Tips to Reduce Sugar in Diwali Desserts

IFB Spice Secrets

Tips to Reduce Sugar in Diwali Desserts

By IFB | November 12, 2020

Is your sweet tooth during Diwali festivities hampering your desire for healthy living? Sugar and artificial sweeteners are common barriers to preparing recipes that don’t affect our health adversely. However, just swapping out a few ingredients in dishes and reducing our dependence on sugar to satisfy our cravings can go a long way in making recipes healthier.

So do you wish to make your festive desserts tasty, yet healthy?

Here are some tips to reduce sugar in your Diwali dessert recipes.

Avoid Cane Sugar

Replace cane sugar in your recipes with honey or maple syrup. Both have lower glycemic index, meaning they don’t increase blood sugar levels as fast as cane sugar does. They are also naturally sweeter than sugar, so you need to put less of them in your dish.

Use Jaggery in Sweet Dishes

Jaggery is a useful and healthier substitute for sugar in various sweet dishes. It also helps in nicely binding dishes such as ladoos, barfis, pedha, kalakand, etc.

Put Less Sugar in Fruit Recipes

To make custard sauce, it is good to put less sugar during preparation. Once the fruits are added, the custard tends to become sweeter due to the fruit juice seeping into the dish.

Soak in Milk When Making Halwa

While making halwa from carrot, doodhi, beetroot, etc., it’s good to soak the grated vegetables in milk. This helps the vegetables to cook faster and the sugar requirement can be reduced.

Don’t Add Sugar If Using Condensed Milk

If you are using condensed milk for Indian sweet dishes, completely avoid adding sugar in the recipe as this can make the dish extremely sweet.

Use Spices for Natural Sweetness

To give a natural sweet flavour to your food and drinks, cut down on sugars and replace with spices such as cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg or ginger.

Use Fruit Pulp to Sweeten Dishes

You can include pulp of dried peach, apricot, dates, sultanas and raisins as natural sweeteners while preparing dishes.

Switch to Naturally Sweet Alternatives

Replace your dessert cravings with something more naturally sweet, such as dates, grapes, etc.

Include Stevia in Dishes

Use stevia in recipes, as it has almost zero calories. Research suggests that those with diabetes and who are trying to lose weight can benefit from its use, as it also helps in keeping blood sugar levels in check.

Making some small changes in our lifestyle and switching a few ingredients in our recipes go a long way in cooking healthy sweet dishes. This festive season, follow these easy tips to celebrate health and make your Diwali and other festivals free from guilt.

Wishing all our readers a Happy, Healthy Diwali!

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