Healthy Cornmeal Recipes

This one-pan pasta that combines lean chicken breast and sautéed spinach for a one-bowl meal is garlicky, lemony and best served with a little Parm on top. I call it "Mom's Skillet Pasta" and she called it "Devon's Favorite Pasta." Either way it's a quick and easy weeknight dinner we created together and scribbled on a little recipe card more than a decade ago, and it remains in my weekly dinner rotation to this day. It's a simple dinner the whole family will love.

Skip the roasting in this butternut squash soup recipe and let your slow cooker do the work instead. Just load up all the ingredients into the crock pot, set it and forget it for an easy, healthy dinner or packable lunches.

This quick Asian salmon recipe uses the sauce for both glazing the salmon and tossing with the broccoli. Serve over rice noodles or brown rice tossed with sesame oil and scallions.

In a vegan riff on green goddess dressing, cashews provide a creamy base with tons of flavor from herbs and apple-cider vinegar. Drizzle it all over this bowl of quinoa and roasted vegetables to make a satisfying vegan dinner or easy packable lunch that is ready in just 30 minutes.

Sliced Brussels sprouts and mushrooms cook quickly and cling to the pasta in our fall version of pasta primavera. Look for presliced mushrooms to cut prep time. Serve with a tossed salad.

Spaghetti squash stuffed with ground turkey taco filling, pico de gallo and chopped avocado is a fun alternative on family taco night. This recipe is sure to please the kids (omit the spices if your children are sensitive to spices) and perfect for a family dinner.

Russet potatoes turn tender and soft in minutes in a pressure cooker, so you can make this comforting soup quickly on busy weeknights. Garnish with the classic potato soup fixings--bacon, scallions and melted Cheddar cheese.

This easy sheet-pan recipe brings together many fall favorites into a hearty dinner.

Serve this simple vegetarian side dish warm or room temperature alongside grilled meats and a stacked summer salad. A flash under the broiler leaves these slices of corn-studded polenta golden on the outside and soft on the inside; an herby, smoky tomato-pepper salad acts like a salsa to be spooned over the top.

The cheesy polenta filling in this healthy stuffed squash recipe makes a great alternative to mashed potatoes, as well as a hearty vegetarian entree. If you can't find kobocha squash, try using a buttercup squash or pie pumpkin--or skip serving it in the hollowed-out vegetable altogether and use 2 cups of your favorite pureed winter squash in Step 5.

Just a small amount of spicy fresh chorizo makes this Cuban polenta-like side dish more special. For this healthy corn porridge recipe, look for Mexican-style chorizo rather than the dry-cured Spanish variety.

Don't toss those beet greens! In this healthy recipe, orange-glazed beets and garlicky beet greens are served alongside a cheesy spoonbread. If you've never tried a spoonbread--a custard-like cornbread--you're in for a treat. Serve this Southern-inspired recipe with oven-fried chicken or sautéed shrimp.

This corn pudding recipe gets a flavorful twist from the addition of vanilla bean. Though you may think of vanilla only when it comes to dessert, this is a great example of how wonderful it can be in savory dishes. The scent of the vanilla enhances the buttery corn and custard taste of the casserole.

Cornbread gets a festive makeover in this recipe with the addition of fresh and dried cranberries. If you like your cornbread on the sweeter side, increase the honey to 1/2 cup.

The outside of this rustic-looking bread is crunchy and the inside is soft, with a smattering of small bits of corn grits and millet or sesame seeds. The loaf's mild corn flavor goes well with chowders, stews and Tex-Mex dishes. The bread calls for millet, but sesame seeds can be substituted with good results. A pot with a 9- to 10-inch diameter, such as a Dutch oven, will produce a nicely domed loaf, while a wider-bottomed pot will allow the dough to spread out and form a relatively flat loaf.

This easy polenta takes only a few minutes of stirring before it's left to cook on its own to creamy perfection. If you have leftovers, chill them overnight in a greased pan, slice into slabs, brush with canola oil and broil until both sides begin to crisp. Serve as a side dish at supper or for breakfast with maple syrup or honey.

Crunchy cornmeal and sharp Cheddar pair perfectly in this savory shortbread.

Flecked with fresh herbs and dried currants, this corn bread stuffing is a nice alternative to regular bread stuffing.