How to Cook Potatoes [and other Foods] for Diabetics
Updated November 2, 2023
Cooking delicious meals while dealing with diabetes can be challenging. There are many considerations to balance, and sometimes tastiness can be left out.
To make diabetes-friendly meals easier, here’s how to cook potatoes for diabetics and other staple starch ingredients. Starches are essential to diabetes management because they take longer to break down, preventing blood sugar spikes. But this feature also helps with weight loss!
Healthy Cooking Techniques
People with diabetes can cook various delicious foods in many ways that don’t require frying or a lot of butter:
- Baking/Roasting: This method surrounds food with dry heat.
- Grilling: Grilling cooks from below and can add extra flavor from the heating source.
- Microwaving: When you need a quick meal, a microwave will evenly heat it up quickly.
- Steaming/Boiling: This method softens and warms food by heating water or other liquids.
- Using saturated fat alternatives: When a recipe calls for butter add ketchup, BBQ sauce, or salsa for flavor.
- Using spices instead of salt: While salt in moderation isn’t bad for diabetes, liven up meals with different spices to reduce salt use.
How to Cook Potatoes for Diabetics
You can cook potatoes and sweet potatoes in various ways:
- Baking
- Boiling
- Grilling
- Microwaving
- Roasting
- Steaming
Regular or sweet, there are many ways to learn how to cook potatoes for diabetics. The potato is a typical starch that takes longer to digest and doesn’t rapidly affect blood sugar levels.
McDougall Recipes Featuring Potatoes
Here are some potato recipes to get you started:
- Better Than Firesign Potatoes
- Grilled Potatoes
- Italian Scalloped Potatoes
- Mashed Potatoes
- Roasted Potatoes and Carrots
- Tex-Mex Potatoes
- Twice Baked Potatoes
How to Cook Beans for Diabetics
There are various ways to cook beans:
- Baking
- Boiling
- Roasting
- Steaming
Learning how to cook beans for people with diabetes is easy because beans are versatile. Enjoy them alone or as part of a larger meal. Beans are also suitable for people with diabetes because they’re full of fiber and protein.
McDougall Recipes Featuring Beans
We have plenty of recipes that feature beans; here are just a handful:
- Baked Beans
- Deviled Beans and Greens
- Fry-less Refried Beans
- Mango BBQ Beans
- Mashed Pinto Beans
- Slow Cooked Beans
How to Cook Cabbage
You can cook cabbage by steaming, baking, or boiling. Learning how to cook cabbage for someone with diabetes will elevate multiple meals.
McDougall Cabbage Recipes
We have various cabbage recipes for cooked and raw cabbage. Here are two cooked cabbage recipes:
How to Cook Rice
Learning to cook rice for someone with diabetes can add a variety of dishes to your meal planning. Properly cooking rice requires boiling the rice until the grains are soft. Alternatively, you can use a rice cooker.
McDougall Rice Recipes
We love adding rice to our meals! Here are some of our favorites:
- Bean and Rice Salad
- Black Sticky Rice Pudding
- Breakfast Apple Rice
- Lemon Rice Soup
- Rainbow Rice
- Tossed Rice
How to Cook Steel-Cut Oats
Learning how to cook steel-cut oats is a straightforward process that only requires boiling. You can create overnight oats, a process that still requires boiling, but leave them overnight in the pot and warm them up in the morning—it’s a quick and easy breakfast!
McDougall Steel-Cut Oats Recipes
Here are a few recipes that feature steel-cut oats:
Create Wellness Through Cooking
Feeling healthy and happy while having diabetes doesn’t have to be complicated. By focusing on what goes into your body and how it can affect you positively, you’ll start feeling better in no time.
Dr. McDougall has many delicious plant-based recipes to try. You may also be looking for more information about diabetes. If so, read our articles about what diabetes can or can’t cause, how to create a diabetes-friendly diet plan, and what foods diabetics can eat!
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