This heart-healthy chocolate pie has no butter, egg yolks or whipped cream
Rich and creamy chocolate pie may seem like the perfect dessert, but the extra calories, fat and sodium aren’t good for your waistline or your health.
Today’s pie recipe offers lots of flavor but keeps you free of guilt.
Traditional pie crust is made with butter, lard or vegetable shortening — all high in saturated fat, which can raise LDL, or bad, cholesterol and increase the risk of heart disease and stroke. For our crust, we used graham crackers and a little margarine made mostly from unsaturated fats. In the past, margarine was made by a process that produced unhealthy trans fats, but these margarines are no longer sold in the U.S.
Chocolate pie filling typically contains butter, egg yolks and heavy cream, ingredients high in saturated fat and cholesterol. As a substitute, we blended fat-free cream cheese and chocolate pudding for a creamy texture without saturated fat.
Finally, most traditional chocolate pies are topped with whipped cream, another source of cholesterol and saturated fat. But we’re topping our pie with delicate raspberries. These sweet-tart berries are full of flavor and nutrition, and they’re a great complement to chocolate. One-half cup of raspberries provides 4 grams of fiber and 18% of daily vitamin C needs. Raspberries are also high in antioxidants, which protect cells from damage by free radicals.
We had fun testing this recipe many times to make sure we had the right combination of ingredients so you could get your chocolate fix with fewer than 200 calories per serving.
Bethany Thayer is a registered dietitian nutritionist with Henry Ford Health. For more recipes and health information, visit henryford.com/blog. For questions about today’s recipe, email HenryFordLiveWell@hfhs.org.
Chocolate Pie
Makes: 20 servings / Prep time: 30 minutes / Total time: 30 minutes plus cooling time
1 package (5.9-ounces) instant chocolate pudding mix
3 cups fat-free milk
1 ½ cups finely crushed graham crackers (about 21 squares)
¼ cup margarine, melted
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
5 tablespoons sugar
8 ounces fat-free cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup fresh raspberries
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
In a medium-sized bowl, whisk chocolate pudding mix and fat-free milk for 2 minutes. Place in refrigerator to chill. In a medium-sized bowl, combine crushed graham crackers, margarine and cocoa powder and mix well.
Transfer the crumb mixture to a 9-by-13-inch pan and pat down evenly to form a flat crust. Place pan in oven and bake for 5 minutes. Remove and cool on a cooling rack while preparing the pie filling.
Place the cream cheese in a medium bowl and beat until creamy. Slowly beat in the sugar and 1 ½ cups of the chocolate pudding. Cover the crust with the mixture and place in the refrigerator for an hour to set. Remove and top with remaining chocolate pudding and raspberries.
From Henry Ford LiveWell.
118 calories (22% from fat), 3 grams fat (0.5 grams sat. fat), 19 grams carbohydrates, 4 grams protein, 194 mg sodium, 2 cholesterol, 89 mg calcium, 1 grams fiber. Food exchanges: 1 starch, ½ milk, 1 fat.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Chocolate pie is low-calorie and free of butter, egg yolks and cream
