Looking for Dairy Free Dinner Recipes

My dd was allergic to dairy until she was 1. I lost 70 lbs because of my "new" diet. LOL.

I just read labels - my little was was sensitive to whey and casein. I still served dairy items to my hubby, but I didn't put the sour cream on my taco, and my salad dressings were vinegarettes with no cheese in them.

I made (and still do) a lot of "whole foods" with nothing processed - grilled or baked chicken, pork chops, roasts, burgers, fish... You can still pan fry without flour, but we grill year round. Lots of veggies and rice. Mac and cheese is out, but until the allergic one knows the difference, the older kids can still have it (if you're not opposed to cooking 2 meals).

Use toppings like salsa to mix flavors up a bit. There are some canned gravies that have milk but some that don't. You can still do chicken, shrimp, tuna salads - just learn what breads you can have (or serve in a halved out tomato).
For dessert, there is a yummy sorbet at Safeway that is dairy free (Safeway brand). I loved the chocolate, but there are a few other flavors too.

Eating out can be rough as many restaurants add butter for a flavor enhancer. Just ask and explain about the allergy and they are usually happy to oblige.

Good luck! It was really hard at first, but got easier. BTW, LOVE your profile!

1. Go through your pantry and toss all foods with these things in them. Save one smae drawer or bin with "fast" foods for snacks for the kids that may have the items in them like gold fish or whatever you have.
2. Keep shredded cheese in freezer, stick cheese, and parmesan. Yopu can sprinkle these on top or use as a snack for the kids who can eat it.
3. Switch to rice milk or other for baking.
4. cold turkey is easiest though it takes some reserach on your part to get used to switching your cooking.
5. Give it 6 months to get in the groove.
6. hummus and pumpkin and apple butters are our staples now.

We don't eat dairy, but I'm having a hard time thinking of specific tips. Some common things we eat are pasta and pizza, but the sauce/toppings are pretty varied. Like we do "Tahini Rotini" which is pasta with hummus. (We make the hummus, adding more broth to get the right consistency.) Or we do Thai peanut pizza. The sauce has PB, soy sauce, garlic, sugar, and oil. The toppings can be chicken, potato, bell pepper, etc. (Whoops, that has peanuts.) We also do several curry recipes. Just find one you like searching online & eat it with rice. My husband's favorite are the coconut milk curries.

I hope that helps. You can send me a message if you need more ideas.

Consider looking at vegan recipes, since they will be dairy-free. I was completely dairy-free while nursing my oldest because of his allergies, and I have to admit, I never felt better.
Recipe books by Marilu Henner were helpful to me, also, because she is a dairy-free advocate. I have "Total Health Makeover" and it has a lot of recipes that are dairy-free. I got pretty good at substituting and making hearty things that were safe to eat. Message me if you'd like me to email you my recipes for black bean soup or vegetarian pot pie. I also have an awesome non-dairy lasagna that is great and pretty easy if you have a food processor. If you Google "vegan" plus whatever recipe you're thinking about, you might get some good ideas, like "vegan stroganoff" or "vegan pasta." If you want to add meat to it, you can, but at least then you'd have a dairy-free base.
Hummus saved me for a snack, as well as lots of other bean dips and salsa. I also got really into Asian cooking, since there's not a lot of dairy is stir fry and fried rice and such. "The Un-Cheese Cookbook" is also a good one. You might also like "Whole Foods for the Whole Family," which is published by La Leche League. You can order it at www.llli.org, or find your local LLL group and borrow it for free. You would also get lots of personal support at a LLL meeting--that also helped me when I felt frustrated about allergies.
Congratulations on your VBAC and on your efforts to give your baby such a great start in life!

chicken or fish fingers breaded with cornmeal instead of breadcrumbs, then baked in the oven. season the cornmeal to taste before breading, and dip the protein in egg wash instead of milk.

can you do sweet potato? I bake sweet potato sliced up like fries brushed with a little oil - healthy french fries.

boneless pork country ribs marinated in teriyaki sauce and roasted = like boneless spare ribs

any kind of stir fry with your choice of protein and veggies and served with rice

salmon rubbed with fish seasoning mix, dotted with butter and lemon juice cooked under the broiler

instead of tacos, do burritos - rice, beans, chicken or ground beef or ground turkey, salsa or just cut up tomatos if salsa is too spicy. I assume you'll use corn tortillas, not flour

I have always fed my kids what I wanted to eat - didn't see any reason not to teach them to eat real food and they always have. It meant they learned to eat in real restaurants earlier too.

Hello A.,
YOu sound like my kinda gal! Fun & passionate about good things for you. Well here goes. I am a nursing mom of a severely dairy allergic baby (16 mo.). I was on a total dairy-free diet since she was 4 mo. old. Not my cup of tea as I also LOVE dairy.

But there are some awesome dairy free alternatives! Tofutti makes amazing "icecream" bars, sourcream, cream cheese & more. The texture & taste are spot on as I am a bit of a cook myself. For milk my fav is unsweetend almond milk. Not weird sweetness like rice milk therefore you can use it to cook with & no estrogen side effects like with soy. Use it for gravies, pancakes, biscuts, etc. Cheese, cheese, cheese.......Most VEGAN cheeses are not the greatest. And goat protein is to similar if your baby is severly allergic so that's not a choice. But I at alot of great foods without dairy. Beef or chicken enchiladas, burritos, most italian dishes. And there is a vegan parmesan "cheese" that is really quite good, I would make spinach lasagna with that. Perogies kids love & it is just potatoes & wheat basically (so maybe not for baby but the rest of you). Yummy dumplings! Cook with bacon & onions for a wonderful treat. There are many corn & rice pastas to avoid using the wheat ones. YOu can also do vietnamese noodle bowls my kids LOVE them, make cream cheese wontons to go along with tofutti cream cheese. Decadent!You can do chinese, indian, hamburgers, etc, etc, etc. I have TONS of ideas & recipes just message me & we can talk.

Hope this helped. G.

Count your blessings, I couldn't eat any of that plus soy or tomatoes or citrus or garlic, etc.

What worked somewhat for me was I grilled a lot of different things and ate a lot of fruit. Replace mayo and cheese on sandwiches, tacos, etc. with avocados (ripe when soft to slight pressure and skin is darkening).

Give you older kids diary, you are the only one needing to eat differently. Make homemade soups like chicken noodle (use premade broth and left over grilled chicken), etc. You need to just think about food differently. Amy's organic food line has some great non-diary entries you can buy just for yourself on nights you just want to make something 'normal' for your family. Oh and take your Calcium w/ Vit D and Magnesium vitamins (food based not diary based ones). You will get through this! Oh and ask your family to eat your favorites out of your sight....My husband would eat pizza in front of me and it was pure torture!

Oh, very important! Smart Balance Light has no DIARY in it and will make you very very happy on days you just want to have some toast or a hot roll with 'butter.'

Hang in there,
R.

I used lots of soy milk, rice milk and even lactose-free milk (Dairy Ease was the best tasting...I would even drink that straight) in place of regular milk. I found cheese and things like that didn't bother the baby as much, but once you transition him to solids, you will notice how much he can have or can't have. I also just google'd recipes...like I needed a milk-less, egg-less pumpkin pie recipe, so I google's it and LOTS came up, so you might try milk-less recipes in google and see what comes up! Good luck! My son's allergy did die down after 3 months of strict elimination (went to an allergist specializing in pediatrics), so you might consider trying that when you start introducing solids. Still has a little intolerance with plain milk, but can eat cheese, yogurt, etc now just fine with limits.

S., 26, mom of 15-month-old and #2 on the way

I have some great Pampered Chef recipes that are quick (30 minutes or less), healthy, and can be made for about $2 a serving. If you're interested reply to the post and we can figure out the best way for me to get them to you.

Hi A.,

My son is allergic to dairy and I use these recipe sites often for meal ideas. There is a great variety and godairyfree.org also offers substitution ideas. I hope this helps!

http://allrecipes.com/Recipes/Healthy-Cooking/Dairy-Free/...

http://www.godairyfree.org/Table/Recipes/

My favorite place for recipes is the library-- I check out cookbooks, go through and see what looks good, then photocopy the recipes, and if they are good, I keep them, if not, chuck the recipe.

Another thing that would help you out is epicurious.com. You can search "Vegan" and it will bring up tons of recipes that are vegan (no animal products). you could probably also search "no dairy" to a similar result.