Five Holiday Recipes Dietitians Swear By

Sweet potatoes are a staple of a nutrient-rich diet, but many sweet potato recipes are bogged down with fats, sugar and empty calories. However, Elaine Magee’s recipe gives people a way to enjoy this root vegetable’s natural sweetness and rich texture without the guilt. “I set out to create a simple but flavorful sweet potato dish that could substitute for the rich and high sugar traditional sweet potato dishes,” Magee said. “It’s so easy to throw together and yet so light and flavorful that we make it year-round in our house.”

Opting for no additional sugar and embellished with bits of sweet potato skin, this dish highlights just how versatile one ingredient can be. “It’s an example of a colorful dish that’s easy to make with few ingredients and offers people an unsweetened sweet potato option.”

Whether it’s a Sunday roast or Thanksgiving Dinner, one of the best parts of a big meal is using a warm piece of bread to sop up all the leftovers on your plate. However, adding a heap of carbs on top of a rich meal is never ideal. Brenda Garcia’s dinner roll recipe is a stress-free way to have your cake and eat it too.

“A few years ago, I was hosting a holiday dinner,” Garcia said. “Some of the people had diabetes and one of them did not eat gluten. I decided to serve this recipe to help offer a lower carb option and they are made without gluten.”

Not only are these luscious rolls lower carb and gluten-free, but they’re a cinch to make. “These don’t have any yeast; thus, you can skip the kneading and rising steps. Just mix and bake! If you enjoy leftover rolls, you may want to double the recipe! These go fast and I rarely have any left.”

There are a handful of dishes that are integral to any proper holiday spread. One of them is the humble mixture of bread, stock and vegetables: stuffing. While this savory side provides a level of belly-warming comfort that few other dishes could compete with, too much of the heavy dish might also leave you moaning on the couch. Thankfully, Magee’s vegetable-packed recipe gives you and your family a guilt-free way to indulge.

“This dish is a wonderful healthful upgrade from the traditional bread stuffing and it’s become a tradition on my side of the family now too, my sister has been making this recipe for her family as well for a couple of decades now,” Magee said.

Inspired by a rice dish that was a favorite recipe of her mother’s, Magee’s riff on classic bread stuffing swaps out sticks of butter for antioxidant-containing extra-virgin olive oil and packs twice the typical amount of veggies. “It’s so delicious and so wonderfully filling and packed with nutrition, that we come up with reasons to make it a couple more times during the year.”

If you’re looking for a new twist on the old cranberry sauce or Waldorf salad, look no further. This cranberry banana walnut salad is a fresh and light side for the table—and just might upstage the main course.

“This is my go-to salad,” said Garcia. “I always serve it at our family’s holiday dinners. It’s also what I take when asked to bring a salad. It’s always a hit and one of the most requested recipes I serve.”

This fruit and nut mélange also comes together in a matter of minutes and can be made a day in advance. “I like to prepare the dressing and assemble all salad ingredients except the banana, in a bowl ahead of time. When it’s time to eat, I quickly slice the banana on top of the salad, toss with the dressing and it’s ready to serve!”

Sometimes, all you want is an easy recipe to get food on the table as soon as possible. Other times, it pays to slow things down and savor the ritual of cooking. For Elaine Magee, this gingerbread recipe is the perfect opportunity to do just that. “Back when my daughters were really young, we started a tradition of hosting a Christmas Eve lunch complete with food activities for my daughters and their cousins,” Magee said. “This involved making overnight cinnamon rolls that they then brought home and baked Christmas morning and frosting gingerbread cookies!”

These cookies are more than just a fun family activity—thanks to a few ingredient substitutions, these treats offer some nutrition along with the fun. “I developed a ‘healthier but still delicious’ recipe with mostly whole wheat flour and a blend of butter and Neufchatel cream cheese. I made the dough intentionally less sweet to balance out the sweetness from the frosting and decorations.”

The gingerbread cookies became a holiday staple every year. “The kids would pick out their favorite to leave for Santa,” she remembered. “There was always lots of laughs and creative cookie decorating amongst the cousins and grownups.” Thanks to this recipe, it can become a tradition in your home, too.