3 Lower-Calorie Chinese Dishes to Eat When Dieting

There are over 45,000 Chinese restaurants operating in the USA. It is one of the most popular cuisines in the country, as it is both generally affordable and delicious. It also comes in nice, big portions and has so many varieties of flavors and dishes that you could keep ordering it every week for a year with a different dish each time. 

However, if you’re on a weight loss program, choosing the right dish for your takeout might prove difficult. Chinese food has a lot of fatty and sodium-rich dishes that are made to be filling and more delicious than healthy.

The good news is that you shouldn’t have to stop ordering from your favorite Chinese restaurant. There are plenty of items on our takeout menu that are just as healthy as they are scrumptious.

Here are some healthy Chinese food alternatives if you’re trying to keep your calorie intake low:

Steamed dumplings and a bowl of soup instead of egg rolls

Egg rolls are some of the best-loved Chinese restaurant appetizers, but just four fried egg rolls clock in at 680 calories. Depending on the amount of exercise you get, that is a full meal’s worth of calories to put in just your appetizer. 

A delicious alternative to this filling appetizer are steamed pork dumplings. They can go as low as 200 calories per serving of four. If you want a little bit more from your appetizers, try pairing your dumplings with a cup of egg drop soup, which is roughly around 40 calories.

Eating soup at the start of the meal also reduces the average person’s calorie intake per meal by up to 20 percent.

Anything simmered, steamed, or roasted instead of anything battered and fried

There is no denying how delicious battered and fried food is, especially in Chinese cuisine. However, anything fried is not really low on the calorie count. Those fried crispy entrees you might see on a Chinese menu clock in at around 1,000 calories for a portion good for one person. That’s already a significant amount of your daily intake gone in a single sitting. 

On the other hand, a dish like ginger chicken can serve multiple people and is only 530 calories. You could pair it with some vegetable dishes and still have room for dessert. You can even cut that down a bit further by ordering the sauce on the side, as the sauces can be 200 calories per serving. 

Sizzling platter prawns, scallops, or shrimps instead of shrimp-fried rice

Rice is already fairly high in terms of calorie count, but to fry it with shrimp escalates to 600 calories per serving. On the other hand, an entree-sized order of prawns, shrimps, or scallops in a sizzling platter will have the same amount of calories for a greater amount that can be shared with multiple people. 

Sauces used in sizzling dishes contain less sugar than other sauces. Otherwise, these would burn on a hot pan. They are substituted for other sauces and flavors, such as fish sauces and lobster sauces, that have fewer calories. 

In conclusion

It does not necessarily mean that delicious food means more calories. Conversely, it also doesn’t mean that lower calories mean the food should taste less than great. Luckily, there are plenty of options in Chinese cuisine that are both healthy and mouth-watering. 

If you’d like to order takeout from the best Chinese restaurant in Houston, send us a message at Ocean Palace Restaurant. We have a great selection of healthy and scrumptious foods for every person’s preference.