1. Pizza

An undisputed fast food favorite all over the world, pizza is delicious but can so often be covered in excess and unnecessary fat and grease when ordered from well-known takeout outlets. A great way to make pizza a more healthy option is to use whole wheat for the crust and replace some of the more traditional toppings with your favorite vegetables. Add some low fat cheese to the mix and you have a surprisingly healthy comfort food.

2. Burgers

Another fast food favorite, burgers are super tasty but often incredibly high when it comes to the calorie count. Again, the choice of a whole-wheat bun will add a touch of calorific refinement to the dish, as will substituting a beef patty for a quinoa and bean one. And if you can’t face a veggie burger, go for a lean turkey patty. Once you add all of the traditional salad elements to the burger you will have a pleasingly healthy meal with that still has a comfort food feel.

3. Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate chips are the annoying combination of irresistible and naughty, but there is a way to produce delicious cookies without feeling too guilty about indulging. Adding quinoa, banana, which is a handy sugar alternative, and flaxseed to your mixture will give it a much healthier base, as will substituting milk chocolate for dark chocolate which is 70% cocoa and a much healthier choice of chocolate than milk or white.

4. Mac N Cheese

You would think that a meal so full of cheese could never be pulled back in to the realms of healthy, right? If you don’t think anything but a tasty mac ‘n’ cheese is going to satisfy, employ a little damage limitation but throwing in as many vegetables as you like, broccoli, peas and spinach are especially delicious in combination. Also, if you can, try to make the dish from scratch using low fat cheese and you will also eliminate a number of unnecessary extra calories from additives.

5. Fried Chicken

The trick here is to not fry the chicken at all! We certainly don’t need to be lectured on the negatives of deep-frying, but you can make your chicken just as delicious by coating it in coconut oil and almond flour, browning it lightly in a pan and then baking it for twenty minutes instead. You will end up with sumptuous, moist chicken with a crispy skin just like the fried version, only with a lot less guilt when it comes to eating!

6. Fries

The answer to healthier French fries comes in the form of a delicious switch of carbohydrate. Swap your regular potatoes for sweet potatoes and you pretty much instantly make the side dish a whole lot healthier. Sweet potatoes are rich in beneficial carotenoids, and can be oven baked to absolute perfection.

7. Ice Cream

Time for desert! You will be surprised by just how convincing this ice cream alternative looks and tastes. The simple trick is to freeze some ripe bananas and when they are completely frozen, slice them through and throw into a blender. Once blended the bananas will look and feel like the real thing and will give you a much healthier hit of cold sweetness.

It’s such a comfort to know your favorite comfort foods can be made well, er, more comforting, simply by some smart moves. Which foods do you usually crave for edible comfort? (Mine is mashed potato!)