Try These Healthy, Mouthwatering Dishes

The start of a new year is the perfect time to incorporate a few healthier dishes into your repertoire, and we’ve rounded up five new options that are as flavorful as they are good for you.

Lauren Vandenbrook

Seared Carrot Ginger Salmon

Canadian cook and author Mary Berg is known for winning Season 3 of MasterChef Canada and as the TV host of Mary Makes It Easy on Food Network. In her third cookbook, In Mary’s Kitchen: Stress-Free Recipes for Every Home Cook, she aims to make cooking wholesome food a simple and fun process. Her obvious joy at sharing food that makes her happy is contagious (Variety called her “a millennial Ina Garten”). In her recipe for Seared Carrot Ginger Salmon, a homemade marinade does double duty as a dressing, giving the dish a bright, flavorful finish.

Get recipe: Seared Carrot Ginger Salmon

Courtesy: Chronicle Books

Cauliflower Bolognese

If you’re hoping to fill your diet with more veggie-forward dishes in 2024, the new book from Mumbai-born best-selling author Nik Sharma could help. In Veg-Table: Recipes, Techniques, and Plant Science for Big-Flavored, Vegetable-Focused Meals, the Serious Eats columnist shares 99 plant-focused recipes, alongside vivid photographs of both the recipes and the vegetables that make them sing. You’ll find meat included in some of his super-flavorful dishes, but the veggies are the real star. This recipe for Cauliflower Bolognese builds rich — dare we say meaty — flavor into the cauliflower by cooking it in milk and adding juicy San Marzano tomatoes. Served over fresh pasta, it’s a hearty dish to add to your dinner rotation.

Get recipe: Cauliflower Bolognese

Scott Suchman

Broccolini With Roasted Pepper Sauce

Doctor of preventive medicine Michael Crupain, M.D., says that there are five key food groups that are vital for living a longer, health-filled life. In his second cookbook, The Power Five: Essential Foods for Optimum Health, Crupain shares more than 75 recipes focused on those five groups: vegetables and fruits, nuts and seeds, beans, seafood and whole grains. In his recipe for Broccolini with Roasted Pepper Sauce, he develops a deep, layered flavor profile with briny capers and kalamata olives, toasted walnuts and black garlic.

Get recipe: Broccolini With Roasted Pepper Sauce