Healthy Recipes Of The Month

While there's a time and place for a cheeseburger and French fries, we're celebrating National Nutrition Month in March with a list of 90 of our favorite healthy recipes to help inspire and ignite your inner nutritious cravings. And we're not just talking plain 'ol salads with lettuce, cucumber, and just a drizzle of dressing. Here, we've compiled a list of hearty soups great for cold March days, various preparations of vegetables, chicken, fish, and other proteins, Mediterranean-inspired dishes, and even cookies. That's right, we said cookies. Who said with the right ingredients and preparation that cookies can't be nutritious?

So, this March, avoid the urge to pull into the fast food drive-thru lane and instead make the effort to prepare something healthy for you and your family. And, don't worry, not all healthy recipes have to be complicated. Some of these dishes take just 15 minutes and most take under half an hour to prepare. What are you waiting for? Dig into this list, pick your favorites, make a grocery list, and get cooking!

Dinner

Sometimes a nice, warm, homemade soup is exactly what you need for a chilly March afternoon lunch, and bonus points when it's a healthy soup like our minestrone. The soup is chock full of vegetables including onions, carrots, and celery, and is made from a base partly consisting of a whole can of tomatoes, which are full of antioxidants, helping to prevent heart disease and cancer. Recipe developer Sher Castellano recommends using Cento San Marzano brand tomatoes — one of the best out there – with basil for optimal results.

Easy Healthy Family Dinner Ideas

If you're looking for a light lunch option with servings of both fruits and veggies, look no further than this strawberry salad made with mixed greens — you can also use spinach or arugula in a pinch — sunflower seeds, some light feta cheese, and strawberries marinated in a sweet and tart dressing. Strawberries, like many fruits, have lots of Vitamin C along with magnesium and potassium, making this salad the ideal healthy choice for combating viruses during cold and flu season.

Move over, frying! For this baked chicken wing recipe, you'll use your oven to cook the wings, eliminating some of the unwanted health drawbacks of frying foods. Baking is a healthier option because it helps avoid the addition of excess, unwanted fat to the finished product. Recipe developer Keith Kamikawa walks you through how to prepare the chicken wings in a manner that makes sure they don't skimp on taste and that coveted crispy texture.

This vegan shepherd's pie recipe substitutes plant-based ingredients, such as lentils, chickpeas, and some frozen vegetables, for the common meats used in the dish: lamb and mutton, or, in the Americanized version, ground beef. Vegan diets are noted to have several health benefits, including helping with weight loss and improving your heart health. Of course, you'll still top this vegan shepherd's pie with plenty of potatoes, adding the traditional creamy goodness to the dish. Cook time is almost an hour, so be sure to wear your patience pants.

A Month Of Happiness With Ms. Mollie: Healthy Recipes For 31 Days Of Daily Living: Holt, Mollie Ann: 9781984531391: Amazon.com: Books

How can you make your favorite creamy pasta dish a little healthier? Ditch the Alfredo or the ever-popular vodka sauce and instead opt for a creamy sauce with an avocado base. Not only do avocados have lots of vitamins in them, they are additionally famously known for having good fats and lead to increased energy. There is also spinach, cherry tomatoes, basil, lemon zest, and garlic in this dish to add some veggie servings and plenty of flavor.

This spicy Chinese eggplant recipe comes from recipe developer Miriam Hahn, who is also a wellness coach, so you know it has to be abundantly healthy. The secret to reaping the health benefits is keeping the skin on the eggplant, which Hahn says adds to the veggie's levels of fiber, vitamins, and minerals. After sautéing the vegetables together, you'll make a sauce based of soy sauce and rice vinegar to pour over them before mixing in and enjoying.

Healthy

We all love our air fryers, and falafel is a popular Middle Eastern dish that is adored by people around the world. There are a lot of ingredients necessary to make these air fryer falafels, but actual prep involves only some light mixing and using your food processor to make sure everything is blended properly. The falafel are made with plenty of garbanzo beans and a bit of jalapeño for spice, the latter of which contains a cell damage-fighting antioxidant.

Healthy Dinner Meal Plan: One Month Of Healthy Dinners

Finally, a brand new way to prepare a potentially bland chicken breast. Prep is as easy as searing your boneless, skinless chicken breasts in a cast iron pan, pour in your sauce made from chicken broth, garlic, honey, and tamari, then pop the whole thing in the oven for a bit. The addition of the honey – which may help with gastrointestinal health and mental health — and garlic – which can help keep your heart healthy — makes you feel extra good about serving this dish to your family or enjoying it on your own.

Who says dessert has to be unhealthy? Not us, that's for sure! That's why we elicited the help of recipe developer Maren Epstein, who specializes in healthy recipes. The cookies get their health kick by using natural maple syrup – which may help with brain health and preventing Alzheimer's Disease — instead of sugar. Of course, there are also plenty of oats in these cookies, which contain lots of fiber and may help prevent heart issues. These are so healthy that you really could eat them for breakfast, Epstein says.

Free

If you're looking for a veggie alternative that tastes just like chicken nuggets, move along, as this isn't the recipe for you. However, if you want a fun breaded snack with more health benefits, check out these cauliflower nuggets, which are made from an entire head of cauliflower, which yields two dozen nuggets. Cauliflower helps with memory and can be anticarcinogenic, among other health perks. You can use any dipping sauce you'd like for these cauliflower nuggets, but recipe developer Catherine Brookes suggests ketchup, mayo, or sweet chili sauce.

Healthy Recipes Archives

Ditch the pasta and sub in strips of zucchini to make this classic Italian dish a bit healthier. Recipe developer Kristen Carli shows you how to properly cut the zucchini then layer it with tomato sauce and ricotta and mozzarella cheeses for best results. Not only does the zucchini, which can help with diabetes management and digestive health, pack a healthy punch, this lasagna is also gluten free. Carli recommends serving with some chicken or roasted broccoli.

This warm spinach salad combines protein, nutrients, and flavor to create a salad that's both delicious and that you can feel good about eating. Recipe developer Christina Musgrave walks you through how to perfectly hard boil the eggs and make the dressing of apple cider vinegar – which is great for cholesterol and blood pressure — and Dijon mustard. The salad will take you only about 15 minutes to make from start to finish and is perfect for a healthy lunch.

This healthy tuna wrap is easy to whip together if you're looking for a quick lunch or snack but still want to make sure you're eating healthy. You'll sub out the mayonnaise you're probably used to using to make the tuna salad for Greek yogurt, which has plenty of probiotics for gut health as well as calcium. Recipe developer Susan Olayinka says this switch not only makes this recipe healthier but also gives it a bit of a tangy flavor.

Healthy Dinner Ideas For Family

This cabbage steak recipe is certainly quick and easy, involving just five minutes of prep time and five ingredients: cabbage, olive oil, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. The cabbage steaks are not only healthy – cabbage is low in calories and a great source of Vitamins A and C — they're mighty tasty and can be paired with just about any entree like a perfectly roasted, crispy chicken or you could chop them up to use in soups or salads.

This spicy shrimp bowl requires a long list of ingredients, but worry not, it will take just half an hour from start to finish to make. In addition to shrimp – which has omega-3 fatty acids and lots of iodine in it — there is broccoli and zucchini in this dish, veggies that also add health benefits. After cooking your shrimp in a wok, you'll toss in a sauce made of soy sauce, honey, and Sriracha, as well as a little garlic and ginger. Serve with jasmine or basmati rice.

Healthy

We all know our good friend chicken soup has plenty of health benefits and is a favorite when fighting a cold or the flu, but subbing out the chicken for turkey – which contains Vitamins B-6, B-12, and zinc — in this recipe helps add more health benefits. What's even better is that you can whip up this turkey soup right in your Instant Pot and be enjoying it in no time. After sautéing the onions and the veggies, you'll add in the broth and turkey, then the noodles, and let the Instant Pot work its magic.