21 Gut-Healthy Winter Dinners to Help You Lose Weight
Reviewed by Dietitian Jessica Ball, M.S., RD
Embrace the season with dishes that warm you up and contribute to a healthier you. These recipes include ingredients that help support your gut-health and healthy digestion like garlic, mushrooms and beans. Plus, each dish has at least 6 grams of fiber and less than 575 calories per serving, so they’re light yet satisfying choices that can help support weight loss if that is your goal. Recipes like our Creamy White Chili with Cream Cheese and our Roasted Root Veggies and Greens over Spiced Lentils are delicious and nourishing options you’ll want to make on repeat all winter long.
Creamy White Chili with Cream Cheese
This rich, yet healthy, white chicken chili recipe comes together in a flash thanks to quick-cooking chicken thighs and canned white beans. Mashing some of the beans acts as a fast thickener when your soups don't have a long time to simmer. Cream cheese adds the final bit of richness and a hint of sweet tang.
Vegetarian Potato-Kale Soup
This healthy soup recipe has a rich, yet light and velvety texture. Serve with crusty bread and a glass of wine for a cozy meal.
Sweet Potato & Black Bean Chili
Photographer: Antonis Achilleos, Prop Stylist: Kay Clarke, Food Stylist: Emily Nabors Hall
Make a double batch of this quick vegetarian chili, full of black beans and sweet potatoes, and eat it for lunch the next day or freeze the extras for another night.
Maple-Roasted Chicken Thighs with Sweet Potato Wedges and Brussels Sprouts
This easy sheet-pan recipe brings together many fall favorites into a hearty dinner.
Roasted Root Veggies & Greens over Spiced Lentils
This earthy bowl of lentils is topped with leftover roasted root veggies from a large batch for an easy weeknight dinner. Keep it vegan or add a drizzle of plain yogurt for extra richness.
Sweet Potato-Black Bean Burgers
These vegan sweet potato-black bean burgers spiced with curry powder are easy to make. Blending the mixture with your hands gives you a soft, uniform texture then the outside gets crispy by cooking in a cast-iron pan. To make this recipe gluten-free too, use gluten-free oats and serve the patty in a lettuce wrap, omitting the bun.
Kale & White Bean Potpie with Chive Biscuits
In this vegetarian white bean potpie recipe, kale and hearty white beans are topped with easy, homemade chive biscuits. If desired, add a little shredded Gruyère or Cheddar cheese to the biscuit dough.
Chickpea Pasta with Mushrooms & Kale
Loading up your pasta with vegetables like the kale and mushrooms here is not only delicious, it also makes the meal more satisfying.
Cheeseburger Stuffed Baked Potatoes
Skip the bun and serve all of your favorite cheeseburger ingredients--beef, cheese, tomatoes, red onions and lettuce--with baked potatoes for a hearty and easy dinner recipe that kids and adults will love. Feel free to swap out the ground beef for ground turkey or tofu crumbles.
Roasted Vegetable & Black Bean Tacos
These hearty vegan tacos are quick and easy to make, perfect for busy weeknights. They are so tasty no one will miss the meat or dairy.
Pasta Salad with Black Beans & Avocado Dressing
Everyone will love this pasta salad recipe that's packed with tomatoes, corn and black beans. We lighten up the creamy dressing with avocado for a healthier version of a picnic favorite.
Spinach-Artichoke-Sausage Cauliflower Gnocchi
Hearty and piquant, this quick cauliflower gnocchi dinner incorporates several healthy convenience ingredients, including turkey sausage and tender artichoke hearts, so dinner is on your table fast.
Spinach Ravioli with Artichokes & Olives
Store-bought spinach ravioli and a handful of basic pantry items are all you need to get a healthy dinner on the table in 15 minutes. Ingredients like oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, briny Kalamata olives and toasty pine nuts help to build big flavor fast. If you can't find frozen artichokes, swap in a 15-ounce can (just be sure to drain and rinse them well).
Cauliflower Tikka Masala with Chickpeas
In this vegetarian riff on a popular Indian dish, we swap in cauliflower and chickpeas for the chicken in tikka masala. The cauliflower's nooks and crannies are particularly good at soaking up all the intense flavors of the sauce. Serve over rice for an easy healthy dinner that's ready in just 20 minutes.
Spaghetti with Rosemary & Lemon
This recipe, adapted from Eat Better, Feel Better, proves that pasta doesn't have to be complicated to be luscious. This dish is very simple but flavorful, so even a smaller portion makes a nice, light meal when paired with a big green salad. You could also add bits of cooked asparagus, broccoli, zucchini—even shrimp if you're not going for a meatless main.
Spinach & Artichoke Dip Pasta
If you've ever wanted to make a meal out of warm spinach and artichoke dip, this creamy pasta is for you. And here's what's almost as good as the flavor of this comforting dish: the fact that this healthy dinner takes just 20 minutes to prepare.
Creamy Spinach Orzo
This creamy spinach orzo pasta dish is light, quick and easy. The fresh basil truly shines through and complements the spinach in this vegetarian pasta dinner.
Black Bean Tacos
Mixing mashed canned beans with whole beans and seasonings makes an incredibly simple taco filling from your pantry. Top these speedy 5-ingredient tacos with lettuce, tomato and salsa or any of your favorite taco toppings.
Creamy Salmon Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomatoes
In this creamy salmon pasta recipe, sun-dried tomatoes are used in two ways. The flavorful oil is used to sauté shallots, while the tomatoes get added to the cream sauce.
Beef & Bean Sloppy Joes
This healthy copycat recipe of the comfort food classic trades beans for some of the meat to bump up fiber by 7 grams. We also cut back on the sugar and ketchup in this Sloppy Joe recipe makeover to save you 12 grams of added sugar.
Chickpea & Potato Curry
This fast Indian-style curry comes together with ingredients you most likely have on hand, like frozen peas and canned tomatoes and chickpeas. Plus, using these spices shows how simple it is to make a curry sauce for an easy vegetarian recipe. Serve with whole-wheat naan to sop it all up.
Read the original article on Eating Well.
