I'm making chicken & vegetable kebabs for dinner, where the meat & veggies are marinated in a combination of olive oil, white wine, and spices. I'm sure there will be marinade left in the bag after I thread the kebabs, and it will also drip off while cooking.

How would you account for this? I'm tempted to just say I had the equiv. of a tbs of olive oil (119 cal) and consider it done.

I guesstimate or use marinades that have low calories, or use a very small amount of marindade in a ziploc bag with the meat. I mush and turn the bag to distribute the marinade, and with practice I now know how much to add so there is no leftovers. Most marinade recipes are twice or more what you need, a quarter cup of liquid marinade is more than enough to marinade a pound or even more of meat.

I wouldn't count a whole TBSP of oil per serving. I'd say a teaspoon should be adequate for counting purposes, if you have a reasonable portion. How much oil do you add to the marinade?

Jay

There was 3/4 cup of oil and 3 tbs wine, which marinated 20 cherry tomatoes, 2 bell peppers, 2 zucchini, and 2lbs chicken. There was at least 1/4 cup left of the marinade. I had 5 kebab pieces (1/3 lb) and a pile of veggies (probably 1/4 of the total amount of veggies).

I don't worry about the marinades. I just eat my grilled food and move on. LOL!

Aha! So a lot of oil in your recipe.

I have a marinade recipe that uses a lot less oil but more wine or Mirin and/or diluted soy sauce or tamari. Oh, and chopped garlic.

Jay

I tend to do brines more than marinades because yeah they add some salt but they have less fat. I also substitute chicken or beef broth for the oil in some. I just PAM the grill well and don't worry about it.

I would overestimate. For me, sauces are one of the most evil things out there, so if I were in your place, I would have flavored the meat (at least the meat that I was eating, if not my family's) with calorie-free things, like spices alone.

Hmm I would probably measure the amount of marinade before and then drain the items really well back in the bag and measure the amount that's left. If there were less oil in it I wouldn't bother but even a little oil can add a ton of calories. Plus any that drips off when you cook is therefore free deficiet!

It sounds like maybe you could use some marinade recipes that use a lot less oil, especially for chicken and veggies. If you're concerned about counting calories then I would not be using that much oil for a marinade.

Point well taken... I have a wonderful grilling cookbook that I've been using for years, so of course I just automatically reached for it when the weather turned hot... Looks like it's yet another area to be more mindful about... I skimmed through some of my other tried and true recipes from the book, and fortunately not all of them are so heavy on the oils...