Recipes aren’t hard to find especially online. However, finding healthy low calorie recipes to support your weight loss efforts is bit more of a challenge.

Do be careful about the sites you frequent for recipes. Lots of sites claim to have healthy recipes but they may be anything but. I hope this list will introduce you to at least one or two healthy and tasty recipe sites you were not aware of till now.

Whether you are looking for recipes that include certain ingredients, are a good source of particular nutrients, or can be prepared and ready to eat in less than 30 minutes, I’ve found sites that will deliver. I hope my recommendations will get you inspired to have fun experimenting with these recipes. Who knew weight loss (and maintenance) could be an adventure?

CDC (Fruits & Veggies: More Matters)

I believe fruits and vegetables should be a cornerstone of a healthy diet. By filling up at least half your plate on a regular basis with fruits and/or vegetables, you may very well have won half the battle in your weight loss efforts. Trust me your body will thank you whether you lose weight or not!

At this government site, the CDC has a wide selection of recipes specifically for fruits and vegetables. From appetizers to beverages, breakfast, desserts, dips/spreads/salsas, entrees, finger food, salads/slaws, side dishes, and soups they have something for everyone. Type in the fruits or vegetables you like best in the search box and the system will pull up a list of recommendations that incorporate your favorites. Or be adventuresome and try something new! Oh yes, you’ll get a complete nutrition breakdown for each recipe as well.

The World’s Healthiest Foods

Eating healthy, cooking healthy, and feeling great. These are the three main categories you will find on the home page of The World’s Healthiest Foods site. To me that’s what it is all about. Achieving and maintaining a healthy weight doesn’t have to be about deprivation. Click on the Cooking Healthy tab and you’ll find an option for 100 quick and easy recipes. Each of the recipes features a tempting photo, preparation and cook time, and a nutrient profile that lets you see at a glance which nutrients are particularly rich in a given dish.

Mayo Clinic

The Mayo Clinic Healthy Recipes Center may not be much to look at but don’t let that stop you! Check out the list of options you have for finding healthy low calorie foods! There are hundreds of choices categorized by appetizers, beverages, bread recipes, desserts, main dishes, salads, sandwiches, sauces, side dishes, and soup recipes.

Included are some recipes I’ll bet you thought you had to give up for good. What do you think of 0 grams of fat and only 114 calories for a serving of crispy potato skins? Mmm…Now that’s something I’d like to try. The nutritional analysis includes the basics (total calories, protein, fat, carbohydrates, fiber, and sodium) as well as a few others: saturated fat, monounsaturated fat (nice!), cholesterol, potassium, and calcium. But sadly there is nothing for vitamins and minerals.

A Healthier You

A Healthier You is the recipe site for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. You won’t find lots of recipes here but what they do have are healthy and hopefully easy-to-make as the site claims. The “heart healthy” recipes were developed by researchers and nutritionists with the HHS National Institutes of Health. No advanced cooking skills are needed. Included are the time estimates to both prepare and cook each dish.

University of Michigan Cancer Center

Why share a recipe site from a Cancer Center? Why not? Makes sense to me. The recipes provided at this site seem to be easy to prepare and tasty in addition to healthy. The emphasis is on fruits and vegetables like the CDC site. Some of the recipes include a short video demonstration on how to prepare the dish!

Recipe Zaar

Recipe Zaar has more than 277,000 recipes in over 450+ categories. Wow! That’s the good news. What’s not so good is that you have to steer yourself past all of the delicious-looking high calorie and not so healthy choices to reach the best recipes.

There are 25,788 low fat recipes. 13,978 very low carb recipes, and 36,520 vegetarian recipes. You can narrow your search further by picking a category for recipes with 3 or less steps to prepare or ones that call for no more than five ingredients. No matter what kind of recipe you are looking for I would imagine you will have success.

You will need to do some sifting and sorting to come up with the real gems—healthy recipes. Just because something is low fat or low carb or vegetarian doesn’t mean it is necessarily low calorie or nutritious and good for you!

Nubella

At Nubella there are thousands of healthy recipes but you will need to drill down to find the recipes best suited for YOUR health needs. Thankfully there are a variety of ways to search. First click on recipes on the navigation bar of the main page and then choose advanced search from the drop down menu.

This will bring you to an option to search by main ingredient, meal type, courses, or by nutritional need. Included are low fat, low calorie, low cholesterol, low sodium, and sugar free recipes. I need to caution you because many of the recipes are NOT low calorie. However, the site has a nice feature with the recipe lists. The calorie and fat content is included right up front so you can avoid clicking on the recipes that will be out of your calorie range.

Food and Health Communications

This site may not grab you visually but look a little closer. It has a surprising number of healthy low calorie recipes. I’ve tried quite a few in just the past week and I’ve been happy with my selections. I must admit I altered the recipes a bit here and there. Hey, recipes are just a starting point for getting your own creativity going. As long as you think in terms of healthy foods and watch the calorie counts, do modify recipes to suit your tastes and needs! There are lots of simple healthy recipes to explore at Food and Health Communications. Check it out!

This list of healthy recipe sites could be a lot longer but I chose to leave out sites that do not include any nutrition information. I don’t have much time to track down calorie and nutrient content and I suspect you don’t either. I also left off sites that aren’t easy to navigate or for which it is too time consuming to find the low calorie healthy choices. If you know of any sites that are similar or better than the ones I’ve shared here, please let me know. Thanks!

As always, have a great week, watch those calories, and stay healthy!