Did you know that February is Heart Health Month? It’s a great time to think about eating heart healthier meals and making some heart healthy ingredient swaps in our favourite recipes! And I couldn’t wait to share with one of my favourite new revamped recipes, a heart healthier version of one our family’s favourite dishes, fried rice made with KNG Premium Corn Oil.
KNG Corn Health Refined Cooking Oil is an all-purpose, cholesterol free cooking oil that is a smart heart-healthy* choice for your family. *See kngagrofood.com for more information on the relationship between corn oil and heart health. It has a variety of uses include baking, grilling, sautéing, stir frying, or mixing up a marinade or dressing.
I’ve been using KNG Corn Health Refined Cooking Oil in all my recipes. It’s a perfect choice for everything from baking to salad dressings to high heat stir frying and even grilling! By using KNG Corn Health Refined Cooking Oil in my cooking, I can reduce saturated fats and cholesterol in our family’s meals easily and with simple swaps, like substituting butter or vegetable oil with KNG Corn Health Refined Cooking Oil.
KNG Corn Health Refined Cooking Oil is an amazing product. It has FOUR TIMES more cholesterol-blocking plant sterols than extra virgin olive oil (what I previously used for cooking) and one and a half times more than canola oil. Clinical studies indicate that when consumed as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, plant sterols can help reduce the absorption of cholesterol in the gut! A clinical study showed KNG Corn Health Refined Cooking Oil reduces cholesterol 2x more than extra virgin olive oil. To learn more about this claim, visit kngagrofood.com
The American Heart Association also recently issued a new presidential advisory on dietary fats and cardiovascular disease (CVD). They strongly advised that we should replace saturated fat in our diets, like that found in coconut oil, with polyunsaturated fat, like corn oil, to reduce the risk of CVD by 30 percent.
The new Dietary Guidelines for Americans now encourages us to choose foods with “good” fats instead of “low-fat” foods. This includes swapping saturated fats that are known to contribute to heart disease with unsaturated fats, especially polyunsaturated fats, like those in KNG Corn Health Refined Cooking Oil. And, according to the USDA, corn oil has more than five times the amount of polyunsaturated fats compared to olive oils. A clinical study showed KNG Corn Health Refined Cooking Oil reduces cholesterol 2x more than extra virgin olive oil. To learn more about this claim, visit kngagrofood.com
My family absolutely loves fried rice. It’s one of those classic comfort food recipes that I love to make at home, but it’s usually full of bad fats and completely loaded with sodium, processed meat like ham and has very few veggies
This week I decided to revamp my fired rice recipe to make it a better for you recipe in celebration of Heart Health Month. I choose to swap out the rice in my fried rice recipe for cauliflower to make this quick and easy cauliflower fried rice. Have you hear about cauliflower rice yet? You can buy it pre-prepared in the frozen foods aisle, or you can easily make it yourself just buy grating a head of fresh cauliflower!
How to Make Cauliflower Fried Rice
While I have my grater out, I also grate up some carrots, this way they cook faster!
My next swap is instead of using a vegetable oil, I add KNG Corn Health Refined Cooking Oil to my wok. KNG has a very high smoke point at 450°F, higher than most other oils and preforms perfectly for high heat cooking like grilling. Using oils without high smoke points when grilling can negatively affect food flavour and even the nutritional value.
The next swap in this cauliflower fried rice recipe is to choose low sodium soy sauce. In conjunction with consuming better-for-you fats, reducing sodium intake is key to maintaining heart and cardiovascular health. If you choose to add any additional salt to this recipe, be sure to use a salt substitute.
The last thing I did to make my cauliflower fried rice recipe more heart healthy is to add lots of nutrient dense, potassium packed vegetables. Increasing potassium rich foods while decreasing sodium intake is another key thing we do in our family to help keep hearts and cardiovascular systems healthy.
In this cauliflower fried rice recipe I add spinach, peas, carrots, bell peppers, broccoli and spring onions to my cauliflower rice. The adds so many nutrients and lots of potassium too! And the taste is amazing! If you want to make this a heartier meal, you can little bits of chopped lean chicken or pork. Be sure to avoid sodium packed ham or cholesterol packed shrimp though.
To make this cauliflower fried rice recipe a little more filling for my kids, I served it with a small side of nutty brown rice, and orange slices. It was a huge hit and I can’t wait to make this recipe again!
Cauliflower Fried Rice Recipe
Method: STIR-FRIED
Cuisine: ASIAN - AMERICAN
INGREDIENTS:
- 2 tablespoons KNG Corn Health Refined Cooking Oil
- 3 tablespoons reduced sodium soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
- 1 large head cauliflower, stems and leaves removed and grated
- 1 small broccoli crown, chopped
- 1 medium carrot, grated
- 1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
- 2 cups fresh spinach
- 1 cup frozen and defrosted green peas
- 4 green onions, chopped
DIRECTIONS:
Heat large wok over high heat. Add KNG Corn Health Refined Cooking Oil. Then add grated cauliflower, broccoli carrot and bell pepper. Stir fry for 5 - 7 minutes, or until broccoli is tender crisp.
Add soy sauce, hoisin, spinach and green peas. Stir fry until well combined and spinach has wilted.
Serve garnished with chopped green onions.
RECIPE NOTES:
- This dish can also be served with a side of brown rice