[LiannaKole]

I love creamy sauces. Sometimes pureeing veggies to make them "creamy" just doesn't do it for me. So, I altered a traditional white sauce recipe to make it healthier and lower calorie (I'm a calorie counter).

For contrast, I'll give you the original recipe. It's even supposed to be the "healthy" version because it uses skim and not whole milk.

Each recipe makes about 1 cup.

ORIGINAL
2 tbsp flour (60 calories)
2 tbsp butter (204 calories)
1 cup skim milk (90 calories)
Salt and pepper to taste
Total calories: 354

My recipe is much lighter.

1 tbsp cornstarch (30 calories)*
1 cup unsweetened almond or soy milk (35 calories)
Salt and pepper to taste
Total calories: 65

Directions
In a small saucepan over medium heat, add unsweetened almond/soy milk. Add cornstarch and whisk until the milk and cornstarch are well combined. Stir the sauce constantly as it thickens (otherwise it will stick/burn to the bottom). Add more milk or a little water depending on desired consistency.

That's a 289 calorie difference!!

Now, the plain white sauce isn't that tasty to me (either version), so I usually mix in some turkey or something to make creamed turkey. Or, if I want it on pasta, for my version I add:

2 tbsp parmesan (40)
Garlic powder to taste

This brings the total to 105 calories for 1 cup of sauce.

My friends who aren't losing weight also loved the sauce! They wanted more of it.

[sunshauna]

Thanks for posting this! I recently cut WAY back on dairy and was wondering what to do about my beloved biscuits and gravy. I'm going to try the soy or almond milk.

[cornellchick]

Oh cool, thank you for this!!! I like to make creamed tuna by adding a couple cans of tuna to white sauce, and serving it over rice, but the calorie count does get quite high. This might be a good way to keep the calorie "price" more reasonable.

[Psychic]

I might try this with some wheat noodles and ground turkey.

[Renwomin]

Thanks for sharing. I've always bit a bit hesitant to use soy or almond milk this way because of taste. I'm to hear it turned out well!

Do you find one tastes better than the the other? It looks like a lot of soy milks are the same calories as nonfat milk. (The plain soy milk we have is 80 calories a cup.) I'll have to keep an eye out for that too. I think this might be why I also haven't embraced it as a milk swap, but if I can find ones that I can save half the calories that would be awesome. Since my husband has gone non-dairy I should get used to it besides!