - beets.

Garnish with pomegranate seeds.

Serve in a transparent salad bowl. Or in portions, using a salad ring for decoration.

Citrus salad with pine nuts

Citrus salad is a universal dish; it can be served both at the main table and for dessert. This snack looks very appetizing and bright thanks to the orange.

Ingredients

• avocado - 1 piece;
• orange - 2 pieces;
• celery stalk - several pieces;
• pine nuts - 2 tablespoons;
• lettuce leaves - 2 pieces;
• lemon juice - 1 teaspoon;
• salt - to taste.

If you want to serve this salad as a dessert, add a teaspoon of sugar instead of salt.

How many calories?

Step-by-step instruction

1. Cut the avocado into cubes.
2. Peel the orange, disassemble into segments, cut into medium slices.
3. Chop the celery stalk.
4. Detail pine nuts.
5. Coarsely chop the lettuce leaves.
6. Combine ingredients except nuts.
7. Add lemon juice and salt.
8. Stir and sprinkle with pine nuts.

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Appetizer with eggplant

Fried eggplant rolls accompanied by fresh herbs and tomatoes are a beautiful, tasty appetizer for the holiday table. A variety of ingredients are used as filling. I prefer cheese (like cheddar), nuts and cilantro.

The piquant taste and amazing aroma of the snack will not leave it unnoticed.

You will need:

• Blue ones - 2 pieces
• Nuts – 150 grams
• Cheese – 100 grams
• Garlic – 2 cloves
• Salt pepper
• Mayonnaise
• Lemon juice – 1 tablespoon
• Cilantro - a small bunch

Cooking process:

Cut the eggplants into thin slices, add salt and fry on both sides.

Prepare the filling.

Combine chopped nuts, finely grated cheese, chopped cilantro. Add garlic, season with lemon juice and mayonnaise. Add salt to taste and season with spices.

Place the resulting filling on the eggplants and roll them into rolls.

Serve garnished with herbs and fresh tomato slices. Bon appetit!

Popular substitutes

Nuts add rich taste and aroma to dishes, but increase the cost. There are many alternatives that you can use to replace walnuts and save money at the same time.

Bakery

Oatmeal cookies

It is important to understand what properties nuts add to baked goods. In addition to their flavor profile, they give the dough a crunchy texture. Think about the form in which you use nuts - this will help you find something to replace them without compromising the finished dish.

Oatmeal is an economical substitute for nuts. Fry them in butter with a few tablespoons of sugar until golden brown. To enhance the aroma, add spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom.

In addition, nuts can be replaced with pumpkin or sunflower seeds, which are best roasted first. This will keep them crispy and enhance the flavor.

Other dishes

Pumpkin seeds

Nuts in other dishes, especially salads, can also be replaced with any seeds. This is especially true for people with nut allergies and for supporters of a healthy diet. For example, pumpkin seeds are not inferior to nuts in terms of nutritional value and vitamin content and are included in many diets.

Legumes are a good alternative to nuts: peas, chickpeas, lentils, beans. Before use, they are boiled or baked with spices. Spicy Crispy Beans are a great snack that everyone will love.

Avocado

If we consider nuts as a source of vitamins (mainly vitamin E), then other food products of plant origin also contain them:

• avocado;
• spinach;
• broccoli;
• kiwi.

Thus, there are many ways to replace walnuts without harming your diet.

Delicious salad with mushrooms

Salads with mushrooms are popular and all thanks to their rich taste. They turn out very tender and appetizing. Today I am sharing with you one of my favorite original recipes. This appetizer never lets me down and is a huge hit at the table.

I like to make rolls with Parmesan cheese, but you can use any other cheese.

You will need:

• Champignons – 0.5 kilograms
• Lettuce leaves – 1 bunch
• Olive oil – 2 tablespoons
• Onion – 1 head
• Chili pepper – ½ teaspoon
• Bell pepper – 3 pieces
• Garlic – 3 cloves
• Balsamic vinegar – 3 tablespoons
• Nuts (chopped) – 5 tablespoons
• Cheese – 100 grams
• Mayonnaise – 1 – 2 tablespoons

Cooking process:

Fry the garlic and chili in olive oil for a minute.

Add diced sweet peppers and onions. Sauté for 2 – 3 minutes.

Add mushrooms, cut into strips, to the vegetables. Fry over high heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Transfer the products to a separate container and add salt. Add vinegar, half of the coarsely grated cheese, and nuts.

Tear the lettuce leaves with your hands, add to the rest of the ingredients, and season with mayonnaise.

Place in a salad bowl and sprinkle the remaining cheese on top. Festive salad with mushrooms is ready!

What can you replace pine nuts with?

Pine nuts are not a product that can be found in any store. Often even large supermarkets do not have them in their assortment. So what do we do when we need to use them for a certain dish but don't have them on hand? What can you replace pine nuts with? One of the best and most affordable solutions is sunflower seeds. Other nuts such as pecans, cashews, hazelnuts or even walnuts are also good options. You can also use pumpkin seeds. However, it's worth remembering that some nuts (like Italian nuts) can become a little bitter when baked. Therefore, in the case of desserts, it is worth replacing pine nuts with almonds.

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Salad with chicken and walnuts (video)

In this video, the author tells how to prepare a tender, tasty, satisfying salad with chicken fillet. Also contains cheese, eggs, walnuts. The highlight of this snack is the apple, which adds notes of freshness and a special fruity aroma.

This is just a small part of the salads with the addition of walnuts. In this selection, everyone can find something to suit their taste. All salads are very tasty, satisfying, worthy of taking a special place on the New Year's table. I wish you interesting culinary discoveries!

Macis

The red membrane surrounding the nutmeg is mace. Subsequently, the membrane is crushed, turning it into a seasoning that can almost completely replace nutmeg. You can add spice to Bechamel sauce when preparing lasagna, using the spice in the same amount as nutmeg.

Mace does not have all the richness of aromas and tastes present in nutmeg, so the taste of the finished dish may differ slightly, but many do not even notice such a substitution.

Many people's favorite walnuts and other varieties of this product can cause allergies, and sometimes they are not happy with their price. There are decent options for replacing nuts in familiar dishes in order to get the necessary taste and benefits for the body.