The sauce on sauce

Sauces, mustards, gravies, dressings and other condiments are a great way to add extra flavour to a basic meal. However, a healthy meal can be sabotaged by choosing the wrong condiment in the wrong portions.

Choose condiments that add nutrients and health benefits to your meal. Steer away from those high in added sugar, salt (sodium) and saturated fats, or that add minimal to no nutritional benefit. In any case, always keep your portion small (maximum 1 tablespoon); condiments are meant to boost taste, but you don’t want to override the natural flavours in your meal.

Try to use more herbs and spices in your cooking, and make these simple swaps to improve the nutritional profile of your meal:

• Swap barbecue, tomato or HP sauce for tomato salsa

• Swap creamy/mayonnaisebased salad dressings for olive oil and balsamic vinegar

• Swap dijonnaise for wholegrain seeded mustard or hummus

• Swap sweet chilli for chilli or tabasco sauce

• Swap soy sauce for tamari

• Swap gravy for apple sauce.