Healthy autumn recipes
These healthy autumn recipes are vegetable-led dishes, many of them built on lentils, beans or grains. Most are vegetarian and many are vegan, and each recipe shows its estimated nutrition per serving, so you can compare calories, protein, carbohydrate and fat before you choose.
Mediterranean lentil soup is finished with the juice of two lemons, chickpea stew folds in spinach at the end, and ratatouille fries each vegetable separately so it keeps its own texture. İmam bayıldı and Moroccan carrot salad are served at room temperature, and avgolemono thickens chicken broth with nothing but eggs and lemon. Every recipe gives exact amounts, scales to the number of people and sends what you still need to a shared shopping list.
15 recipes
Harvest Bowl🇺🇸 American recipes · Lunch · 1 h 20 min
Roasted Beet Salad🇺🇸 American recipes · Lunch · 1 h 50 min
Warm Quinoa Salad🌍 Mediterranean recipes · Lunch · 50 min
Mediterranean Lentil Soup🌍 Mediterranean recipes · Lunch · 50 min
Chickpea Stew🌍 Mediterranean recipes · Dinner · 45 min
Ratatouille🇫🇷 French recipes · Dinner · 1 h 15 min
Roasted Pumpkin with Feta🌍 Mediterranean recipes · Side dish · 50 min
İmam Bayıldı🇹🇷 Turkish recipes · Dinner · 3 h 30 min
Moroccan Carrot Salad🌍 North African recipes · Side dish · 1 h
Avgolemono🇬🇷 Greek recipes · Lunch · 35 min
Kabocha no Nimono🇯🇵 Japanese recipes · Side dish · 1 h 10 min
Dal Tadka🇮🇳 Indian recipes · Dinner · 1 h 5 min
Chana Masala🇮🇳 Indian recipes · Dinner · 50 min
Fasolada🇬🇷 Greek recipes · Lunch · 10 h
Minestrone🇮🇹 Italian recipes · Lunch · 1 h 25 min
Vegetables, pulses and grains first
Every dish here is built around vegetables, pulses or grains. Lentils carry Mediterranean lentil soup and dal tadka, chickpeas carry chickpea stew and chana masala, white beans carry fasolada, and wild rice and quinoa are the base of the harvest bowl and the warm quinoa salad. Only avgolemono contains chicken, and only kabocha no nimono contains fish, in its dashi.
The olive oil is not held back: imam bayıldı cooks four aubergines in 200 ml, and fasolada stirs half of its 150 ml in raw at the end, as Greek cooks do. Estimated nutrition runs from about 135 kcal a serving for kabocha no nimono, a side dish, to about 800 for the harvest bowl, a full meal.
Roasting and dressing autumn vegetables
Roasted vegetables need room: packed onto a tray, they steam in their own moisture and stay pale. The harvest bowl roasts halved Brussels sprouts cut side down at 220°C and never turns them, so the cut faces caramelise deep brown and their bitterness is tamed. Roasted pumpkin with feta keeps the skin on; with butternut squash, kabocha or red kuri it softens enough to eat.
Dress vegetables while they are warm. Moroccan carrot salad is dressed the moment the carrots are drained, so they absorb the cumin, garlic and lemon dressing instead of sitting in it. The roasted beet salad dresses its beetroot warm too, but lets it cool before it meets the rocket and goat cheese, which hot beetroot would wilt and melt.
Cooking ahead for lunches
Several of these keep for packed lunches. The harvest bowl lasts up to four days with its wild rice, roasted vegetables, kale and dressing in separate containers; slice the apple on the day. Warm quinoa salad also keeps four days, with the pomegranate seeds and dressing added once it is warmed through, and kabocha no nimono keeps four days in its cooking liquid.
Fasolada, minestrone and ratatouille are better the next day, though minestrone’s pasta should be cooked fresh if you make the soup ahead. Avgolemono is the one to eat at once: reheating risks scrambling the eggs, so make only what you will eat.
Frequently asked questions
- What are some healthy fall dinner ideas?
- Chickpea stew is ready in 45 minutes: chickpeas simmered in a cumin and smoked paprika tomato base, with spinach folded in at the end. Mediterranean lentil soup takes 50 minutes and ratatouille 75, while imam bayıldı, aubergines stuffed with slow-cooked onion, garlic and tomato, is baked ahead and served cold or at room temperature.
- Do these recipes show calories?
- Yes. Each recipe shows estimated nutrition per serving, covering calories, protein, carbohydrate and fat, worked out from the ingredients and the number of servings. Moroccan carrot salad comes to about 140 kcal a serving and Mediterranean lentil soup about 280, while imam bayıldı, with 200 ml of olive oil for four, reaches about 530. Treat the figures as a guide, not a measurement.
- Which healthy fall recipes are vegan?
- Chickpea stew, Mediterranean lentil soup, ratatouille, imam bayıldı and Moroccan carrot salad are vegan, and so are the harvest bowl, warm quinoa salad, chana masala and fasolada. The others use chicken and eggs, ghee, cheese, honey or dashi, the Japanese stock made with bonito flakes.
- How do you keep avgolemono from curdling?
- Take the broth off the heat and wait until it has stopped bubbling completely. Whisk room-temperature eggs until pale and frothy, whisk in the lemon juice, then add at least four ladlefuls of the hot broth one at a time, whisking constantly. Pour it all back and stir over the lowest heat for 2 to 3 minutes, without letting it boil.
- Why is imam bayıldı served cold?
- It is a zeytinyağlı dish, one of the Turkish vegetable dishes cooked in olive oil and eaten at room temperature, and served warm it tastes flat and oily. The baked aubergines cool for at least an hour first. The name means the imam fainted; the story goes that it was either at the flavour or at how much oil went in.