Healthy Cream Sauce Recipe

Like most people I love cream sauces but, let's be honest, they are a guilty pleasure that taste amazing but always make you think "I know I shouldn't be eating this, but it just tastes so good." The Holy Grail of cream sauces is a rich, thick sauce with all of the velvety smoothness of cream but only a fraction of the calories. In the past I have achieved this by substituting silken tofu for the cream, a technique that works extremely well but it occurred to me that there was also another option for creating delicious cream-less cream sauce.

This recipe, while great for home cooks, is especially well suited for liveaboards (i.e. people that live on boats) or for campers because it's made entirely from canned foods. Living on a boat myself, I am always looking for ways to make tasty meals out of canned foods because I don' have any refrigeration. While I prefer to cook with fresh ingredients, that isn't always possible and longer journeys or extended stays away from food sources require the use of canned and preserved foods. No matter how delicious that can of chili is, it's going to get tiresome if you can't find new ways of transforming it.

Because I don't have refrigeration on my boat, I rarely cook with any meat so most of my dishes are actually vegetarian, This particular dish was made and photographed with pan-seared chicken because I was cooking for my wife who decided she wanted some chicken. The recipe for this sauce however works equally as well for vegetarians by substituting the chicken for one of the following ingredients as the 'body' of the dish:

• Canned Whole Potatoes.
• Canned Brussels Sprouts
• Canned (or Jarred) Mushrooms (my personal favorite)

If you have a little bit of the sauce left after you have finished your meal, there are a few ways to use that so that you don't waste any food. One great way to use this sauce is to serve it up with rice almost like you would a curry. In fact, a good friend of mine suggested adding ground coriander, ginger and cayenne pepper to transform it into a faux tika!

Another tasty way is to use it as a pasta sauce. Add chicken, shrimp or even just mushrooms and you have yourself an excellent meal made from left over sauce.

Unless you are Hawaiian, the very thought of spam probably sends cold shivers up your spine. However, I was recently at the local grocery store and saw something I had never seen before, Chorizo flavored spam. Cut into meatball sized cubes and baked, broiled or roasted, I am confident this would be a reasonably flavorful dish. I will try it and report back.

I also tried a variation of this sauce using a can of cream of broccoli soup and it was very enjoyable. I am looking forward to trying the same thing with cream of mushroom soup. I might even try using a can of tomato soup as well. As I try these variations I will make a note in the comments section so, if you want to know the results of these experiments, subscribe to the comments below.

Coconut Cream - I am also extremely keen to give this recipe a shot using coconut milk, coconut cream and cram of coconut. What's the difference you ask? Great question! Here's how I understand it according to TheKitchn.com:

Coconut milk: Coconut milk has the liquid consistency of cow's milk and is made from simmering one part shredded coconut in one part water. Coconut milk is the basis of most Thai curries.

Coconut cream: Coconut cream is much thicker and richer. It is made from simmering four parts shredded coconut in one part water. The cream that rises to the top of a can of coconut milk is also considered coconut cream.

Cream of coconut: Cream of coconut is a sweetened version of coconut cream, and is often used for desserts and mixed drinks. Because of the added sugar, it is usually not interchangeable with coconut cream.