Happy Father's Day to all the fathers and father figures out there!
In honor of Father's Day, today's #nosaltsundays is my Dad's favorite thing: Chips and Salsa. My entire family adopted the low salt lifestyle when I was diagnosed with PH, and one of the first things we tried to find was the perfect recipe for was chips and salsa, since everything from the stores seemed too high in sodium. We wanted the taste of what we could get in a restaurant, but without the sodium. However, everything from the store was too high in sodium. So the hunt for lower sodium options began.
Starting with Chips... the store bought options can claim to be lower in sodium, lightly salted, or just claim to have more taste. However, the serving size and sodium amount almost never match up for the low salt lifestyle.
Tostitos is a common brand in most stores. Their original restaurant style chips has a serving size of 7 chips for 115mg of Sodium. Even their lightly salted version, is not much better. It runs about 7 chips for 55mg of Sodium. How many of us really only stop at 7 chips? If you are like me, you can eat almost a whole bag and not think twice.
While you can make your own chips for even lower sodium counts, there are luckily chips out there that are unsalted and pre-made. Here are two of my favorites:
First, Trader Joe's Unsalted Organic White Corn Tortilla Chips. This option has a serving size of 14 chips for 0mg of Sodium. The Second option is Xochitl no salt corn chips, found in most grocery stores. The serving size is 21 chips for 0mg of Sodium. Both are great options for no sodium chips, so you can enjoy more of them without the sodium guilt.
Now that the chips are figured out, next comes the salsa. Unfortunately, there are no pre-made no salt options available in grocery stores. You may be able to find options online from specialty stores, but they are expensive. The options form the grocery stores are packed with sodium. Look for example at Pace, a brand in most grocery stores. Before going on a low salt diet, my favorite salsa was Pace Picante Mild Salsa. For 2 TBSP of salsa, it has 250 mg of Sodium. Again, how many of us typically eat only 2 TBSP of salsa? A typical serving cup of salsa for snacking is 1 cup. Which means that is 2,000 mg of Sodium! More than your daily recommended amount per day. The solution... make the salsa yourself.
My dad is not a tomato fan, so I wanted to make a tomato-free salsa, full of flavor and low sodium. Tomatillos were the perfect solution. While they are in the same family as a tomato, it does not have the flavor of a typical tomato. After discovering the tomatillo, TWB's Grilled Tomatillo Salsa was created. TWB's Grilled Tomatillo Salsa has a total of 13 mg of sodium for the ENTIRE recipe. So you can enjoy more of it with your no salt tortilla chips, without worrying about your salt intake from snacking.
TWB's Grilled Tomatillo Salsa
Ingredients:
10 Tomatillos
1 jalapeño, Whole
1/2 white onion
2 Cloves of Garlic, peeled (if you are not a fan of garlic, only use 1 clove)
1/4 cup of fresh cilantro
2 Tablespoons of Lime Juice
Instructions:
Turn on grill to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
Remove Tomatillos from their husks and rinse them clean
Cut the jalapeño in half, if you wish for a mild salsa remove the seeds. For a spicier version, keep the seeds intact
Cut the onion into fourths
Once grill is heated, place tomatillos, jalapeño, onion, and garlic onto the grill
Grill for about 10 minutes, then flip over the items to grill for another 10 minutes
Remove the items from the grill and add grilled food to the food processor
Add cilantro and lime juice to the grilled food in the food processor and blend until smooth.
Remove mixture from food processor and place into Tupperware and refrigerate for a minimum of 2 hours.
After refrigerated and cooled for at least 2 hours, serve and enjoy! This salsa, if refrigerated will last you a week!
Optional: This recipe can be altered if you do not have a grill to use. You can broil these vegetables on a baking sheet in the oven for 20 minutes to replace instruction items 5 & 6.
Hope you enjoy your Father's Day and snacking on these low sodium chips and salsa! Let me know if you try this recipe by tagging me online with @travelingwithoutboundaries and #LowSaltSundays.
See you next week for another Low Salt Sunday Recipe!
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