Healthy Summer Recipes

By Food & Wine
Updated May 15, 2017
Our favorite ways to embrace summertime are to cook everything on the grill and eat lots of fresh produce. Whether you're looking for a heart-healthy salmon recipe or an easy appetizer, eating healthfully in the summer months is easy and delicious. These fabulous recipes include tangy gazpacho and spicy barbecued shrimp with tomato salad.
Start Slideshow

1 of 24

Baja-Style Rosemary Chicken Skewers

Go to Recipe

Chicken thighs are perfect for the grill because they stay nice and moist. Skewering them with rosemary imparts a lovely herbal flavor.

Advertisement
Advertisement

2 of 24

Grilled Baby Carrot Wraps with Poblano Cream

Go to Recipe

About 15 slender baby carrots—grilled until charred, then tightly rolled inside a tortilla with poblano-spiked sour cream—make for a superb vegetable wrap.

3 of 24

Chicken Yakitori

Go to Recipe

“Korean-style horumon stalls are big in Tokyo,” says Andrew Zimmern. ”These tiny restaurants grill dozens of skewers with animal parts like udders, cockscomb, trachea, you name it. But even with conventional meat, grilling techniques like basting with fresh ginger juice are genius. If you’re not adventurous, try it on chicken thighs.“

Advertisement

4 of 24

Thai Chicken and Watermelon Salad

Go to Recipe

For this recipe, summer watermelon and chicken come together in a puckery salad dressing made with lime juice and fish sauce.

5 of 24

Barbecued Spiced Shrimp with Tomato Salad

Credit: John Kernick
Go to Recipe

The big, bold Southwestern flavors in this shrimp seasoning—which include pure ancho chile powder, smoked paprika, cumin and brown sugar—epitomize Bobby Flay’s style. The seasoning mix would also be terrific on pork chops or beef tenderloin.

6 of 24

Linguine with Tomatoes, Baby Zucchini and Herbs

Go to Recipe

“This dish makes you understand the less-is-more approach of Italian cooking,” says Andreas Viestad about his pasta tossed with a raw tomato-and-zucchini sauce.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

7 of 24

Chilled Tomato Soup with Goat-Milk Yogurt

Credit: © Fredrika Stjärne
Go to Recipe

Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge make yogurt from the goat milk produced on the Beekman farm. They blend the tangy yogurt into this herb-flecked soup.

8 of 24

Tomato Salsa with Cucumber “Chips”

Go to Recipe

This healthy take on the traditional chips-and-salsa combo is nearly fat-free and super-refreshing. The antioxidant-rich salsa is delicious served right after it’s made, but the flavors meld nicely after a day or two in the refrigerator

9 of 24

Halibut and Summer Vegetables en Papillote

Go to Recipe

Nikole Herriott’s blog has some of the web’s best food photos, styled with kitchen tools she sells online. Here, her pretty halibut in parchment.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

10 of 24

Spinach Fettuccine with Tangy Grilled Summer Squash

Go to Recipe

At her restaurant, Amanda Cohen tosses herb fettuccine with pickled squash blossoms and grilled zucchini. This simplified recipe features squash that’s pickled and then grilled, plus freshly sautéed squash.

11 of 24

Salmon with Cantaloupe and Fried Shallots

John Shields composed this dish from ingredients he picked up at his local supermarket. The magic is in the play of textures and flavors: The salmon skin and shallots—both potato-chip crisp— are wonderful with the tender, flaky fish and sweet pieces of melon.

12 of 24

Grilled Shrimp with Mangoes and Chile

Go to Recipe

Luke Mangan particularly likes juicy, sweet Yamba prawns (a.k.a., shrimp) from New South Wales, but any variety of fresh, large shrimp will do.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

13 of 24

Green Bean Slaw

Go to Recipe

In this salad, tender haricots verts get tossed with crunchy strips of carrot, red pepper and parsnip. When TV personality Rachael Ray (who is originally from upstate New York) visited the Beekman farm, Lee Woolver made a version of this salad with bacon, but it’s just as delicious without.

14 of 24

Mushroom Kufteh with Green Harissa and Asparagus Pesto

Go to Recipe

To give his meatless kufteh a deep flavor, chef Hoss Zaré uses sautéed wild mushrooms, parsley, basil and a touch of Parmesan cheese. The lightly spicy, citrusy green harissa he serves on top is phenomenal; it gets an extra vitamin boost from spinach.

15 of 24

Saffron Fingerling Potato Salad with Mixed Greens and Tomatoes

Go to Recipe

Michael Anthony (an F&W Best New Chef 2002) includes just a few coins of tender, saffron-flavored fingerling potatoes in his 50-ingredient warm vegetable salad. Grace Parisi reimagines those fingerlings for this light, fresh take on a potato salad, tossed with fennel, tomatoes and plenty of greens.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

16 of 24

Crispy Fish Sandwiches with Herb Remoulade

Go to Recipe

Grilling the fish and making a sauce with fat-free fromage blanc (a fresh, spoonable cheese) keeps the calorie count down in this variation on the classic fried fish-shack sandwich. While any white fish will work well here, catfish is a sustainable choice and a great source of vitamin B12.

17 of 24

Tangy Green Zebra Gazpacho

Go to Recipe

Green Zebras are heirloom tomatoes with a striped pattern; they are sweet like red tomatoes but give this gazpacho a lovely jade hue. To make the chilled soup extra tangy, use tomatillos or unripe red tomatoes instead of Green Zebras.

18 of 24

Black Bean Burgers

Credit: CEDRIC ANGELES
Go to Recipe

Most veggie burgers are a pale imitation of the all-beef original, but even with ordinary black beans in place of Rancho Gordo Midnight beans, these robust patties with roasted red pepper spread are moist and delicious. The spread doubles as a fantastic dipping sauce for French fries.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

19 of 24

Green Mango Salad

Go to Recipe

The mangoes in this jalapeño-spiced salad are full of vitamin C. Be sure to use firm, underripe fruit: They add an essential tang to the recipe.

20 of 24

Grilled Fish with Artichoke Caponata

Go to Recipe

To top meaty mahimahi Michael White makes a vinegary caponata (a Sicilian relish) with fresh artichoke hearts, not the traditional tomatoes and eggplant. Trimming artichokes can be time-consuming, so buy marinated artichoke hearts from the grocery store instead.

21 of 24

Summer Chopped Salad with Quick-Pickled Vegetables

Go to Recipe

Paul Newman, the late co-owner of Dressing Room, Michel Nischan’s restaurant in Westport, Connecticut, loved a good chopped salad. To add a tangy burst of flavor, Michel Nischan pickles the carrots, celery and peppers before tossing them with the rest of the salad.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

22 of 24

Gingered Salmon with Grilled Corn and Watercress Salad

Go to Recipe

Quinn Hatfield stuffs pickled ginger into slits in the salmon to infuse it with flavor. To keep the sliced fish intact and the ginger in place, he cleverly skewers the fillets before cooking.

23 of 24

Fried-Zucchini Spaghetti

Go to Recipe

This pasta is an ode to the mountains of fried zucchini Gwyneth Paltrow ate at Elio's, an Italian restaurant on Manhattan's Upper East Side, growing up. Here, she adds the crispy zucchini slices to spaghetti that's tossed with shredded Parmesan cheese (which adds texture to the dish) and plenty of olive oil and basil.

24 of 24

Feta-and-Radish Toasts

Go to Recipe

Steven Satterfield says you can use any assortment of radishes for these toasts, like watermelon, pink beauty, cherry belle or d’Avignon. If you slice the radishes ahead of time, keep them in a bowl of ice water, which makes them extra cold and crispy.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Replay gallery

Share the Gallery

Up Next

By Food & Wine