Quick & Easy Christmas Side Dish Recipes

Whir cauliflower into a creamy low-carb substitute for mashed potatoes. This easy recipe gets a kick of flavor from garlic-infused olive oil, making it a dairy-free (and vegan) vegetable side dish.

Chef Michael Symon loves Brussels sprouts because they can be cooked so many different ways. In this healthy recipe, the rich flavor of the walnuts, Dijon and capers is perfection with roasted meats.

Cutting the potatoes into cubes before steaming means this quick healthy mashed potato recipe is ready in the same time it takes to cook a steak or piece of fish. Have your buttermilk and butter at room temperature so they won't cool the potatoes too much when you start mashing.

Salad dressing made from sweet and mellow white balsamic vinegar balances out the assertive greens and Brussels sprouts in this healthy winter salad. If you have one handy, a small mandoline makes it easy to slice the Brussels and apple. To make it a dinner salad, top with shrimp or chicken.

Here a pungent garlicky dressing is infused into kale by massaging the greens and the dressing together with your hands. Any type of kale will work in this kale salad recipe, just remember to remove the tough stems before you start.

Our savory cauliflower puree makes a perfect low-carb stand-in for mashed potatoes. It gets its fabulous flavor from garlic, buttermilk and a touch of butter and, best of all, it has about one-quarter of the calories of typical mashed potatoes. If you like, vary it by adding shredded low-fat cheese or chopped fresh herbs.

Marinating olives in aromatic herbs and a touch of lemon zest is an ideal way to enhance their flavor. Throughout the Mediterranean, bowls of them are routinely set out as appetizers or as a simple lunch with bread and perhaps some cheese or fruit. While a selection of olives of varying sizes, colors and cures is the most interesting, you can also simply use the one or two kinds most readily available.

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

Mature, larger-leaved spinach holds up better to the warm bacon vinaigrette than baby spinach in this healthy spinach salad recipe. If you don't want the spinach to wilt, let the dressing cool before tossing it with the salad.

Using the slicing blade of a food processor on Brussels sprouts creates a big, fluffy pile of crunchy sprout ribbons quickly. In this easy salad recipe, the shaved Brussels sprouts are dressed with a lemony vinaigrette spiked with crushed red pepper and sweetened with a bit of honey.

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

Jewel-like pomegranate seeds star along with bacon, tangy clementines and sweet dates in this mixed green salad recipe. To make it a dinner salad, top with chicken, shrimp or pan-seared salmon.

This lemon and dill vinaigrette is a natural complement to green beans. It's also great tossed with steamed asparagus or drizzled over sliced fresh tomatoes. To make this recipe serve 10, multiply all the ingredients by 2 1/2: Use 2 1/2 pounds green beans, 3 tablespoons dill, 2 1/2 tablespoons each shallot, oil and lemon juice, 2 1/2 teaspoons mustard and 3/4 teaspoon each salt and pepper.

In this winter greens salad recipe, the steamed squash adds a tender yielding texture and a mild, almost nutty taste. Combine with some nutritious bitter greens and a sweet-sour cranberry vinaigrette and you have an amazing salad.

In this glazed carrot recipe, instead of a traditional sugar glaze, we glaze spiced carrots with a combination of sweet-tart pomegranate molasses and honey. A touch of butter and a sprinkling of pistachios make them a decadent yet simple vegetable side dish for any meal.

Pears, celery root, carrots and onion combine in this flavorful fall slaw recipe. Use underripe pears to keep the texture crisp. Cutting the pears and celery root by hand into little matchsticks makes a prettier salad, but go ahead and shred them with a box grater if you're in a hurry.

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.

We love how roasting brings out the sweet flavor of beets. Golden beets look especially pretty when tossed with the fresh herb and lemon seasoning mix, but any type of beets will work in this recipe. If you're a lemon lover, be sure to add the squeeze of fresh lemon juice after the beets are roasted.

In this beautiful grapefruit salad recipe we pair the salty flavor of halloumi cheese with sweet-tart ruby grapefruit and aromatic mint. Halloumi cheese has a texture similar to mozzarella, but it browns rather than melts when it is heated. Look for halloumi in tubs or airtight packs near other imported cheese in large supermarkets.

Serve this grapefruit, hearts of palm and shrimp salad for lunch or as an appetizer. This shrimp salad recipe is low in calories, light and satisfying. Hearts of palm are the tender inner stem of certain species of palm trees, with a flavor similar to artichokes. Find them near other canned vegetables.