Courtesy of Elaine Magee

Question: I was at a restaurant in Texas this summer and saw a dish on the menu that I immediately thought I would send to you. I’m on pretty strict orders to keep my dietary cholesterol in check, so I couldn’t order it there. But with your help, I can make a lighter version at home. It was a breakfast casserole that had fried breakfast potatoes with blankets of cheddar cheese, sour cream, ranchero sauce, sliced avocado, and fluffy scrambled eggs.

Answer: You had me at “fried breakfast potatoes with blankets of cheese"! We can definitely make a lighter version of this, and I’m going to design the recipe to be more like a two-serving dish and less like a casserole. If you need to make more servings, you just multiply the amounts.

The base of the dish is the breakfast potatoes. A quick version of this (with about 4 grams of fat per serving) is to buy frozen wedge potatoes (check the nutrition information label and make sure there are no more than 3 or 4 grams of fat per serving). Heat them up quickly in the microwave, then you can take just a few minutes to brown them up in a nonstick skillet with some canola or olive oil cooking spray. Instead of covering the potatoes with “blankets” of cheese, we are using a healthy sprinkle of flavorful reduced-fat sharp cheddar. There is a great-tasting brand of no-fat sour cream (Naturally Yours), so we might as well use that and trim back even more on the cholesterol and calories. Avocado contributes protective monounsaturated fat, so the garnish of sliced avocado is definitely staying on the plate.

Which brings us to the fluffy scrambled eggs. To eliminate the cholesterol, all 210 milligrams, from each egg, we need to toss the yolks. You have a couple of options here: You can make scrambled eggs using an egg substitute (which is basically egg whites), or you can make an egg white “fried egg” or “omelet” by just cooking up the egg white (without the yolk). If having one egg in a day, preferably one higher in omega-3s, is medically doable for you, you can make a fried egg using a small, nonstick frying pan with a quick coat of cooking spray.

All the various ingredients in this dish worked very well together and didn’t require a lot of fuss. And the total cholesterol for each serving plummeted from at least 315 milligrams (if one large egg per serving) in the original dish to 25 milligrams in the lightened version. Fat grams went from about 51 grams to 14 grams, and saturated fat decreased from 21 grams to 6.1 grams.

The original dish probably contains 711 calories, 51 grams fat, 21 grams saturated fat, and 315 milligrams cholesterol per serving (if one large egg per serving).

8 ounces frozen wedge potatoes (with 3–4 grams of fat per 4-ounce serving)

Canola or olive oil cooking spray

4 egg whites, lightly beaten or 1/2 cup egg substitute (or 2 higher omega-3 eggs)

2 ounces reduced-fat shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1/2 cup fat-free sour cream

2 tablespoons ranchero sauce (or any similar Mexican sauce or salsa)

1/3 avocado, pitted and sliced lengthwise

Salt and pepper to taste (optional)

Directions

1. Microwave potatoes until hot and tender (about 3–4 minutes).
2. Meanwhile, coat a nonstick skillet or frying pan with cooking spray and begin to heat the pan over medium-high heat. Pour half of the egg white mixture on one end of the hot skillet and the remaining egg white on the other half of the skillet. If using a whole egg per person, crack an egg on one end of the skillet and crack the remaining egg on the other half of the skillet. Coat the tops of the eggs lightly with cooking spray. When the underside is just cooked, flip the eggs over to cook the other side. If you are using egg substitute, cook the egg mixture as you would scrambled eggs (this seems to work best with the thinner liquid). Remove eggs from the skillet and set them aside.
3. Give the same skillet a new coating of cooking spray and add the potato wedges (from microwave). Cook over medium-high heat until nicely browned and starting to crisp up (4 minutes). Turn off the heat and sprinkle the cheese over the top of the potatoes. Cover with a lid for 1 minute (this will melt the cheese).
4. To serve, portion half of the potatoes on 2 plates and add a 1/4-cup dollop of sour cream on top. Drizzle the red sauce or salsa over the top of the sour cream and garnish the plate with avocado slices and the cooked egg whites. Salt and pepper can be added as desired at the table.