Healthy Fall Entertaining Recipes

This simple beet salad recipe uses just a handful of ingredients to create a delightful side dish. Roasted beets add a sweet, earthy and aromatic flavor that shines in this side salad.

The deep flavors of molasses, cinnamon, ginger, allspice and nutmeg make these wholesome pumpkin cookies delicious without the addition of butter--and they lend themselves beautifully to the inclusion of whole-wheat flour. They are also the perfect texture for a sandwich cookie--fill them with a slightly sweetened cream cheese frosting.

Learn how to roast squash in this healthy recipe adapted from Alice Waters. Look for squash varieties, including buttercup, kabocha or hubbard, at your farmers' market and try them in this tasty side dish.

Whip up a batch of these diabetic-friendly Banana-Oat Muffins for a quick and easy snack or add them to complete a balanced breakfast. These muffins can be eaten over several days or frozen and enjoyed for up to a month.

This slow-cooker chicken recipe makes a perfect alternative to standard tomato-based barbecued chicken. Both kids and adults will devour these drumsticks, doused in a honey-sweetened sauce spiked with orange, ginger and garlic.

Serve this zesty bean and barley soup garnished with chopped fresh cilantro and a squeeze of lime, if desired.

If you prefer, make this salad with broccoli slaw mix instead of the coleslaw mix.

Classic mashed potatoes get a nutrient boost with the addition of sweet potatoes. This healthy mashed potato recipe can easily be doubled, just be sure to cook the potatoes in a Dutch oven rather than a large saucepan.

This Italian white bean salad is healthy and delicious. The capers and rosemary-lemon dressing add wonderful flavor to the cannellini beans and chopped tomato.

This easy casserole, full of ground beef, roasted broccoli and topped with hash browns, was inspired by the classic Minnesota Tater Tot hotdish. Roasting the broccoli before adding it to the casserole gives the whole dish a much more complex and exciting flavor, but it's by no means necessary. If you want to keep it simple, skip roasting the broccoli (Step 2) and use 6 cups frozen broccoli, thawed, in its place (omit 1 tablespoon oil, as well).

A unique take on banana bread, this recipe introduces the banana-coconut flavor combination. This creative, diabetic-friendly recipe is the perfect solution for using over-ripe bananas and is easy to make.

Fancy up regular mashed potatoes with a layer of mushroom duxelle--a sauté of finely chopped mushrooms and shallots. We omitted the traditional butter in the duxelle and added chard for a nutritional boost. Serve this hearty side in place of mashed potatoes at any holiday feast or enjoy it as a vegetarian main dish.