The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

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  • Green goddess dip

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Dips, spreads & salsas; Appetizers / starters; Entertaining & parties; American
    • Ingredients: sour cream; mayonnaise; parsley; tarragon; canned anchovies; chives
    show

  • Caramelized onion dip

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Dips, spreads & salsas; Appetizers / starters; Entertaining & parties
    • Ingredients: sour cream; mayonnaise; apple cider vinegar; scallions; Worcestershire sauce
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  • Hummus

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Dips, spreads & salsas; Appetizers / starters; Entertaining & parties
    • Ingredients: chickpeas; lemons; tahini; garlic; ground cayenne pepper
    • Accompaniments: Basic pita chips
    show

  • Roasted red pepper hummus

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Dips, spreads & salsas; Appetizers / starters; Entertaining & parties
    • Ingredients: chickpeas; lemons; tahini; garlic; ground cayenne pepper; red peppers
    show

  • Light and creamy dip base

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Dips, spreads & salsas; Appetizers / starters; Entertaining & parties
    • Ingredients: sour cream; mayonnaise
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  • Sun-dried tomato and basil dip

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Dips, spreads & salsas; Appetizers / starters; Entertaining & parties
    • Ingredients: sour cream; mayonnaise; sun-dried tomatoes; basil
    show

  • Lemon-caper dip

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Dips, spreads & salsas; Appetizers / starters; Entertaining & parties
    • Ingredients: sour cream; mayonnaise; lemons; capers; chives
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  • Chipotle-cilantro dip

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Dips, spreads & salsas; Appetizers / starters; Entertaining & parties
    • Ingredients: sour cream; mayonnaise; canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce; cilantro; scallions
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  • Pesto dip

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Dips, spreads & salsas; Appetizers / starters; Entertaining & parties
    • Ingredients: sour cream; mayonnaise; basil; Parmesan cheese; garlic
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  • Tapenade dip

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Dips, spreads & salsas; Appetizers / starters; Entertaining & parties
    • Ingredients: sour cream; mayonnaise; Kalamata olives; parsley; garlic
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  • Blue cheese, scallion,a nd black pepper dip

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Dips, spreads & salsas; Appetizers / starters; Entertaining & parties
    • Ingredients: blue cheese; scallions; sour cream; mayonnaise
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  • Roasted red pepper spread

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Dips, spreads & salsas; Appetizers / starters; Entertaining & parties
    • Ingredients: walnuts; red peppers; sandwich bread; molasses; ground cumin; ground cayenne pepper
    • Accompaniments: Basic pita chips
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  • Yogurt cheese

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Dips, spreads & salsas; Appetizers / starters; Entertaining & parties
    • Ingredients: yogurt
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  • Chipotle-cilantro yogurt cheese spread

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Dips, spreads & salsas; Appetizers / starters; Entertaining & parties
    • Ingredients: yogurt; canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce; ground cumin; cilantro
    show

  • Smoked salmon yogurt cheese spread

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Dips, spreads & salsas; Appetizers / starters; Entertaining & parties
    • Ingredients: yogurt; smoked salmon; red onions; capers; dill
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  • Garlic and herb yogurt cheese spread

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Dips, spreads & salsas; Appetizers / starters; Entertaining & parties
    • Ingredients: yogurt; parsley; tarragon
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  • Red pepper jelly-almond yogurt cheese spread

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Dips, spreads & salsas; Appetizers / starters; Entertaining & parties
    • Ingredients: yogurt; mango chutney; almonds; parsley; Tabasco sauce
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  • Pimiento yogurt cheese spread

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Dips, spreads & salsas; Appetizers / starters; Entertaining & parties
    • Ingredients: yogurt; green olives
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  • Basic pita chips

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Bread & rolls, savory; Snacks; Entertaining & parties; Middle Eastern
    • Ingredients: pita bread
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  • Garlic-herb pita chips

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Bread & rolls, savory; Snacks; Entertaining & parties; Middle Eastern
    • Ingredients: pita bread; thyme; garlic
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  • Chili-spiced pita chips

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Bread & rolls, savory; Snacks; Entertaining & parties; Middle Eastern
    • Ingredients: pita bread; chile powder; ground cayenne pepper
    show

  • Roasted artichoke dip

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Dips, spreads & salsas; Appetizers / starters
    • Ingredients: artichokes; mayonnaise; cream cheese; Parmesan cheese; thyme; ground cayenne pepper; breadcrumbs
    • Accompaniments: Crostini
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  • Fresh tomato salsa

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Dips, spreads & salsas; Vegetarian
    • Ingredients: tomatoes; jalapeño chiles; red onions; cilantro
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  • Guacamole

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Dips, spreads & salsas; Appetizers / starters; Mexican; Vegetarian
    • Ingredients: tomatoes; lima beans; avocados; mayonnaise; cilantro; jalapeño chiles; red onions; ground cumin
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  • Crostini

    from The Best Light Recipe The Best Light Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

    • Categories: Appetizers / starters
    • Ingredients: baguette bread
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Notes about this book

  • kiwimary on September 26, 2012

    Although the intention behind this book is excellent, I don't think it really achieves it. Reducing fat in common recipes is good, but even after re-working the ingredients etc, lots of the recipes are still very high in fat and/or sugar. Maybe one just shouldn't eat some things if one is trying to reduce fat and calorie intake.

Notes about Recipes in this book

  • Vegetable and cheese lasagna

    • cthdawn on April 07, 2011

      used spinach instead of broccoli; didn't taste like vegetarian; mushrooms were fantastic

  • Pasta with turkey sausage and broccoli

    • Lindalib on February 07, 2014

      This was good, although the flavor wasn't as assertive as I expected given that it had lots of garlic, anchovies onions ,and sun-dried tomatoes in it. I did substitute rigatoni for the rotini called for because that's all I had on hand. I also skipped the step of drying the broccoli on paper towels. One of my pet peeves with ATK recipes is that they all seem to require tons of paper towel.s.

  • Eggplant Parmesan

    • Spruce616 on September 03, 2011

      Very good. Eggplant is baked, not fried.

  • Chicken pot pie

    • Lu1950s on March 14, 2013

      This recipe was absolutely delicious! The kids and husband loved it. The sauce was a little thinner than what I would have liked, so I might decrease the chicken broth to 2 3/4 cups. I had some leftover frozen sweet corn in the freezer so I added it to the sauce. The biscuits on top were super tasty. I'll make this again.

  • Roast pork tenderloin

    • sookie on November 02, 2011

      p. 219 ; 2 12 oz pork tenderloins, 1 T vegetable oil

  • Turkey meatloaf with brown sugar-ketchup glaze

    • jtodes on January 20, 2017

      Very good. I have made it many times and never had problems with the listed times. It also freezes well.

    • joeb7474 on August 21, 2014

      This recipe is amazing in theory but i've made this recipe many times and the recipe is wrong in how long it takes to make. It It's taken me much longer. I've worked this out VERY CAREFULLY, following the recipe to the letter and still the inside takes forever to cook. Use your instant read thermometer on this one.

  • Oven-baked brown rice

    • Rella on November 03, 2011

      I made this receipe with Tilda Brown Basmati long grain rice11-3-11 following the receipe. I did not use a pyrex 8x8 with foil as suggested; but, I used a stainless steel high-sided skillet with the bottom measured exactly 9" round. I used the skillet for another reason: the fact that it has a lid that fits, whereas I didn't want to use aluminium foil. The rice in the bottom of the pan IMO stuck no more than rice would have stuck to a pyrex pan. The skillet will have to be soaked and will have to be washed by hand; whereas a pyrex could be soaked and added to the dishwasher. For some reason, I like my method of baking in a skiller with its appropriate cover.

  • Chicken Parmesan

    • jbuchman on July 05, 2020

      Great low fat version.

    • jbuchman on July 05, 2020

      Great low fat version.

  • Sweet-and-sour sauce

    • Lsperoutka on October 26, 2021

      The ingredient list is misleading. Recipe calls for orange juice, freshly squeezed preferable. Also red wine vinegar.

  • Meat and cheese lasagna

    • springandfall on March 19, 2016

      Remarkably good - does not taste like a light recipe - and at least there is no fussing with bechamel. But this is indeed time-consuming. In the future I would perhaps make double the meat-and-tomato sauce and freeze half so that making the next lasagna becomes less time-consuming. When basil is out of season, it's fine to use a couple of those pesto cubes you froze in ice-cube trays last summer (if you did!).

    • joeb7474 on August 21, 2014

      The only negative is that this recipe is very time consuming. BUT the flavor is amazing. You'll never miss full-fat lasagna. I hesitated giving this recipe 5 stars because of the length of time it takes to make this. The flavor is so good though that it surpassed the one flaw.

  • Chocolate chip cookies

    • springandfall on February 05, 2014

      Turned to this because we were low on butter, not to avoid fat, but what a discovery: you can't taste the difference. Fantastic! That the recipe supplies measurements for dry ingredients in weight as well as volume means you can use a kitchen scale and avoid dirtying any measuring cups.

  • Stir-fried chicken, pineapple, and red onion in sweet-and-sour sauce

    • robinj on August 08, 2014

      This doesn't use cooked chicken breasts (I don't know how to get it corrected)

  • Yogurt cheese

    • swegener on February 01, 2015

      I've made this several times, it is quick and easy. Just make sure you get natural yogurt--not with stabilizers. I like it with plain non-fat yogurt--or greek yogurt to save time. I've cooked with this as a sub for cream cheese.

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  • ISBN 10 0936184973
  • ISBN 13 9780936184975
  • Published Aug 31 2006
  • Format Hardcover
  • Language English
  • Countries United States

Publishers Text

Would you bake 28 light cheesecakes to find the one you'd actually want to eat They did, so you only have to bake one, and they guarantee it will come out perfect every time.

The Best Light Recipe offers more than 300 full-flavored lower-fat and reduced calorie recipes that still taste great and are guaranteed foolproof by the test cooks and editors who bring you Cook's Illustrated magazine.

For the first time ever, the editors of Cook's Illustrated magazine have devoted an entire book--more than 300 recipes, from appetizers to desserts--to lighter versions of family favorites. From guacamole and bake pita chips, a honey-Dijon Vinaigrette, hearty chicken noodle soup, and macaroni and cheese, to lasagna, spaghetti and meatballs, blueberry muffins and even chocolate cake, we cut the calories and fat without sacrificing flavor. The Best Light Recipe also includes naturally healthy recipes like salsa, gazpacho and poached salmon as well as other recipes that are tweaked to be even lighter and healthier like stir-fry chicken, grilled tuna burgers, and pan-roasted asparagus.

  • 300 flavorful lower-fat recipes and recipe makeovers.
  • Includes nutrition counts and sidebars.
  • All recipes reviewed and fact-checked by a registered dietitian.
  • Healthy cooking techniques revealed.
  • List of nutritional resources.

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