Summer is great for many reasons, but one of my favorite parts of the season is the food. Hands down. Tomatoes, watermelon, berries, peaches, and corn are abundant and ripe, making it so easy and satisfying to throw together healthy summer recipes. The weather is finally nice enough to stand outside and grill everything instead of cooking inside in a cramped kitchen. Everyone’s making side dishes like dips and pasta salads—two wonderful things that I always wish were common year round (seriously, who says we have to save them for BBQs?)
Most healthy summer recipes are also relatively quick and easy to make, which is ideal when you’re too busy enjoying the long, sunny days outside. No one wants to be hunched over the stove for hours on any day, but especially when all that cooking is wasting precious daylight.
To help make your summer easier, healthier, and more delicious, we rounded up some of the best healthy summer recipes on the internet. From refreshing salads to juicy grilled chicken and all the hearty side dishes in between, these healthy summer recipes are about to make food your favorite part of summer too.
A note about the word healthy here: We know that healthy is a complicated concept. Not only can it mean different things to different people, it’s a word that’s pretty loaded (and sometimes fraught), thanks to the diet industry’s influence on the way we think about food. At SELF, when we talk about food being healthy, we’re primarily talking about foods that are nutritious, filling, and satisfying. But it also depends on your preferences, your culture, what’s accessible to you, and so much more. We selected these recipes with those basic criteria in mind while also trying to appeal to a wide variety of nutritional needs and taste buds.
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