6 Low Calorie Ways to Flavor Protein Balls or other Baked Goods
With so many options to flavor up your homemade protein balls, bars, or other baked goods. I found 6 low calorie flavor ideas that top the list!
Recently I did a segment on my local daytime news program, Studio 5, sharing three of my favorite protein balls. Check out the segment below.
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So, it occurred to me while I was prepping for this segment, (which was just supposed to be a demo of three protein ball recipes), that there were a few flavor add-ins I use frequently to create some of my favorite low calorie treats.
Using the same basic recipe, for protein balls or pancakes for example, but simply adding flavors to that recipe can make them taste entirely different. Which is how I got pumpkin flavored, lemon flavored, and even strawberry flavored protein treats.
And, it’s not just limited to protein balls! I also use these flavors to create treats like:
- A yogurt bowl (Pistachio sugar free pudding mix and plain greek yogurt is my favorite combo!)
- Muffins
- smoothies
- Protein balls
- Pancakes or waffles
- Water or carbonated beverages
- and even oatmeal!
I made a list on Amazon for the spices and flavors (the first three things)! Check it out here.
My favorite low calorie flavor add-ins:
1) Spices
Spices these days have gotten so creative and interesting. I’ve seen such spice blends, and I’ve used popcorn seasonings like:
- Pumpkin pie spice
- Salted caramel spice
- Georgia peach spice
- chocolate sugar
- Mexican cocoa
- Kettle corn
- Cookies and Cream
- Butter
- Caramel corn
- Cinnamon honey butter
The blended spice game has exploded in the past few years. Seriously, if you can think of it, I promise, someone has made it!
I definitely use pumpkin pie spice the most, but I have had some food jags where I would sprinkle the Kettle corn popcorn seasoning on toast and plain rice cakes. I got addicted to that flavor for a minute!
2) Flavored Extracts
Just like spices, flavored extracts or flavors have increased in variety. Even at my local grocery store, I’m seeing extracts like
- Cake Batter flavoring
- Banana
- Orange
- Strawberry
- Almond extract
- Vanilla
- peppermint
- Lemon
- Maple
- and EVEN Pumpkin Pie Spice extract!
I love to use these low calorie flavors in things like pancakes, waffles, and baked goods.
3) Food grade flavored candy oils (like lemon for lemon balls)
Cooking with flavored oils is a new thing for me. While I was trying to develop my recipe for lemon protein balls, I tried lemon juice and lemon zest, but could never get a strong enough flavor of lemon.
That’s when I started doing some Amazon searches for lemon flavoring, and found a variety box of 16 flavored oils for about $15. It was definitely worth a test
The drops are food safe, and made for things like candy making, baking, making homemade soap, lip balm and even adding to drinks. They’re pretty powerful in flavor and you only need a few drops at a time.
A few recipes I’ve made with the drops include
4) Sugar free Jello mix powder
You only have to hang out on my blog for a few articles to notice, I use Sugar free Jello mix and pudding powder, a LOT!! I use it in
- Yogurt
- Muffins
- Pancakes
- Smoothies
- Mixed in with cottage cheese
- Ice cream and protein ice cream here
- and even sweet bread like this protein blueberry bread!
5) Skinny syrups
When I first found skinny syrups, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven! Where I live, soda shops are on every corner. But not just regular soda’s. “Dirty soda’s” where they add squirts of flavor like coconut, vanilla, and cherry.
I knew I could make my own dirty soda’s, but I wanted to use sugar free flavors, so I wouldn’t be adding extra calories. That’s where the skinny syrups came in!
You can actually go to their Skinny Mixes website and search their recipes for a variety of ways they use these sugar free flavors. They have recipes for:
- Smoothies
- Cocktails
- Oatmeal
- Yogurt
- Nice Cream
- Pie
- Cheesecake
- Peanut butter cups
- Energy balls
- Pancakes
- Pudding
- Applesauce
- Muffins
Seriously, I could go on and on!! check out all their recipes here.
If you shop for any of these, my affiliate code for 10% off is HEALTHBEET
6) Flavored protein powder
And the final flavor I thought of was in the protein powder itself. While you could always use vanilla protein powder, and use one of the flavor add-ins above for smoothies or protein balls, I like the Clean Simple Eats protein because they have such a variety of fun flavors!
- Pumpkin protein balls
- Oreo Protein balls
- Pumpkin puppy chow!
- and Maple Donut Pancakes
And the 3 recipes I shared in my segment above are:
- Pumpkin protein balls https://healthbeet.org/protein-pumpkin-energy-balls/
- Lemon protein balls https://healthbeet.org/delicious-lemon-bar-protein-balls/
- Strawberry protein balls https://healthbeet.org/macro-friendly-strawberry-protein-balls
