So adding sauces (sour cream, ranch dressing, butter, etc.) is OK—just make sure the focus is on the healthy (whole) vegetables/fruits? Or is it a bad idea to add those flavors/sauces?
Some people will tell you that you can replace sour cream with non-fat yogurt but that’s just bullshit, IMHO. If I’m having a baked potato it’s going to have sour cream AND butter on it. Since doing that on a frequent basis would kill me, I instead roast sweet potatoes/red potatoes/baby creamer potatoes in olive oil, garlic and dried herbs. I don’t miss the sour cream or butter because it would be superfluous to those dishes.
I am not a vegetarian but I do eat at least a couple vegetarian meals a week. I don’t eat ground beef, so to make spaghetti with “fake” meatballs is enjoyable comfort food, especially if you add some red wine to the tomato sauce and serve it all with a side of Texas Toast or garlic bread. Morningstar is a consistently good vegetarian brand—we buy their fake bacon to make BLTs—but there’s plenty of other alternatives to try.
I am also an ex-ranch-o-holic. Think ranch dressing drenching a small bowl of greens. Now, I eat a large bowl of salad (peppery Arugula, baby spinach, green onion, tomatoes, fresh mushrooms, or some variation), a shake or two of Parmesan cheese from the “green can” and a splash of Italian Dressing (the non-creamy version). The flavor is amazing and adding ranch would kill it.
The above is probably not the gold standard of healthy eating, but I like eating strategies that I can stick with over the “eliminate everything tasty because it will kill you” approach.