Summer is great for a lot of reasons, but one of my favorite parts of the season is the food. Hands down. Tomatoes, watermelons, berries, peaches, and corn are abundant and ripe, which makes it so easy and satisfying to put 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 makes side dishes like dips and pasta salads – two wonderful things that I always wish were common all year round (seriously, who says we need to save them for barbecues?)
Most healthy summer recipes are also relatively quick and easy to make. This is ideal when you are too busy to enjoy the long, sunny days outside. Nobody wants to be hunched over the stove for hours every day, especially when all the cooking is wasting precious daylight.
To make your summer easier, healthier, and more delicious, we’ve rounded up some of the best healthy summer recipes on the internet. From refreshing salads to juicy grilled chicken to all of the savory side dishes in between, these healthy summer recipes will make food your favorite part of summer too.
A note on the word healthy here: We know healthy is a complicated concept. Not only can it mean different things to different people, it’s a word that is quite loaded (and sometimes crowded) thanks to the influence of the diet industry on the way we think about food. At SELF, when we talk about healthy foods, we are mostly talking about foods that are nutritious, filling, and satisfying. But it also depends on your preferences, your culture, what’s available to you, and a lot more. We selected these recipes with these basic criteria in mind while attempting to address a wide variety of nutritional needs and taste buds.
