Snow days are the best days. The cold weather and powdered sugar skies are a perfect excuse to stay in, play board games with the family and enjoy the fireplace, all while sipping on your favorite hot cocoa. While we're a fan of fuzzy socks, fires and blankets, what warms us up on a cold day is a delicious hot meal. From homemade chili to stuffed bell peppers, we've chosen a few of our favorite healthy warm meals to help keep you cozy when a big blanket isn't enough. So sit back and snug up around the fire while you decide which of these recipes to make for your next homemade warm winter meal!
Risotto tops our list of healthy warm meals for winter! A naturally filling dish, risotto can be eaten as a complementary side or as the main course.This risotto recipe's earthy flavor brings the meal back to its roots and highlights the natural characteristics of each ingredient. A rich blend of oyster mushrooms and shallots gives this recipe substance and adds to its already incredible texture.Instead of traditional rice, this recipe uses Bob's Red Mill Pearl Barley. An excellent source of fiber and a good source of iron, it's the perfect base for a nutritious meal. Our pearl barley is pearled, which means the bran is partially removed. This partially removed bran helps the barley cook much quicker than it would otherwise. The mild nutty flavor of this grain makes it a versatile ingredient that helps add interest to just about any recipe.Aside from pearl barley, this recipe also calls for squash to serve as a secondary base. The type of squash you use can greatly influence the final dish. Here, we used butternut squash, which has a creamy texture when cooked and is an excellent source of vitamins A and C.A quick tip: this healthy warm meal can be made in large batches to serve multiple dinner guests. Not sure what to do with any leftovers? We recommend saving the leftovers to combine with other meals throughout the week!
Finding gluten free and vegan recipes to serve throughout the holidays isn't always an easy task. Though there are many recipes in which you can substitute gluten free or vegan ingredients, substituting ingredients doesnt always produce an edible end product! Using a recipe that is intended for gluten free and vegan diets guarantees that all the ingredients are designed to be cooked and blended in that specific way, and ensures that your meal will not lack in form or flavor!Our Gluten Free Vegan Mushroom Stroganoff is the perfect nutritious meal for a snow day, especially if you're cooking for guests with dietary restrictions. It's an easy way to sneak healthy ingredients into a tasty pasta that kids and adults will love. Plus, it's made primarily with the vegan diet in mind. This recipe is topped with a delicious sauce made from our Chickpea Flour and can turn any gluten free pasta into the perfect comfort food. Chickpea flour is made from garbanzo beans, which add a sweet flavor and creamy texture to the dish. When mixed with spices and sauteed mushrooms, it's one of our favorite healthy warm meals for winter.
Most menus feature vegetables as a side dish rather than the main course. This recipe is here to change that! Bell peppers are one of our favorite nutritious ingredients to use when cooking. We love them because they're filled with vitamins A and C. When choosing the right bell peppers for your meal, we recommend using red, orange or yellow bell peppers. While green bell peppers are quite tasty, the truth is that green bell peppers are just bell peppers that haven't fully ripened. While completely edible, green bell peppers do not contain all of the vitamins and nutrients that fully ripened bell peppers do.Recipes like this one can quickly turn bell peppers into the best part of any dinner! When stuffed with meat, veggies or even leftover risotto, their "sweet and sour" flavor makes them an inevitable crowd-pleaser. If you'd rather keep the main course vegetarian, swap out the meat used in this recipe for a can of stewed tomatoes or freshly cooked spaghetti squash. The meal is the perfect way to add a little extra warmth and flavor to your snow day and one of the best healthy warm meals for winter.A bell pepper tip: keep them refrigerated! To make sure your bell peppers don't spoil, keep your them dry and place them in one of your refrigerators veggie drawers. This method can help keep them fresh for up to a week.
When we think of warm meals, a big cup of steaming chili is almost always the first thing that comes to mind. While the words "chili" and "healthy" are not commonly used side by side, in this recipe, they certainly can be! Our Bean Free Quinoa Chili recipe is gluten free, vegan and bean free. Yes, you read that right. It's bean free!We understand if at first, you're skeptical about how good a bean-free chili will taste when usually the main ingredient of a chili dish is beans. But we promise this recipe won't disappoint. Even without the beans, this chili is deliciously thick and full of the rich, traditional chili flavor that we all crave. In this recipe, our Organic Quinoa Grain replaces beans to create a substantial chili jam-packed with health benefits!Quinoa, a high protein, gluten free grain, has a subtle nutty taste that is delicious when paired with the vegetable broth, tomatoes and chili powder used in this recipe. Plus, one serving of quinoa provides 6 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber, making this chili especially satisfying!Spice up this recipe by adding mushrooms, carrots, onions or any of your other favorite chili ingredients. It's sure to be a hit with the family, and the perfect meal to enjoy when watching your favorite winter movie cozied up on the couch.
Tomato Tarte Tatin. Try saying that three times fast. Don't worry, we won't make you. Luckily, this recipe is much easier to make than it is to pronounce!If you're craving a warm dish that won't leave you feeling stuffed afterward, then this is the perfect recipe for you. Commonly a sweet pastry dish, we've put a savory spin on this Heirloom Tomato Tarte Tatin, turning it into a delicious winter meal that's bursting with flavor. Vegan and healthy, this meal is an excellent choice if you're cooking for individuals with dietary restrictions. Not to mention, it's made in under 45 minutes!The main star of this healthy warm meal, the heirloom tomato, is a nutritional powerhouse. Rich in vitamin C, just one medium heirloom tomato can provide you with up to 40% of your daily requirement of this vitamin. Heirloom tomatoes are also a great way to add a lot of flavor to a dish without overloading it with calories. At only 27 calories per cup, you don't have to worry about overdoing it when it comes to adding heirloom tomatoes to your recipes. They're the perfect addition to any meal!
What's a better way to warm up on a cold day than with a big bowl of pasta? Pasta is a widely known comfort food and for a good reason. Pasta is filling, warm, delicious, and can be paired with almost any side, which makes it a standout in our list of healthy warm meals for winter!While we love traditional fettuccine alfredo, we put a fun twist on this dish and made it vegan! If you're cooking for those following a vegan diet or individuals who are trying to stay away from dairy, then this is the perfect recipe. Made with cashews, coconut milk, aromatics and nutritional yeast, this fettuccine is rich, creamy and full of flavor!Our nutritional yeast used in this recipe is a great way to achieve a "cheesy" flavor while keeping the meal completely dairy-free. Made from a specially selected strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (a.k.a bakers yeast), it's the perfect vegetarian or vegan substitute. Nutritional yeast is also a great way to add nutrition to just about any meal, as it's full of B12 vitamins and protein!Now that you have a list of new recipes, its time to start cooking! When your next snow day hits, light the fire place and test our one of these warm and healthy dishes. Whichever recipe you end up choosing, we are sure youll be full and satisfied on your cold winters day.