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Try These Healthy, Mouthwatering Dishes

Five easy-to-prepare recipes for nutritious, delicious meals

Jennifer Bradley Franklin,

AARP

Published January 02, 2024

root vegetable and roast chicken pan stew

Al Douglas

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

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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

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Al Douglas

Root Vegetable and Roast Chicken Pan Stew

If there’s anyone who can make vegetable-forward recipes mouthwatering, it’s chef and author Michael Smith. The U.S.-born proprietor of the Inn at Bay Fortune on Prince Edward Island, Canada, is always inspired by the bounty of produce from his 70-acre farm, which grows more than 200 kinds of fruits and veggies each year. Farmhouse Vegetables: A Vegetable-Forward Cookbook, his 12th cookbook, features his recipe for Root Vegetable and Roast Chicken Pan Stew, which calls for carrots, parsnips, potatoes, a celery root and a turnip. But you could easily swap in other in-season (or on-hand) root vegetables that strike your fancy to create this hearty, satisfying dinner.

Get recipe: Root Vegetable and Roast Chicken Pan Stew

grated beets, toasted pumpkin seeds, tangy feta cheese and dressing

Ashley Sears

Beets & Seeds

In 2021, successful New York City cupcake baker and owner of the popular Baked By Melissa cupcake business Melissa Ben-Ishay posted a video on TikTok about her favorite vegan chopped Green Goddess Salad. The video went viral with 25 million views (and counting) and prompted her to share more healthy recipes and eventually create her second cookbook, Come Hungry: Salads, Meals, and Sweets for People Who Live to Eat. The book features easy-to-create recipes that leverage fresh ingredients and simple techniques for wholesome meals the whole family will love. Her Beets & Seeds salad uses grated beets, toasted pumpkin seeds, tangy feta cheese and a lemony, garlic-infused dressing. The colorful presentation and bold flavors make it a delicious way to meet your veggie-eating goals.

Get recipe: Beets & Seeds

Jennifer Bradley Franklin is an Atlanta-based journalist, editor and author who has contributed to the Wall Street Journal, Travel + Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler, People magazine, USA Today and others. She's an avid traveler, ballroom dancer and is more than a little coffee obsessed. Read more of her work at jenniferbradleyfranklin.com.

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