Easy Healthy Laksa

I had my first taste of Laksa in Darwin. Darwin is a hotspot (literally) for Laksa, so it was a good place for us to become acquainted.

One of the downsides to most Laksa recipes is the salt content. For people with a heart condition or kidney issues, you have probably been told to reduce salt intake or have been given a limit per day. If this is you, I'm sorry but Laksa is probably not going to be suitable. You can get a low salt laksa paste but it is quite expensive and I have seen recipes for the paste which are low in salt. So if you want to go to the effort of making a low salt laksa paste yourself, good on you!

For the rest of us, there are a few simple health tips you can add to your favourite recipe. Firstly, think about

bulking it up with vegetables.

As you can see from the photo, I have used bok choy, carrot, capsicum, zucchini and mushrooms. It gives it a lovely combination of colours, and colours are where you get a lot of phytonutrients from. So go the colours of the rainbow!

When you are adding coconut milk, choose a low fat version. You will still get excellent flavour.

Also, remember that all the added extras count as extra energy you are putting in. So choose wisely based on your health goals. For example, crunchy noodles are high in saturated fats. Some recipes add tofu puffs. Again, these are high in energy and not strictly necessary. They are nice though. Another common laksa topper is the fried shallots. These are also high in energy, but most people don't add much.

Noodles are also typically added to Laksa. You can choose noodles that are lower in energy like the Wokka Ramen Noodles or the Konjac based noodles, like Changs lo-cal Noodles. Although, I prefer the ramen style.

Happy Laksa day! (BTW that is actually a day in March, so plenty of time to practice your laksa skills).