The more you use a good quality olive oil, the better your food will taste. Spring is the time to seek out the newest extra virgin olive oils—the current harvest from olives picked and milled in the previous fall and early winter.
I've been getting requests for a blue cheese dressing recipe ever since I shared these buffalo cauliflower wings a few years ago. After testing and tweaking this one with various ratios of mayo, buttermilk, and sour cream, I'm happy to report that it works perfectly as a dip for wings or veggies. With a little more buttermilk (or regular milk) stirred in, it becomes a flavorful, pourable salad dressing too.
This Winter Citrus Salad is absolutely gorgeous and has a variety of incredible winter fruits like pomegranate seeds and tangy citrus fruits! This salad makes a great appetizer, side or main dish. You will love how versatile it can be! Add a beautiful piece of sliced chicken or crispy air fried chickpeas on top to add a little protein and make a full meal out of it. This salad it very customizable as long as there is some citrus on it.
These Roll-Ups are held together with heavy cream and cream cheese mixed with crab and pistachios. It almost has a sweet flavor and is the perfect contrast with the savory ham. The filling adds tons of flavor and gives the roll-ups a little texture. A delicious bite-size appetizer that can be dressed up on a nice platter or served as a snack on a paper plate.
The shape and size of mini bell peppers make them the perfect vessel for this handheld party snack. The filling for these vegan poppers is sweet, crunchy and a little juicy, with a hint of spice from Tajin seasoning-an addictive Mexican-style blend of chili, salt, and dehydrated lime juice. You can assemble these poppers a day ahead of time and store them in the fridge until ready to serve.
There's something about those heads of butter lettuce at the store or spring farmer's market: the bright green always looks so enticing! I'm one of those people who can't resist buying them, even if I don't have a plan yet. So here's a simple recipe I created to make it taste amazing: my butter lettuce salad!
Soaked and blended, cashews become a stand-in for heavy cream, keeping stuffed shells, soups, pasta sauces, and desserts luxuriously dairy-free. Toasted and roughly chopped, they add crunch to salads, curries, stir-fries, and more. There are so many reasons to love cooking with these seeds-that's right, "cashew nut" is technically a misnomer, since they grow outside the fruit rather than inside a hard shell like true nuts.
You have endless options when it comes to salad dressing. If you're not a fan of store-bought dressings, it's easy enough to make your own. With just oil and an acid as a base, the sky's the limit for what else can be done. But you can also go back a step if you want to really expand your salad dressing repertoire.
Dynamic duo beans and greens come together again in this pantry-friendly soup. Toasted garlic, tomato paste, and smoked paprika boost store-bought vegetable stock (use a base like Better Than Bouillon for superior potency) into a rich broth. Chickpeas and Swiss chard hang on to their texture in the brew, but use whichever white beans and hearty greens speak to you.
Greek salads are incredibly underrated, whether you're making them at home for yourself or ordering one from your favorite local Greek spot alongside your favorite Greek dishes. A Greek-style salad is usually packed with fresh ingredients - think lettuce, red onion, Kalamata olives, cucumbers, a basic vinaigrette - and topped with the one ingredient that makes Greek salad, well, Greek salad: feta cheese. It's fatty, milky, salty, and flavorful, elevating the entire mouthfeel and giving you reason to order yours with extra on top.
If you're trying to increase the presence of veggie-packed salads in your life but feel held back, it could be your dressing that's making you feel iffy. Bottled salad dressings are usually loaded with preservatives, saturated fat, sugar, and salt, turning a healthy midday meal into a processed food nightmare. That's why the secret to fresh, healthy, and downright-delicious salad comes down to one thing: a great homemade dressing.
I'm not much of a cook. I can throw together a few things for breakfast, sure. I can make a sandwich. Beyond that, I stick with what I know. And that means mostly easy Mexican dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner for a guy on the go. One thing I do know really well is how to trim, chop and combine greens and fruit to make a banging Mexican-style green juice.
These Middle Eastern chickpea balls are so meaty and satisfying, I feel like I could eat them every day! One of my favorite ideas for how to eat them is this falafel salad. Make a batch of my baked falafel, then layer them with crunchy veggies and top with a creamy, zingy tahini dressing. You can also use purchased frozen falafel, or even repurpose takeout leftovers! This one is a massive hit with my family.
Utica greens is a classic Italian American dish that goes by that name everywhere except Utica itself. Said to originate in Chesterfield Restaurant in central New York, Utica greens typically features escarole or another bitter green, hot pickled chiles, cheese, breadcrumbs, and a cured meat like prosciutto. This is a fairly faithful rendition of the original, with bushy broccoli rabe as the bitter green of choice.
Need an easy lunch or dinner idea? Try brown lentils! Alex and I love eating lentils for lunches or dinners, since they're full of plant-based protein and keep us full for hours afterwards. This brown lentils recipe results in perfectly seasoned, tender lentils. You can eat them as-is, or add them as a component to tacos, salads, and more. They're a simple protein that makes an easy vegan recipe or healthy dinner!
