This is a great side dish that’s full of fiber and turmeric, an antihistamine spice that can sometimes be difficult to incorporate into western pallets. I serve it over mashed potatoes or alongside roasted chicken. Make sure to use napa cabbage in particular, which is a more delicate variety than traditional cabbage.
You’ll need:
3 leaves napa cabbage
1 large or 2 small carrots, washed and peeled
1/2 white onion
1 clove raw garlic
1 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 tablespoon coconut oil
1 teaspoon honey (optional)
Prep your veggies: cut your onion into thin rings, mince your garlic, cut your cabbage leaves into 1/4-1/8 inch slices (leaves and stems included), and use a peeler to sliver off your carrots into long ribbon strips.
Melt your coconut oil in a stainless steel pan. When it’s liquid, add your onions and garlic and sautee over medium heat until translucent.
Sprinkle your turmeric and ginger overtop the onions and mix.
Add the cabbage and carrots to the pan. Continue to cook until the spices begin to form a paste at the bottom of the pan, but do not burn!
Add about a cup of water to the bottom of the pan and scrape up any stuck bits to create a rich yellow gravy sauce.
Add your honey if you’ll be using it. This isn’t necessary but adds depth of flavor.
Reduce your pan to low heat, cover, and simmer for 10 minutes. Uncover your pan and check the mixture – if your gravy is too thin, let it boil off a little uncovered.
Pre-COVID, I was obsessed with the chilled pickled beet salad from my local shawarma joint. This is a slight attempt to recreate that in a low histamine way. I love all beets, but especially like the golden ones for their mellower flavor and lack of staining purple juice. Larger golden beets tend to be sweeter than smaller golden beets.
You’ll need:
2 large golden beets, peeled and quartered
1/2 Vidalia onion
1 cup chopped flat leaf parsley
1 cup cubed zucchini
2 tablespoons tahini paste
1 tablespoon white vinegar (optional – could be lemon or lime juice if you tolerate those instead)
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 clove raw garlic, minced
1 tablespoon oil of choice
Hulled white sesame seeds for garnish
Salt
In an instant pot, cover the bottom with two inches of water and insert the metal trivet. Place your quartered raw beets on top of the trivet but do not layer them, or they’ll cook unevenly.
Close and seal your instant pot. Set it to pressure cook on high for 45 minutes, with a natural pressure release. Open and test your beets. They should be fork tender. If they’re not, reseal and cook for 10 more minutes.
Slice your beets into thick wedges or cubes and place them in a bowl.
In a small separate bowl, make your dressing by mixing the tahini, garlic powder, salt, oil, vinegar and parsley. It’ll be a little pasty in consistency.
Pour your dressing over your beets and toss to coat. If you want, sprinkle the raw sesame seeds overtop lightly. The warmth of the beets should help to melt and coat the sauce.
Traditional pasta salad is a glutenous, high histaminey stew of pickled and cured things left to be picked at in the fridge for days. For those on a low histamine diet it’s dangerous, but I’ve also missed it in the warmer summer months when eating hot meals feels hard.
This recipe is gluten free, vegan, low histamine, and good enough that I’ve had normal eaters give it the stamp of approval. I like it better than a plain old pasta salad with raw veggies, which I have a hard time digesting. The secret is in the ‘dressing’ you’ll make for the salad. The below amounts assume that you’re making it as a side or smaller meal for two people. I serve it alongside the protein of choice and some fresh greens. If you wanted to make it a complete meal, add in some low histamine beans of choice.
You’ll need:
6oz dry gluten free pasta – this farfalle is my favorite for this salad but tinkyada also works well. I’d stay away from anything corn or quinoa.
1 small zucchini, diced
1 generous red or yellow or orange pepper, peeled, deseeded, diced
1 bunch green onions/scallions, sliced and split into white and green parts
4-6 stalks of asparagus, sliced into thin rounds
Fresh basil
Fresh parsley
Olive oil or oil of choice
2 cloves fresh garlic, smashed
2 teaspoons ground garlic
1 teaspoon dried thyme
White distilled vinegar (optional, if tolerated)
Salt to taste
Water
Fill your pasta pot with water and bring to a boil. Pour in your pasta and cook and drain. Spritz olive oil over top once drained to prevent the pasta from becoming a giant ricey goo clump. The idea is for your pasta to slightly cool while you cook your veggies. Don’t let the pasta sit in the fridge or out on the counter for hours.
Heat olive oil in a pan over medium heat and add all sliced veggies except for the green parts of the scallions. Stir them occasionally to prevent burning, but ideally you want them to brown just a little bit.
Add your fresh garlic to the pan and continue to cook.
Pour the water into the pan. It may hiss, which is fine, but make sure you stir up any brown bits on the bottom of the pan into the water. Use enough water that it doesn’t all evaporate off and remains deep enough to gently simmer your mixture, maybe 1/4 inch in the pan.
Let the pan mixture simmer for 5-10 minutes on low heat, covered. If necessary, open half way through and add more water.
With a slotted spoon, strain all the veggies out of the pan and add them to your pasta, keeping the veggie liquid in the pan. This will become the base of your dressing!
Add 1/8 cup olive oil to the pan and stir it all together. Add dry spices. If you’re adding vinegar, this will give it a nice bite – I tolerate limited amounts and put in two tablespoons for this amount of salad. Add the vinegar and remove the pan from heat.
Chop your fresh basil and parsley into thin ribbons and add to the pasta mixture.
Add the raw scallion greens to the pasta mixture.
Pour your pan sauce over your pasta and stir it all to combine.
A lot of us go into dietary changes thinking that nuts are a high allergy food because peanut allergies are so widely known now. I was surprised to find how well I tolerated some seeds and nuts, and how badly other set me off.
For me:
BAD = sunflower seeds, peanuts, walnuts, pecans, cashews
GOOD = pistachios, hemp seed, chia, flax, pumpkin seed/pepita, brazil nuts, quinoa, sesame seed
Here are some of my nut and seed staples and where I get them in bulk to cut down on costs.
Seriously, where would the dietary restriction community be without Bob’s Red Mill? This is sold so many places anymore, for under $5. I put it into my oatmeal before cooking for extra fiber and omegas.
Chia seeds are a great source of protein, fiber, and antioxidants. I also have zero problem digesting them without cooking, which I can’t say for all seeds. They’re great in smoothies or oatmeal or even cereal, if you tolerate that. I realize that Walmart is the devil. I still can’t find organic chia seeds cheaper for this quantity other than Walmart.
Walmart is also where I get my quinoa, also suspiciously cheap for the amount, but just as good quality as the other pricier brands I’ve tried.
Badia is a Goya competitor brand that’s sold a lot around where I live. Try bodegas or stores closer to Latin and Hispanic communities, if you’re in the states. They’re very cheap, and have little packets of all their seeds and spices for under $2 – a great way to test out if you tolerate something without having to waste money on a huge bag you can’t eat.
I am VERY picky about my pumpkin seeds. They have to be raw and unsalted. I’ve tried other brands and none of them taste as fresh or have lots of broken up pieces. Woodstock is sold at Vitacost online, or I’ve also gotten it at my local coop.
Likewise, pumpkin seed butter is the only nut butter I tolerate. I’ve seen it sold at Whole Foods sometimes, but I usually get it from Vitacost. It’s a great dip for fruit or veggies as a portable snack, or spread on rice cakes with a little coriander and honey.
Hemp seeds might seem a bit out there, but they’re a really interesting flavor and packed with protein and omegas. This is one that I’m honestly not picky about as long as it’s shelled! Don’t get unshelled hemp seeds. Don’t do it. You think you can save a little money by shelling them yourself…. and one broken blender later, you’ll regret it. Manitoba is an affordable option and sold at a lot of health food stores and online places.
If you’re in to smoothies, hemp seed powder is high protein and low histamine. It also has a STRONG hempy taste. Some people can’t stand it for that alone. I blend it with ice cubes and frozen blueberries and a little mango and choke it down just fine. Nutiva is my trusted brand here. Keep it in the fridge after opening for freshness.
And finally, pistachios. They’re my ride-or-dye purse snack. I always have a little container of them for emergencies. To me, Wonderful has the best tasting brand. I’ve tried grocery store generics, Trader Joe’s, Walmart, Target, CVS… you name it. They all taste stale to me. Amazon has these for $6 a bag. Just make sure to stay away from the flavored ones, which are coated in all kinds of weirdness.
Roasted peppers are one of those things that tastes really decadent but takes very little effort to make. Traditionally red peppers get all the love, but I also roast orange or yellow peppers. Green aren’t sweet enough and taste a little bitter to me, but if that’s your thing the method would be the same.
Line a baking sheet with foil, or use a glass pyrex pan and place your peppers side down. Roast them uncovered in the oven for 40-50 minutes (depending on pepper size) at 400 degrees. When the side facing up starts to turn black or dark brown, use tongs to turn the pepper so that side is now face down on the pan and continue roasting the new up side. When that colors, take the peppers out and let them rest for 10 minutes before gently peeling off the skin and deseeding the inside.
Once you’ve made roasted peppers, popping them into sauces is easy. I freeze roasted peppers in jam mason jars and pull them out a portion at a time for this sauce.
You’ll need:
1 roasted red or orange pepper (per person – if feeding multiple people do one pepper per head) 1/2 cup pressure cooked white or navy beans (again, per person) 1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped roughly 2 teaspoons olive oil 2 cloves garlic (can use dried powder if that’s what’s on hand) 1 small white or yellow onion, cut into finely slivered rings 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano Salt to taste Small blender or hand blender
Combine all ingredients in your blender cup. Make sure that your peppers and beans aren’t piping hot when you do this, or your sauce will explode when you open the blender cup.
Blend ingredients until smooth.
Pour over rice pasta, chicken, or use as a simmer sauce.
Traditional fried rice is made with day old rice to use it up, stir fried in oil over high heat with soy sauce, and peppered with little bits of leftover meat. Most of that doesn’t fly on a low histamine diet.
For this we’re going to lean on several ingredients traditionally used in Asian cuisine – ginger, scallions and garlic – to suggest flavors that go with soy sauce rather than using soy sauce. If you don’t tolerate ginger or garlic, this will be hard to sub
For this version, you’ll need:
1/2 cup white or brown rice, previously cooked and frozen
1/4 cup diced peeled carrot
1/2 cup diced scallions (can be green and white parts if tolerated, or just green if on a low FODMAP diet)
1/2 cup diced napa cabbage stems
1 tablespoon oil of choice (I used sesame)
1 whole egg (if only part of the egg is tolerated you can use just egg whites or just egg yolks)
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
1 good sized nub of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
3 cloves garlic, grated
1 teaspoon salt
Black sesame seeds (white works too)
In a steel pan, heat your oil over medium heat. Add your grated garlic and fresh ginger and stir.
Add scallions, onions and cabbage. Cook over heat with occasional stirring until cabbage and onions are wilted.
When vegetables begin to stick to the bottom of the pan, add powdered ginger and salt.
Pour 1/4 cup of water into the pan and scrape brown bits off the bottom. Reduce heat to low, cover pan, and simmer for 10 minutes.
While your veggies simmer, thaw your rice in the microwave.
Open the pan and stir vegetables. Most all of the liquid should be gone and the veggies should be tender.
Add rice to pan. Stir to combine.
Turn heat up to medium high. Crack an egg overtop the rice mixture and stir. As the egg hits the pan, it should cook and produce little ‘fried’ egg bits throughout while leaving a nice creamy texture.
When egg is totally cooked, remove from heat and dish out into a bowl. Top with sesame seeds. Serve immediately.
Subs: I’ve added broccoli, frozen lima beans, or cubed cooked pork loin to this to make it a fuller meal. It doesn’t freeze well but is a great way to use up little frozen odds and ends of ingredients.
Getting an Instant Pot as a low histamine eater is honestly life changing. It’s one of the few appliances that I don’t mind giving space to in my tiny galley kitchen.
I put off getting one for the first 6 months of my low histamine diet – I didn’t grow up in a house that pressure cooked, and culturally we’re taught to fear and respect unattended cooking devices. When I did break down and get one, I got it like new off of Facebook marketplace. Turns out they’re a popular holiday gift, and there are lots of non-limited eaters out there who don’t want it and can’t wait to get rid of it.
But once I did get the hang of Instant Pot cooking, I started using it multiple times a week and bringing it with me on the rare occasion that I travel overnight. It’s excellent at time saving for some of my harder-to-cook staples and the best way to handle broth and soups.
Here are a few of my Instant Pot staple recipes that I can’t live without.
Combine 1 cup quinoa with 1 1/4 cups water in the pot.
Close the lid and set to pressure cook on high for 10 minutes.
Allow the pressure to naturally release for 10 minutes, then vent the remaining pressure. Open and fluff with a fork. I like my quinoa well cooked and soft, and this amount of time fully opens the germ for easier digestion.
Wild Rice
Wild rice isn’t actually rice at all, but a kind of seed! It’s high in protein and freezes and thaws well. It can be pricey if you don’t know where to purchase it. Trader Joes sells bags for a reliably low price, as does Whole Foods’ generic brand.
Combine 1 cup wild rice with 1 1/4 cups water in your pot.
Close the lid and set to pressure cook on high for 30 minutes.
Allow the pressure to naturally release for 10 minutes, then vent the remaining pressure. Open and fluff with a fork. Properly cooked wild rice will be soft and fully split open so that the lighter colored insides are visible. If your wild rice is still closed, don’t eat it.
Brown Rice
I’m that weirdo who always used to ask for brown rice at Chinese restaurants (back when I could eat at Chinese restaurants…) instead of white rice. It has more fiber, it holds you longer, and it has a nice nutty taste.
Rinse 1 cup of brown rice under water to allow the starches to drain, until the water runs mostly clear.
Combine the cup of rice with 1 1/3 cups of water in your pot.
Close the lid and set to pressure cook on high for 15 minutes.
Boxed or canned broth is off limits on the low histamine diet. Making your own with an Instant Pot is super easy, and also a way to ditch the sodium that a lot of pre-made broths carry.
Peel and roughly quarter two small or one very large white/yellow onion. Add to pot.
Add two stalks of celery snapped in half, as well as two larger carrots or several heaping handfuls of carrot peels, if you’re being thrifty.
Pour in 1 tablespoon of olive oil or your tolerated oil of choice.
Optional but nice – add the stalks from your shucked parsley, a bay leaf, and cracked black pepper to toleration.
Add 1 tsp of salt, or more to taste. Shake in a small amount of turmeric for color.
Seal your pot and set to pressure cook on high for 1 hour. Allow all pressure to release naturally.
Open the pot and remove vegetables and herbs. Your broth should be golden in color and have a nice neutral taste.
Beets are an anti-inflammatory superfood. I love how they taste but always hate the next day when you forget that you ate them and think that you’re dying when you go to the bathroom. *Gold Beets Have Entered The Chat* Like their purple siblings, golden beets are a root veggie with a nice earthy taste, but a little mellower. Best of all, they’re bright orangey yellow – no staining to your counter top or insides.
Peel your beets. If they’re larger, cut them into pieces. All beet pieces that go into your instant pot should be roughly the same size, maybe 3 inches across.
Place the metal trivet that came with your Instant Pot into the bottom of the pot, arms reaching upward towards the pot’s opening.
Pour 2 cups cold water into the bottom of the pot over the trivet.
Place your beets in an even layer on the trivet. Don’t stack them upwards.
Close the pot and pressure cook on high for 14 minutes.
Allow pressure to naturally release for another 15 minutes.
Manually release all remaining pressure.
Your beets should be fork tender. If they’re not, reseal the pot and cook for another 10 minutes. I’ve only had this happen once or twice, and I think it was due to under ripe beets because the cooked beets also had very little color or flavor.
Beans on the low histamine diet are controversial. Let’s start there.
Some sites list them as histamine liberators and therefore discourage eating them. The SIGHI list has them at a rating of 2, and says that ‘Some tolerated exceptions are possible in some cases,’ whatever that means. And most commonly, beans come in a can, with canned food being off limits for its ability to accumulate histamine. Those I don’t eat.
All my tolerated beans start as dry in a bag, then soak and are pressure cooked before being frozen in individual portions. I’ve found that these never set me off and are a true safe food. They’re also thankfully a cheap protein source, and more sustainable than animal proteins.
You’ll need: -1 cup dry black beans (Goya is always a quality bet, or loose from a bulk store) -5 cups of water for cooking -5 cups of water for soaking -Instant pot -Colander or strainer -Containers for freezing
Soak your dry black beans in enough water to cover them by three inches, either overnight or for at least 6 hours. I’ll often throw them in water at breakfast, and they’re ready for cooking by dinner. It’s good to note that soaking black beans turns the water black and you’ll want to do this in something like a steel cooking pot or bowl, not something stainable and precious.
After soaking, dump your black beans into a colander and drain. Pick out any beans that look shriveled or weird.
Put your strained beans in the instant pot. Cover them with 5 cups of water. You might be tempted to use less water and more beans – don’t. This ratio is needed for proper cooking. Depending on the size of your instant pot, this means that you might be limited to cooking just one cup of beans at a time. Don’t overfill the pot! This makes a huge foamy mess.
Close the lid on the instant pot and set it to pressure cook on high for 28 minutes. Then, allow the pressure to naturally release.
Open the pot and test the beans for doneness. They should be quite soft. If for some reason your beans are crunchy, don’t eat them. Close the pot and pressure cook for another 10 minutes. Crunchy beans = digestive hell
Immediately decant the beans into your freezing containers. I like to use jam jar sized mason jars for individual portions. Add a small amount of the bean liquid to the container to keep them from drying out when you reheat.
Additional Tips: -The time for cooking applies to black beans, which are a softer bean. If you try this with something like a navy bean or great northern bean, that will take significantly longer. -I’ve never experienced this, but have read that using hard water with high mineral content to cook the beans can alter results. If you live in a place with hard water, consider using filtered or extending your cook time. -Once thawed from frozen, these mash up nicely with whatever spices and oil you can tolerate as a dip.
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