Healthy Vegetarian Family Recipes

This colorful and healthy cranberry salad will brighten up any Thanksgiving spread. It's sweet but not overly so, with juicy oranges, crunchy walnuts and crisp celery and apples. It's easy to make and can be prepped ahead--plus, you can use fresh or frozen cranberries, which extends the season of this salad. We call for Honeycrisp apples, but Gala or Fuji would also work well. Serve this cranberry salad with your Thanksgiving turkey, of course, or try it with chicken or pork any time of year.

This beautiful and healthy appetizer board will be the talk of all your summer parties. Just assemble a colorful assortment of crunchy vegetables for dunking in two dips--a cooling herbed blue cheese and a spicy avocado hummus that play very nicely together.

This cheesy baked eggplant Parmesan has no breading, which means it's easier to make than the traditional version. There's no dredging or frying--instead, the eggplant is roasted until tender before being layered in the casserole dish with a tangy homemade tomato sauce, mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. And without breading, this satisfying eggplant Parmesan is also gluten-free!

Cucumbers, tomato, parsley and feta are the basics of an Israeli salad, which is as common at breakfast as at any other meal. Here, fluffy challah croutons make the dish a sort of mash-up of the Lebanese bread salad fattoush, made with pita, and a Tuscan panzanella. It's just the kind of cross-pollination modern Israeli food is known for. And for you, it's a healthy meal that's ready in 25 minutes!

If you can find torpedo onions, try them in this healthy grilled recipe. These long, cylindrical purple onions, similar in flavor and texture to leeks, soften and caramelize to a sweet finish on the grill. You can find them at farmers' markets in spring or fall. Any spring onion or even 1-inch-thick slices of sweet onion make a good substitute.

Rainbow carrots are a feast for the eyes in this healthy and easy side dish, although any colors will be just as tasty. If you like, save some of the carrot greens for garnish.

The inspiration for this green shakshuka recipe comes from HaBasta, a popular restaurant on the edge of Carmel Market in Tel Aviv, where the shakshuka is packed with green chard and spinach and a little hot pepper provides just a touch of spice. Serve with pita or crusty bread to sop up the sauce for a quick dinner or for brunch.

Masabacha is a thick stew that in this case serves as the backbone to a hearty and healthy breakfast bowl. But the real star here is the silky whipped tahini sauce, made by simply pureeing tahini and water with garlic and lemon juice until the mixture is transformed into a light, spreadable sauce. Serve with warm pita and some vegetables for dipping.

Grab your crock pot for this hearty and easy vegan chili, which is chock-full of great-tasting and good-for-you ingredients, including pinto and black beans, red pepper, tomatoes and butternut squash. Once a little chopping is done, all you have to do is dump the ingredients in the slow cooker, making this colorful veggie chili the perfect weeknight dinner. A garnish of fresh avocado and chopped cilantro is a nice touch.

Spaghetti with red sauce is often eaten as a main dish, but don't overlook it as a side. The homemade tomato sauce in this recipe takes advantage of your late summer tomato harvest and is well worth the small effort it takes to make it.

These easy oven-baked veggie fries are made from thick slices of zucchini dipped in a seasoned breadcrumb batter. Served with an herbed buttermilk dipping sauce, they're so good, you may just prefer them over regular potato fries!

This easy side dish casserole is bursting with triple the corn--whole kernel corn, cream-style corn, and corn muffin mix. Serve it alongside ribs at your next backyard barbecue.

Take taco night in a new direction with these healthy vegan tacos. We've swapped crumbled tofu for the ground beef, without sacrificing any of the savory seasonings you expect in a taco. You can also use the filling in burritos, bowls, taco salads and to top nachos.

Mac and cheese no longer has to be off the menu if you don't do dairy. A blend of hearty cauliflower, butternut squash, cashews and nutritional yeast gives this vegan macaroni and cheese the gooey, cheesy texture and flavor of traditional mac, without a bit of dairy!

Every day should start with a stack of strawberry pancakes. These old-fashioned pancakes are made with white whole-wheat flour so you get a bit of whole grain in every bite, but they're still lightly and fluffy, just like your family likes.

Pancakes are a weekend brunch necessity (mimosas, too), but making them for a crowd is time-consuming. Instead, bake four kinds of pancakes--peanut butter, chocolate chip, raspberry and blueberry--at once with this easy sheet-pan pancake recipe. Making several different pancakes in one batch means you can easily please your whole brunch party, including yourself!

If you want an easy cherry cobbler recipe that also keeps your kitchen cool, you're in luck! This simple cobbler is made with frozen pitted cherries--so there's no sitting in a stuffy kitchen pitting cherries--and it's baked in a cast-iron skillet right on your grill so you don't have to heat up your oven. Try making this summery dessert for your next camping cookout. The sweet smells of tangy cherry filling and a buttery oat topping will have everyone in the campground asking for a bite.

A classic Irish side dish, colcannon is typically a mound of mashed potatoes mixed with crumbled bacon, wilted cabbage and scallions, with a crater full of butter in the middle. For this seaweed variation, salty, umami-rich dillisk (the Irish name for dulse) take the place of bacon in this healthy side dish recipe. Look for dried dulse in well-stocked supermarkets.

Adding daikon radish to this cheesy potato gratin boosts flavor and trims calories. To make this a quick recipe, we precook the vegetables before topping them with Gruyère cheese sauce and panko, then run the gratin under the broiler to create a delicious golden-brown crust.

This delicious vegetable side dish is bursting with grape tomatoes, porcini mushrooms, and creamy roasted eggplant chunks. Topped with a thyme-balsamic sauce, it would make a filling vegetarian main dish served over rice or couscous.