Dinner Time! You know what that means. Eating a well-balanced meal and cheating (just a little) after eating healthy low-calorie meals for breakfast and lunch. Remember that if you have a low calorie diet that you are suppose to be eating at least 800 calories a day. Of course all of these being nutritious calories and making sure you intake your recommended amount of daily vitamins, fruits, veggies, grains, poultry, dairy, and sugars.
So what's for dinner tonight... tater tot casserole!
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Dice your onion into small bits and add to your choice of meat. I do not eat any red meats so you will find that I only cook with chicken, ground turkey, and seafood. This meal I will be using my ground turkey! Brown your meat with the onion and add your preferred spices. I love my meat to have nice flavor so my go-to spices are always ground cayenne red pepper and pepper. I usually add onion or garlic powder, but since I have already included onions I will leave that out and I actually threw in a 1 tsp. of minced garlic (2 cloves). I like my meat to have a bit of spiciness to it, hence the red pepper. NOTE: I never add salt to my recipes because there is already a ton of salt already included in every ingredient.
3. While your meat is browning, in a mixing bowl combine the cream of chicken soup and milk. Make sure you blend these really well.
4. Next, is the can of olives. It is cheaper to buy the bigger cans of whole ripe olives and cut them down yourself. You get a whole lot more olives then if you bought a small can of already chopped olives. I just cut them in thirds and threw them in with the soup and milk mixture.
5. Add the soup mixture to your pan of meat and mix very well.
5. Lastly, shred your choice of cheese. I actually used three different kinds: Colby & Monterey Jack and Mozzarella.
6. Putting it together... in a 9x9 dish lay down a layer of half of the tater tots, top with your meat/soup mix, then half of your cheese, then the last half of your tater tots, and finally the last half of your cheese. Pop in the oven for 35 minutes and get ready to smell of awesomeness of an easy meal!
Prep time: 25 min. Cook time: 35 min. Serving Size: 4 - 6
Ingredients:
1 lb. ground turkey meat (or your own ground meat)
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 can condensed cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup milk
1 can whole ripe olives
1 1/2 cups shredded cheese
1 bag frozen tater tots
Nutritional Facts: (this is for one serving considering you make the recipe serve 6 people, roughly getting about 1/4 pound of meat in your serving)
Calories: 420
Calories from fat: 235
Sodium: 1157 mg. 48%
- Remember you can add your choice of meat but that will increase the calories and sodium amounts.
- Add your own seasonings to bring it to the flavor you desire.
- Be creative with your cheese and maybe add lower calorie choices.
- In my recipe I actually didn't have any milk (no milk...seriously?...I guess that's what I get for having a milk loving husband and we go through almost 2 gallons a week. And I don't even drink milk! haha). So what I did to substitute for my half cup of milk was use a half cup of buttermilk with 1 tsp. of baking soda or powder to counteract the acid flavor.