Low-fat sweet and sour pork recipe

Our healthy sweet and sour pork is delicious served up with some fluffy rice and a few prawn crackers for a treat. We love the balance of tangy flavours with sweet mellow tones in the sauce, and thanks to a little help from some cornflour it's nice and thick, so it coats everything beautifully. If you want to make this low-fat, healthy sweet and sour pork even more virtuous you could roast the pork, rather than frying it in oil and add in a few more veggies too. Add it to your low calorie meals (opens in new tab) list.

Ingredients

• 2tsp vegetable oil
• 350g (12oz) piece of pork fillet, cut into chunks
• 1 onion, peeled and cut into wedges, leaves pulled apart
• 1 red or green pepper, deseeded and cut into chunks
• Thumb-sized piece of fresh root ginger, peeled and finely sliced
• 1 cinnamon stick or 1tsp ground cinnamon
• 227g can pineapple rings in natural syrup (140g drained weight - reserve the syrup), each ring cut into 8 pieces
• 230g can plum tomatoes
• 1tbsp tomato ketchup
• 1tbsp vinegar, or more, to taste
• ½ chicken stock cube
• 1tsp flour or cornflour
• About 2tbsp soy sauce, to taste

To serve:

• 200g (7oz) dried egg noodles
• 2 small heads pak choi, leaves separated and large ones chopped

Method

1. Heat the oil in a large pan and fry the pork for about 5 mins until browned on both sides. Take it out of the pan and set aside.
2. Add the onion, pepper, ginger and cinnamon to the pan and fry for 5 minutes. Add the pineapple, 3tbsp of the pineapple's syrup, and the tomatoes, ketchup, vinegar, stock cube and 150ml (¼ pint) water. Bring to the boil, and then simmer for 10 mins to let the sauce thicken.
3. Put the pork back in the pan and simmer for another 5 mins. Mix the flour, or cornflour, with the rest of the syrup to make a paste, add to the pan and stir until thickened. Add the soy sauce, and more vinegar if needed, to taste.
4. Cook the noodles according to pack instructions, adding the pak choi to wilt. Serve with the sweet and sour pork. (Not suitable for freezing).