How to Throw a Healthy Dinner Party

A Meal That Pleases Your Body and Taste Buds -- By Zach Van Hart, Staff Writer

It’s Saturday night and the monthly dinner party is at your house. You want a meal that meets your friends’ taste standards, but you want it to be healthy too! Here’s a guideline for a SparkDiet dinner party menu. It comes complete with every food group, salad and dessert, while avoiding unhealthy party pitfalls and overeating.

Salad

Citrus and Black Bean Salad (Recipe)

Want to prepare a salad that’s not a salad? Tired of all that lettuce? The Citrus and Black Bean Salad is a perfect and healthy alternative. A mixture of orange, grapefruit, black beans, red onions, and avocado, this salad is very unique. It is a great source of fruit, packs an exotic taste and has less than 5 grams of fat per serving. Check out the full recipe above to see how it’s prepared and for more nutritional info.

Main Course

Sticky Chicken (Recipe)
     With: Green Beans Sauté – (Recipe) and
               Sweet Potato Custard – (Recipe)

This main course has it all – a meat dish that everyone will love, one of the healthiest veggies you can eat and a sweet side dish without the typical sugar and empty calories. The Sticky Chicken is spiced with many different ingredients that give the chicken its sticky texture. A key note: the chicken needs to cook for 5 hours, so start cooking early. Green beans are among the top vegetables you can eat because they include several essential vitamins while containing no fat or cholesterol. They will taste great sautéed. The Sweet Potato Custard also features bananas, giving it a very distinct taste, but still is a very healthy treat considering how the main ingredients bring key vitamins to the plate. Click the links above to find the exact recipes and ingredients.

Dessert

Angel Food Cake with strawberries and light whipped topping – (Recipe)

We bet this will be one of your all-time favorite desserts. The Angel Food Cake is very healthy, but it will pop with flavor when you add strawberries to it. Even though whipped cream will give you a few calories, choosing a light variety will cut down on the heavy dosage. Besides, after serving a tasty and healthy meal that you and your dinner guests will love, you deserve a little treat!