Welcome to HUNGRY GIRL TO THE MAX! The Ultimate Guilt-Free Cookbook, a.k.a. your
HUNGRY GIRL BIBLE. This is the most MASSIVE and complete Hungry Girl book in existence—a must-have for anyone who craves decadent food without the high-calorie price tag. What’s inside? A whopping 650 guilt-free recipes for any and every food you crave. We’ve taken HG classics—egg mugs, faux-frys, oversized oatmeal bowls, crock-pot recipes, foil packs, fast-food swaps, and more—and put them in one tremendous must-own collection. Then we developed hundreds more of these favorites just for YOU. Love our Lord of the Onion Rings? There are EIGHT versions to enjoy. Is Hungry Girlfredo your favorite? TEN terrific variations to chomp on. New to HG, or just wanna know more? Keep reading …
HUNGRY GIRL IN A HUNDRED WORDS OR LESS
Hungry Girl is a lifestyle brand that started as a free daily email service about guilt-free eating. The emails (read by over a million people a day) feature news, food finds, recipes, and real-world tips and survival strategies. Hungry Girl was started by me, Lisa Lillien.
I’m not a doctor or nutrition professional; I’m just hungry! Back in 2004, I decided I wanted to share my love and knowledge of guilt-free eating with the world, so Hungry Girl was born. To sign up for the daily emails or to see what you’ve missed since the beginning, go to hungry-girl.com.
GUILT-FREE EATING 101
The Hungry Girl way of eating is a bridge between the average American junk-food-packed diet and the idealistic way of eating perfectly healthy foods at all times. It’s a realistic approach to better-for-you eating that people can actually live with and feel good about. HG recipes fulfill real-world cravings for EVERYTHING—including fattening things like fried food, pizza, and mac’n cheese—without containing a tremendous amount of calories and fat. These recipes can help you to achieve and maintain a healthy weight without feeling deprived.
INSIDE THE HG RECIPE LAB …
When creating HG recipes, the goal is to make them taste delicious while keeping them low in fat and calories. We also aim for high fiber and protein counts to help you feel full and satisfied. Nutritional information is also provided for sodium, carbs, sugars, etc., so you can look at a recipe and decide if it works for you. You can, of course, make substitutions for products and ingredients, but the taste and nutritional info will vary accordingly. It’s that simple …
THE 411 ON CLASSIC RECIPES REVISITED
This book contains many classic HG recipes, and some of’em have been updated. For example, we’ve SUPER-SIZED our very first oatmeal bowls. The ingredients called for in this book are also easier to find than ingredients in past books. When a recipe’s nutritionals differ slightly from those in a previous HG cookbook, it’s because the recipe has been revamped a bit. The nutritional stats for each version of the recipe are 100 percent accurate—the recipes themselves are just slightly different.
BEHIND THE NUTRITIONALS: HOW WE DO IT
The stats for each recipe are carefully calculated by doing extensive research—using extremely reliable nutritional databases and countless product labels. When recipes call for generic ingredients (like tortillas or burger patties), we calculate averages based on a wide variety of national brands. Also taken into account are the small amounts of calories and fat in many so-called no-calorie and fat-free ingredients. We work extremely hard to determine the most accurate nutritional information possible for our recipes—not only because we care about you, but because the Hungry Girl staff and I make and eat them too!
NAVIGATING TO THE MAX
With more than 600 recipes, we knew we had to make it super-easy to find what you’re looking for. In addition to the table of contents and the recipes listed at the start of each chapter, we’ve added symbols throughout the book to help you quickly spot what you’re after …
15 Minutes or LessThis symbol lets you know a recipe should take you no more than fifteen minutes from start to finish! That includes prep and cook time.
30 Minutes or LessJust like the 15-minute version, this one points out recipes that take 30 minutes or less to whip up.
MeatlessYou guessed it—no meat here! That includes beef, poultry, and fish. Some recipes give the option of a meat less ingredient. If you want your meal without meat, go with the meatless choice.
Single ServingPretty straightforward. These are recipes for one.
5 Ingredients or LessFans of HG know that we like to keep things simple. And these recipes contain just five ingredients or less!
PhotosThese recipes can be seen in one of the book’s photo inserts. The number in the symbol tells you which insert. Find photos of all the recipes at hungry-girl.com/books!
Flip to the back of the book for COMPLETE LISTS of every recipe in each of these categories. And for more helpful assistance, check out our super-deluxe index!
SPLENDA & SUGAR SWAPPIN’!’!
Many HG desserts call for Splenda No Calorie Sweetener (granulated) because it has around 90 percent fewer calories than sugar. We use real sugar in recipes when not much sweetener is needed or when the taste of real sugar makes a big difference.
Some people prefer one or the other across the board, so we’ve provided recipe stats if made with the alternative for every recipe! The few exceptions are recipes in which the nutritional difference is negligible; in those cases, the ingredients are listed interchangeably.
GET THE PHOTOS AND POINTSPLUS® VALUES FOR ALL 650 RECIPES!
Not every single recipe is lucky enough to have a photo here, so we’ve captured each and every one for your online viewing pleasure!
Also, we’re big fans of Weight Watchers, and we know many of you are too. For your convenience, we’ve provided the Weight Watchers PointsPlus® value* for each and every recipe in HUNGRY GIRL TO THE MAX! online.
Visit hungry-girl.com/books for the photos and values!
*The PointsPlus® values for these recipes were calculated by Hungry Girl and are not an endorsement or approval of the recipe or developer by Weight Watchers International, Inc., the owner of the PointsPlus® registered trademark.