Low-Carb Side Dish Recipes

Restaurant-style Mexican rice (sometimes called Spanish rice) gets a healthy, low-carb makeover in this recipe that swaps white rice for riced cauliflower. Cooked with other flavorful ingredients like tomatoes, jalapeño and cilantro, this makes the perfect, festive side for taco night.

These delicious, low-carb "fries" are wrapped in bacon and baked in the oven until they achieve a nice crispy coating. To keep the coating crisp, serve them on a large plate or platter (not piled in a dish) alongside BBQ sauce, ranch dressing or your favorite sauce for dipping. Thinly sliced bacon works best in this recipe for easy wrapping.

This super-quick vegetable side dish comes together in no time. Fresh snap peas need only a few minutes in a hot skillet-just enough time to whip up a simple soy-ginger glaze.

This easy vegetable side dish shines alongside roasted or seared steak, chicken, shrimp or firm fish, such as cod or salmon. Sumac lends punchy, fruity, sour-lemon notes to this fast and simple recipe. Find ground sumac spice online, in specialty markets and in well-stocked grocery stores.

Grilling is a simple and fast way to cook asparagus that yields a delicious result every time. Trimming off about one inch of the asparagus yields the best flavor--the ends are tough and hard to chew.

Roasting carrots in the oven brings out their inherent sweetness, while Parmesan and garlic give this easy side dish a flavorful savory accent.

This simple technique of cooking onions and peppers is a useful way to get your veggie servings in. They're quite versatile--use these peppers and onions on a burger or sausage sandwich, stuff them into quesadillas or layer them into casseroles.

If you are looking to start fermenting your own vegetables, kimchi is a great place to start. It is easy to make, and fermentation takes just a few days. Once you have kimchi on hand, use this healthy Asian condiment to liven up brown rice, soups, stir-fries, grilled cheese sandwiches, tacos--and the list goes on!

Our spin on the traditional Venetian risotto swaps in cauliflower rice for arborio rice in this healthy vegetable side dish. Spring peas and Parmesan cheese keep the rest of the dish classic.

The simplest way to prep artichokes: cook them whole and eat your way to the tender heart leaf by leaf. And since these artichokes can be made ahead and served at room temperature, they're also perfect for entertaining.

These savory, low-carb (and gluten-free) "English muffins" use riced cauliflower in place of flour, with a little cheese and egg as binder to make a grain-free breakfast bread. Try topping them with sweet jam, or use them to create a yummy breakfast sandwich.

This foolproof way to cook zucchini is also the easiest and fastest. Just steam it on the stovetop for a few minutes and you have a healthy vegetable side dish to add to dinner. Toss with a little pesto for extra flavor.

This super-simple method for sautéed zucchini makes an easy and healthy vegetable side dish. Add garlic, pesto or even Parmesan cheese for extra flavor.

A quick roast in the oven brings out the zucchini's delicate, earthy flavor, plus it's an easy hands-off way to cook zucchini for a fast vegetable side.

Looking for a new way to cook zucchini? Try grilling it.

Roasting brings out the inherent sweetness in carrots--but add a little maple syrup and butter and you have a caramelized vegetable your kids (and you!) will actually want to eat seconds of.

Of all the vegetables in the supermarket, cabbage gives you some of the best value for your dollar. It's inexpensive and low in calories, but packed with nutritional benefits (vitamin C, fiber, cancer-fighting phytochemicals). This easy vegetable side dish gets a boost of flavor from shallot, caraway seeds and a delicious finish of crisp bacon.

Potatoes were first to benefit from the Hasselback techinique--making thin slices crosswise toward the bottom of the vegetable, but not all the way through, so the potato becomes fanned, seasoned and baked until crisp. Here we've adapted the concept to garlic bread and updated it with cheese for an easy and completely mouthwatering cheesy bread side dish.

This good-for-your-gut-health food gets super-silky when slowly cooked in the oven. Serve these flavorful braised leeks with roast chicken or fish.

These easy roasted vegetables will give your plate a pop of color. Give the cubes of butternut squash a head start for 10 minutes to soften in the oven before adding in the other veggies. The broccoli, peppers and onion are naturally more tender than the butternut squash and cook more quickly. That way everything ends up finishing at the same time.