Healthy Summer Recipes

By Food & Wine
Updated May 15, 2017
Credit: © John Kernick
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.
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Baja-Style Rosemary Chicken Skewers

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

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Grilled Baby Carrot Wraps with Poblano Cream

Credit: © Con Poulos
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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.

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Chicken Yakitori

Credit: © Con Poulos
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“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.“

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Thai Chicken and Watermelon Salad

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

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Barbecued Spiced Shrimp with Tomato Salad

Credit: © John Kernick
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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.

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Linguine with Tomatoes, Baby Zucchini and Herbs

Credit: © John Kernick
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“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.

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Chilled Tomato Soup with Goat-Milk Yogurt

Credit: © Fredrika Stjärne
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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.

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Tomato Salsa with Cucumber “Chips”

Credit: © Maura McEvoy
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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

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Halibut and Summer Vegetables en Papillote

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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.

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Spinach Fettuccine with Tangy Grilled Summer Squash

Credit: © Con Poulos
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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.

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Salmon with Cantaloupe and Fried Shallots

Credit: © Anna Williams

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.

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Grilled Shrimp with Mangoes and Chile

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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.

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Green Bean Slaw

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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.

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Mushroom Kufteh with Green Harissa and Asparagus Pesto

Credit: © David Malosh
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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.

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Saffron Fingerling Potato Salad with Mixed Greens and Tomatoes

Credit: © Stephanie Foley
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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.

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Crispy Fish Sandwiches with Herb Remoulade

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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.

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Tangy Green Zebra Gazpacho

Credit: © Earl Carter
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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.

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Black Bean Burgers

Credit: © Cedric Angeles
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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.

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Green Mango Salad

Credit: © Maura McEvoy
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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.

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Grilled Fish with Artichoke Caponata

Credit: © Stephanie Foley
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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.

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Summer Chopped Salad with Quick-Pickled Vegetables

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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.

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Gingered Salmon with Grilled Corn and Watercress Salad

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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.

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Fried-Zucchini Spaghetti

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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.

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Feta-and-Radish Toasts

Credit: © John Kernick
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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.

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