Healthy Chicken Tamales | Lite Cravings | WW Recipes (2024)

FAQs

Are chicken tamales healthy for you? ›

Tamales are a nutritious food, providing fiber, resistant starch, and important nutrients like Vitamin B3. There are many varieties of tamales out there, and choosing a tamal with a meat or vegetable filling can help you build a balanced, nourishing meal.

“If you know you have high blood pressure or diabetes, you probably shouldn't eat traditional tamales,” Pascoe says. “Instead, I would recommend preparing a dozen or so healthy tamales, which use all of our healthy substitutions.”

Making the best tamales

You need a masa that is not dry and crumbly, making you sip after every bite. But the masa should be set, not mushy or runny. It should also be light, not heavy and dense. And of course, you need a delicious filling.

The most popular version of the Tamal in Nicaragua is the nacatamal and sometimes serves as an entire meal in itself. It is a traditional dish with indigenous origins.

“Tamales are generally considered healthy,” says Bansari Acharya, R.D.N., a registered dietitian and blogger at FoodLove. “Especially because they're steamed instead of fried.” However, because of the fat and carbohydrate content, it's important to watch your portions.

Good Source of Micronutrients

Tamales are rich in certain vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. They're generally a good source of vitamin B3 (niacin) since the nixtamalization process enhances niacin's bioavailability—the amount of niacin that can be absorbed by our bodies—, per a 2016 study.

Unfortunately, a dish whose main component is a corn-based dough puts these tasty little packages of goodness out of reach for all diabetics or anyone on a limited carbohydrate diet. Before I was forced to pay close attention to my own blood sugar levels, I made a big batch of tamales twice a year.

The prices for the most popular protein fillings of chicken and pork and even spices for tamale-making are up. “The majority of the spices we use to give the flavor to [tamales] come from Mexico,” said Cruz. “Exporting them here has a higher price.

Tamales continue to have great significance as a form of sustenance and as a symbolic element in Mexican and Mexican American cultures. Tamales are strongly associated with themes of unity, celebration, family, kinship, and community.

What to eat with tamales? ›

You can serve tamales with a variety of sides such as fried plantains, potatoes with rajas, Mexican rice and black beans. “When planning a tamalada, or tamal party, you can accompany your tamales with bowls of red and green salsa, crumbled cotija cheese or queso fresco, fresh lime and pickled red onion,” Sibley says.

In the most basic explanation, Junk Food is food that is high in calories with very little nutritional value. Tamales are not junk food, though they are authentically undeniably plentiful in calories, which we all know produce energy.

Estimate how many guests will come to your party and for the main meal, calculate between 2 and 3 tamales per person if you're serving them by themselves except for a frothy hot chocolate, champurrado or an agua fresca. For dessert, consider 1 or 2 per person. Our tamales are 4oz.

Eat your tamale with a fork and knife.

That way, you won't have to hold it the whole time you're eating or worry about getting your hands dirty. Be sure to remove the wrapper entirely from tamales steamed in corn husks.

Tamale with chicken contains 353 calories per 164 g serving. This serving contains 22 g of fat, 14 g of protein and 24 g of carbohydrate. The latter is 0.7 g sugar and 2 g of dietary fiber, the rest is complex carbohydrate. Tamale with chicken contains 8.1 g of saturated fat and 66 mg of cholesterol per serving.

These chicken tamales are stuffed with shredded chicken in a spicy Mexican red sauce made with ancho and mulato chiles. The masa for these tamales is made with lard and chicken broth.

One person can eat two to five tamales, depending on how hungry they are and the size of the tamales. If you don't want to make this many, two to three per person should be fine. These numbers are based on if you're serving tamales on their own.