A lightened-up curry chicken salad made with Greek yogurt and avocado mayonnaise. Free of unhealthy, overly processed, refined oils.
WHAT MAKES GREAT CHICKEN SALAD?
In my opinion, there are 3 crucial elements to delicious chicken salad:
Properly cooked chicken
High quality mayonnaise free of any unhealthy, overly processed, refined oils, and
An ingredient with “crunch”
This Healthy Curry Chicken Salad delivers on all three of these essential elements of great chicken salad and adds a healthy twist by using half mayonnaise and half Greek yogurt for the dressing base. This is a basic, foolproof, chicken salad recipe that you can customize to your liking by varying the herbs, spices, nuts, and dried fruit/berries. (See the last paragraph of this post for suggestions.)
Gluten-free, grain-free, chocolate chip cookies made with nutrient dense chickpeas.
HEALTHY CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
Looks can be deceiving! Although these Chickpea Chocolate Chip Cookies look like your average, run-of-the-mill, chocolate chip cookies, they’re anything but. They are, quite possibly, the healthiest chocolate chip cookies on the planet – made from whole beans, nuts, seeds, and dark chocolate, and sweetened primarily with maple syrup, a natural, unrefined sugar. The magic ingredient is these cookies is chickpeas, which stands in for the flour that you’d normally find in most cookie recipes, and that miraculously turns into dough that looks, and bakes ups, exactly like cookie dough. And because there’s no wheat flour in this recipe, these scrumptious cookies are gluten-free and grain-free too. They have a clean taste and tender texture and are delicious dipped in milk or served alongside a scoop of vanilla ice cream. (more…)
Bread and cauliflower are foods at opposite ends of the nutrition spectrum so the idea that you can turn cauliflower into bread seems a little zany, but it’s possible! What’s even more crazy is that you can do it with just 3 ingredients! This keto friendly, 3 Ingredient Cauliflower Bread is a delicious, healthy substitute for traditional wheat bread and is perfect for anyone looking to eat healthier, or reduce their carbohydrate intake by eliminating traditional wheat bread from their diets. It’s got an awesome taste and texture and is guaranteed to satisfy even the most intense bread craving! (more…)
There are a dizzying array of snack/protein bars on the market. A grocery store I was in recently had almost an entire aisle filled with bars, each with a different marketing angle and in flavors so appetizing you would have thought they were candy bars, and indeed, they looked like candy bars! The colorful packages boasted the amount of protein, fiber, and sugar in each bar with, in most cases, ingredient labels a mile long. There are some good products amidst this crowded field, but for the average person, it’s hard to decipher what’s truly healthy and what’s not. Some weird sounding ingredients are perfectly harmless while others should be avoided, despite any nutrition claims on the package. One day, several years ago, I found myself standing in one of these jam-packed grocery store aisles looking at ingredient labels and googling words like “isomalto-oligosacharides”, “dextrin”, and “carnauba wax”. That’s when I decided I’d had enough. Since then, I’ve been making my own snack bars and have never looked back. These Almond Hemp Heart Bars are my newest creation. They contain just 5 simple ingredients – ingredients you’ll actually recognize – but the best part is, they’re soft, chewy, and utterly delicious! (more…)
There are only 4 simple ingredients in these delicious seafood cakes made with convenient and healthy, canned, wild caught, sockeye salmon. JUMP TO RECIPE
CANNED FOOD DURING COVID-19
Visits to the grocery store during the age of COVID-19 have become a bit of an ordeal, so anything we can do to lengthen the time between shopping trips is smart and can lessen the amount of stress we experience during these very uncertain times. Early on in this pandemic I started stocking up on non-perishables (soup, beans, pasta, marinara, and canned fish) and as the crisis has dragged on, this strategy has paid off, and, oddly enough, given me a newfound appreciation for canned foods. One of the healthiest canned foods you can buy is wild caught sockeye salmon, which is what I used to make these 4-ingredient Super Simple Salmon Cakes. (more…)
Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with these healthy, festive, gluten-free crackers. Delicious dipped in hummus. JUMP TO RECIPE
March 17th has always been a special holiday in Boston because our city was the site of the first St. Patrick’s Day parade in the 1760’s after an influx of Irish immigrants descended upon our shores. Sadly, for the first time in 260 years, there’ll be no parade tomorrow due to the coronavirus outbreak. The usual festivities will have to wait till next year, but if you’re looking for some small way to celebrate (and something to snack on while you’re hunkered down) then whip up a batch of these healthy and delicious Spinach Shamrock Crackers. The three leaves of a shamrock are said to stand for faith, hope, and love – something we all need in abundance right now! (more…)
If you’re a fan of easy, no-fuss recipes, you’ll love Tuscan Roasted Chicken Thighs. Assemble this dish ahead of time and store in a zip-lock bag in the refrigerator to marinate overnight. Then, when you’re ready to cook it, simply dump the contents into a casserole dish, sprinkle over some white wine and Parmesan bread crumbs, and stick it in the oven for about an hour. As the chicken roasts, all of the savory ingredients mingle with one another and form the most delicious sauce, which you can then spoon over the chicken prior to serving to make the already tender, juicy meat even more succulent. Be sure to serve this dish with something that can soak up all of the flavorful sauce; I recommend Lemon Rice. (more…)
Health-minded chocoholics will go crazy for these guilt-free brownies made with super clean ingredients! JUMP TO RECIPE
I confess to being a little bit obsessed with brownies – more specifically, healthy brownies. Ever since I discovered that delicious, decadent, authentic tasting brownies can be made with nutritious foods like black beans, avocados, sweet potatoes, tahini, lentils, and bananas, I’ve been on a mission to develop as many of these guilt-free recipes as I can. Sweet and Salty Chickpea Brownies are my most recent creation and they are soooo good! (You can find links to all my other healthy brownie recipes at the end of this post.) (more…)
These gluten-free, mild flavored gnocchi are a great, healthy alternative to pasta and French fries.JUMP TO RECIPE
If you’re a Trader Joe’s fan, chances are you’ve heard about their cauliflower gnocchi, a frozen grocery product with a sort of cult-like following. The accolades are well deserved as these vegetables-based dumplings are indeed quite tasty, but to be honest, I’m not crazy about their texture – I find them a little rubbery. So, I set about developing my own version of this product and came up with Baked Cauliflower Gnocchi. These gluten-free, mild flavored gnocchi are crispy on the outside, light and fluffy on the inside, and absolutely delicious! I always double or triple the recipe and keep a huge stash in my freezer for an easy weeknight meal. They make a great snack too as hand-held nibbles, and kids love them! (more…)
One of your favorite French foods just got healthier! This quiche is every bit as delicious as traditional quiche Lorraine with an easy-to-make, nutrient dense, chickpea flour pie crust. JUMP TO RECIPE
Quiche Lorraine is a recipe I made on are regular basis when I first started cooking because it was easy and I could remember it without having to reference a cookbook or recipe card. This was way before the internet and way before I had amassed any serious cooking equipment. In my tiny studio apartment, all I had was one mixing bowl, some very basic utensils, and an old gas oven, but with a frozen pie crust and a few simple ingredients I turned out quiche after quiche. My trick for remembering how to make it was simple – I recalled the number 3. The quiche custard consisted of 3 main ingredients: eggs, light cream, and cheese. As for how much of each of these ingredients, again, the number 3 helped me remember that the recipe called for 3 eggs, 3 half cups (1½ cups) of light cream, and 3 half cups (1½ cups) of cheese. After that, it was just a matter throwing in some meats or veggies and seasonings. To this day, there are very few dishes as delicious as this one that I can remember by heart which is why I thought it was high time for me to do a blog post. This recipe for Classic Quiche with a Chickpea Flour Crust is the updated version of my old favorite and replaces a store-bought, frozen pie crust with a delicious, gluten-free crust made from chickpea flour, also known as garbanzo flour or gram flour. It requires more effort to make than using a frozen crust (and might require you to actually refer to the recipe) but it’s much healthier and pairs amazingly well with the savory flavors in the quiche custard. (more…)
