Choose healthy tortilla chips.
You don’t have get rid of tortilla chips completely on a low cholesterol diet. Choose healthy multigrain chips or natural chips with few ingredients. Look for chips that only contain corn, oil, and salt. Many tortilla chips have no cholesterol, so read the label.
- Corn does not contain cholesterol, so any cholesterol in a chip comes from the fat used to fry the chip (often lard). Check the ingredients to find out what the chip was fried in — avocado oil, canola oil, flaxseed oil, olive oil, peanut oil are all oils that can actually help lower your cholesterol.
- Instead of eating tortilla chips with cheese sauces, try fresh salsa, pico, or guacamole.
Choose low-cholesterol toppings.
Cheese and full-fat sour cream are not the only toppings for a Mexican dish. So many fresh, cholesterol-free ingredients can be added to the top of tacos, fajitas, and taco salads. Try salsa, pico de gallo, cilantro, tomatoes, and jalapeños.
- Think outside of the box and add any veggie you like. Try black olives, cucumbers, carrots, bell peppers, onions, broccoli, spinach, roasted eggplant, roasted zucchini and squash, or anything else you enjoy.
Make chicken or shrimp fajitas.
Fajitas can be a tasty and healthy Mexican dish. Make sure that you use grilled chicken or shrimp instead of beef to help lower the cholesterol content. Fajitas don’t come with cheese, so the dish is fairly low in cholesterol.
- Add onions, green peppers, lettuce, and tomatoes as cholesterol-friendly toppings.
- Make sure to put them on corn tortillas instead of flour tortillas. They are healthier. Flour tortillas often contain hidden unhealthy ingredients, such as hydrogenated oils.
Eat chicken or fish tacos with corn tortillas.
Tacos can healthy if made the correct way. Filling them with grilled chicken or fish or sauteed shrimp is healthier than hamburger meat or steak. Skip the sour cream and cheese. Instead, add roasted vegetables, black olives, tomatoes, or any other fresh vegetable. Top with salsa or cilantro.
- Choose a corn tortilla instead of flour. Make sure the corn tortillas you get are natural with minimal ingredients, like corn and salt, instead of a bunch of unhealthy additives. Flour tortillas are also not a healthy option.
