Healthy Hanukkah Recipes

Swap the potatoes for other root vegetables, such as parsnips and celery root, and you'll be rewarded with fewer calories and more fiber than in traditional latkes. Serve with sour cream and applesauce, if desired.

These airy coconut cookies get an upgrade with a simple dark chocolate drizzle in this healthy dessert recipe.

Honey and almonds flavor this simple (and gluten-free) cake. It's lovely for afternoon tea or a spring holiday dessert. Be careful not to overbeat the egg whites--they should be white and very foamy, but not at all stiff or able to hold peaks. If you beat them too much, the cake may sink in the middle as it cools.

This healthy revision of green bean casserole skips the canned soup and all the fat and sodium that come with it. Our white sauce with sliced fresh mushrooms, sweet onions and low-fat milk makes a creamy, rich casserole.

Skip the greasy mess with this healthy latke recipe by "frying" your potato pancakes in a waffle iron instead. Serve with sour cream and applesauce for dipping.

This healthy blueberry jam thumbprint cookie recipe incorporates white whole-wheat flour and uses less butter than traditional thumbprint cookies. The cookies are drizzled with white icing and filled with vibrant blueberry jam, but you can use any type of jam or icing to make your favorite combination.

The slight acidity of buttermilk tenderizes and moistens baked goods while allowing you to cut way back on butter or oils. Here, it also lends a slight tanginess to the winning combination of bananas and blueberries. To make muffins instead, see Muffin Variation.

This colorful salad makes a fine prelude to a hearty dinner. Walnut oil's distinctive flavor delivers a rich hit to the dressing.

Crispy latkes become the main event with the addition of deli corned beef in this healthy dinner recipe. Or make them smaller and serve as an easy appetizer. Serve latkes with applesauce or dill sour cream and roasted green beans.

This colorful, healthy salad recipe features persimmons--lightly sweet fruit, commonly grown in California, that ripen just in time to grace holiday tables. If you can't find persimmons, diced apples are a good alternative.

This popular Israeli breakfast or brunch skillet recipe features eggs cooked on a bed of roasted tomato sauce. Serve with warm crusty bread and hot sauce.

Crunchy fennel and celery are combined with grapes in this delicious salad recipe.

In this steak étouffée recipe, boneless chuck is slowly cooked in a flavorful liquid full of aromatic vegetables, spicy sausage and broth. This beef étouffée recipe calls for a 2 1/2-pound piece of chuck, but if chuck steaks are available at your market, purchase eight 4- to 5-ounce steaks instead of cutting your own from the roast. Serve the steak étouffée with stone-ground grits, polenta or rice, and pass the Tabasco.

Grapefruit juice is the base for the tangy vinaigrette on this salad studded with grapefruit segments and dried cranberries. It serves 12 as a starter or about 6 if you'd like a large portion per person.

This twist on a classic latke is baked in a muffin tin, avoiding lots of oil for frying. One caveat: There's no standard size for the tins sold in kitchen stores. You'll need a pan with muffin cups that hold about 1/2 cup water. Serve with Pear Cranberry Sauce.

This hearty dessert is the perfect sweet ending to a Hanukkah meal. Try serving it with plain yogurt, sweetened sour cream or ricotta cheese.

This dazzling pink pear & cranberry sauce has a perfect balance of tart and sweet tastes. It stands in for the applesauce that traditionally accompanies latkes.

These luxurious macaroons studded with pistachios and dried cranberries hail from food stylist Katie Webster. She made them three years ago when she was a personal chef for a gluten-intolerant client, then began selling them to a grateful crowd at her local farmers' market. Although you can concoct them with either sweetened or unsweetened coconut, we find that the unsweetened packs a more coconutty wallop. For a variation, substitute chopped crystallized ginger and mini chocolate chips for the pistachios and cranberries.

A tender-crisp, walnut-studded cookie (traditionally made with almonds, or mandel in Yiddish) adapted from a 1950s family recipe.

Reducing apple cider intensifies its fruity flavor. This sauce is a perfect complement to fruit crisps, waffles, pancakes and ice cream.