Best Healthy Recipes Ever
Quinoa and Brown Rice Bowl with Vegetables and Tahini
F&W's Gail Simmons makes this vegan rice bowl when she needs something especially healthy to eat.
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Spiced Pork Tenderloin with Honey Mustard
Since pork tenderloin is low in fat, it tends to dry out, so be careful not to overcook it—this recipe needs just 20 minutes in the oven. Melissa Rubel serves a stellar honey mustard alongside it to add moistness and sweet-spicy flavor.
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Watercress Soup with Pickled Cucumbers
Quick-pickled cucumber slices give this delicate, fresh-tasting soup a little zing.
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Rice Noodle Salad with Chicken
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Crisp Polenta with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes
Like many red fruits and vegetables, the juicy roasted cherry tomatoes topping the polenta contain lycopene, which protects against cancer and heart disease.
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Chicken Curry with Squash
Many curries are fiery, but this one is gently spiced with turmeric, which alternative-health experts laud as a powerful anti-inflammatory.
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Shrimp-and-Vegetable Summer Rolls
Vietnamese rolls stuffed with shrimp get crunch and color from yellow peppers, lettuce and carrots—which, like most orange fruits and vegetables, are high in cancer-fighting alpha carotene.
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Chicken Paprikash
Low-fat chicken breasts stay juicy and delicious in the velvety, zesty sauce for this healthy Hungarian chicken dish.
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Root-Vegetable Gratin
Use a mandoline to cut the vegetables into thin slices; they will turn tender when baked with chicken broth and a little cream.
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Sake-Steamed Halibut with Ginger and Cabbage
Grace Parisi steams delicate halibut with cabbage that’s sautéed with ginger and leeks until soft and buttery.
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Baked Potatoes with Wild Mushroom Ragù
Grace Parisi likes using a mix of shiitake, oyster, chanterelle and button mushrooms for this succulent ragù to top baked potatoes, but any combination will work.
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Crab, Avocado and Asparagus Salad
This mix of greens—including asparagus, a source of folate and vitamin K—makes this crab salad ultranutritious.
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Creamy Caramel Pudding
This decadent-seeming pudding is low in fat and a good source of calcium.
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Grilled Asian Eggplant with Ginger Sauce
Marcia Kiesel likes dressing up tender Asian eggplant with a vibrant fresh-ginger sauce that would also be wonderful with steamed fish or poached chicken.
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Nori Hand Rolls with Kale and Green Beans
Brown rice replaces the usual white in these fun-to-eat vegetable hand rolls.
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Beet Salad with Tangerines
This clever recipe uses sweet-tart tangerines two ways: Sections of fruit are tossed into the salad, and tangerine juice flavors the vinaigrette.
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Linguine with Red Cabbage
A little bit of cheese can add a lot of flavor to a healthy recipe. Marcia Kiesel tops this linguine with a scattering of crumbled feta, which melts on the warm pasta to give the dish a creamy tang.
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Beef Tenderloin with Pickled Onions and Pink Peppercorns
Tenderloin is one of the leanest cuts of beef. It stays moist in a lovely sauce flavored with rosé wine (an antioxidant source) and pink peppercorns.
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Honeyed Yogurt and Blueberry Tart with Ginger Crust
Melissa Rubel mixes creamy yogurt with honey so it’s deliciously sweet and tangy, then she spreads it in a graham-cracker crust spiced with bits of crystallized ginger and tops it with plump blueberries.
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Cranberry Panna Cotta
This elegant, low-fat panna cotta requires only five ingredients: cranberries, sugar, gelatin, water and buttermilk (instead of the usual cream).
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Warm Spaghetti-Squash Salad
Mild spaghetti squash is delicious with potent ingredients like the olives and feta in this lemony salad, which makes a wonderful starter or side dish.