Wellness Mama®
Simple Answers for Healthier Families
My favorite healthy, real food side dishes & recipes for busy families can be found below. All recipes are grain-free, dairy optional and kid-approved. Need help meal planning? Check out my meal planning service!
Cauliflower isn’t a vegetable everyone in my family loves. The kids will eat it if it’s loaded with butter, but for some of them, it’s not on their favorites list. Unless of course I make this loaded cauliflower recipe with bacon! Last night, everyone in my family ate this, including my child who isn’t a …
Strawberry and feta salad is hands down one of my favorite summer salads. This refreshing watermelon salad with feta cheese and mint leaves though is just as delicious. It’s bright, flavorful and the perfect side to serve on a warm summer day, especially when there are guests. Our family loves cookouts and grilling outside whenever …
I love how happy and healthy spending time outside makes me feel, so I garden. Part of the result of that is that there’s always an abundance of zucchini during the summer months. Zucchini plants are such super producers that I frequently find myself with more vegetables than I know what to do with. I’ve …
No one loves a good casserole recipe more than a mom. From her perspective, it’s a complete meal, loaded with veggies, and baked all in one dish. It’s easy for serving and cleanup and can be made in advance. And as an added bonus, the recipe can usually be doubled and half of it frozen …
Like my strawberry cheesecake parfaits, prosciutto wrapped asparagus is one of those dishes that looks elegant and impressive but is actually really easy and quick to make. It works well as either a side dish, an appetizer, or a nice hors d’oeuvres at a potluck. What Is Prosciutto, and What Do I Do With It? …
Sometimes I struggle with side dishes. I feel like I’ve already put enough effort into planning the main dish, so sometimes the vegetable sides become a minimal-effort afterthought. Fortunately, Real Plans has helped with the planning part a lot. These quick and easy sweet potato fries are on Real Plans. I love that they are …
My name is Katie and I love cabbage. I never really thought I’d say that. I’m not a huge fan of coleslaw. In fact, I usually use broccoli instead of cabbage when making it. However, I’ve learned that if I don’t like something, sometimes I just need to either try making it myself or try a completely …
Winter squashes are, to me, the chicken of the vegetable world. They’ve got a nice flavor but are a mostly blank slate that is delicious with different seasonings and preparations. They can be sweet, savory, or spicy. They can be diced and roasted, added to soups and pureed, and baked into desserts. As an added …
Brussels sprouts… the dreaded vegetable of childhood! However, cooked the right way, these can become a favorite for both kids and adults. Seriously, I have kids that get excited when they find out roasted Brussels sprouts are for dinner! They are also a great addition to a Thanksgiving or holiday menu or a perfect side for chicken …
One summer, when my kids were helping their grandparents harvest and preserve vegetables from their garden, the okra were producing like crazy. They kept coming home with bags and bags of okra. And we can only eat so much jumbolaya! Since we weren’t doing grains, eggs, or even grain-free batter at the time, I couldn’t make fried okra. …
It’s not always easy to think of healthy dishes for entertaining or to bring to a party. (Not everyone appreciates homemade sauerkraut, I guess!) Deviled eggs are one dish that pleases a crowd and when made with the right ingredients is full of healthy fats. I’ve made over most traditional recipes to fit our eating …
Sweet potato casserole is beloved (by some) as a classic holiday recipe. If I’m being honest, I’m more of a plain baked sweet potato kind of gal, but since some of our extended family prefer the marshmallow-topped type, I decided to concoct a healthy version. Homemade Sweet Potato Casserole To make the sweet potato part …
My family enjoys hitting the local taco truck once in a while for a fun dinner idea and a break from cooking. We especially love their chicken tacos which come with a delicious taco slaw on top. You probably know how much I love recreating restaurant (or food truck!) favorites at home, and this one …
I love oregano for its medicinal qualities as well as its amazing flavor. So whenever I can use it in a recipe, I’m happy to. This Greek salad is a simple way to use oregano and other Greek flavors in a tasty dish that satisfies the whole family. We love making this when the tomatoes and cucumbers …
Tater tots were a very occasional treat when I was growing up. (I confess, I loved them.) The grated zucchini in these fritters mimics the texture of tater tots and is a great way to reinvent an old favorite in a healthier way. The zucchini gives them a nutritional boost that tater tots don’t have, …
Garlic is one of my family’s favorite flavors, so it’s no surprise that we loved these garlic roasted mushrooms. They’re simple to make and go with almost any beef recipe (poultry too!). Healthy Garlic Roasted Mushrooms I’m always looking for new ways to include a variety of nutrients in my family’s diet. Garlic and mushrooms are …
When my family stopped eating grains, one of the hardest things to give up was pasta (my husband is Italian after all!). This Thai peanut butter noodles recipe uses shirataki noodles so we can stick to our grain-free lifestyle while still enjoying the finer things in life! What Are Shirataki Noodles? Shirataki noodles are completely grain …
Asparagus is one of my favorite vegetables. My husband, on the other hand, grew up hating asparagus because he’d only ever had it from a can. (Think about the difference between a fresh green bean and a canned one!) When we got married and I made this roasted asparagus for him, he realized what he had …
I’ve always thought that homemade versions of classic recipes taste much better than store-bought versions, and cranberry sauce is a perfect example of this. Although I loved the canned jellied cranberry sauce that we always ate on Thanksgiving when I was young, after I tried making cranberry sauce from scratch one year, I was hooked. Now …
News flash… sometimes I get stuck in a rut when making dinner! It’s a struggle to come up with different side dishes instead of always relying on the same ones. This creamy lemon tarragon zucchini is a different way to use zucchini and makes a nice change. Zucchini Anyone? I like to garden and try to …
Like beets, kale is a super nutrient-dense food, but not always a kid favorite. It’s taken a good amount of recipe testing to come up with uses for kale that my family enjoys. My kids don’t much like kale in stir-fries or cooked dishes, but they really like this crispy kale chips recipe! All About …
I don’t know about you, but I love roasted veggies. A drizzle of oil, some seasoning, and a roast in the oven just seems to bring out so much flavor! I’ve made a roasted vegetable salad, roasted beet and arugula salad, and even roasted cabbage slices. This recipe for garlic roasted romanesco is so simple to make …
This summer has been a delicate blend of heat wave and monsoon. I’ve had to come up with some creative family activities to keep the children (and us grownups!) from going stir crazy. Thankfully, while the summer heat and humidity has not been good for my desire to leave the comfort of air conditioning, it has …
In my mind, mushroom risotto is real-food comfort food! It’s warm, creamy, and filling, and an amazing side dish with almost any meal. I also have an Italian husband who always appreciates when I make an Italian dish (like my authentic pasta sauce). Risotto is a little time consuming and labor intensive though, so it’s not …
