Healthy Thanksgiving Recipes: Honey-Roasted Rosemary Vegetables

Happy Thanksgiving— or as we like to call it, Gratitude day!! It’s a beautiful opportunity to get together with friends and family, share a meal, and reflect on all we have to be thankful for.

Thanksgiving can be a challenging time if you’re focused on your health. Any holiday with a “feast” involved is going to involve tables full of hot, delicious food, and the pressure to indulge. Not only that, but the traditional Thanksgiving recipes aren’t always health conscious. When you sit down at the table, you’re likely staring down a whole lot of oils cooked at high heat, refined sugars, processed foods, and dairy.

It doesn’t have to be that way, though! There are so many opportunities to make healthy, filling dishes that satisfy the urge to indulge without upsetting the healthy lifestyle you’ve been working so hard to develop and maintain. Even if you’re a guest at someone else’s table, you can score points for bringing a dish and being helpful while also being healthful.

Tips To Prepare A Healthy Thanksgiving Dish

One of the driving forces of Thanksgiving is tradition, and it’s what makes the holiday so special for families. But think about it: a lot has changed since great-great grandma wrote down her stuffing recipe in 1910. She may have been using ingredients from the family farm, making everything from scratch, or she may have used a store-bought item that used far fewer preservatives and bioengineered ingredients than what you’ll find on the shelves today. What was once a healthy dish could now be loaded with everything you’re trying to avoid.

That isn’t to say we need to throw away tradition though. You can always find healthy alternatives to every ingredient on your list. Rather than using refined sugar in the cranberry sauce, try using maple syrup, honey, or date sugar. Rather than frying in canola oil, try roasting or low-heat sautés with coconut or avocado oil. Even flour has better alternatives, such as unbleached organic flour or almond flour.

Here are some general guidelines to think about when shopping:

• Buy fresh ingredients from the produce section

• Use organic ingredients whenever possible

• If using packaged items, only buy those with ingredients that you recognize

• Use honey, pure maple syrup, or date sugar while avoiding granulated sugar

• Use dairy substitutes like unflavored almond milk with three (or fewer!) ingredients

• Use avocado oil, coconut oil, or extra virgin olive oil instead of canola or soybean oil

• Avoid bioengineered ingredients

• Avoid bleached flour

Creating a Delicious Thanksgiving Side Dish

Now that we have all of that out of the way, here’s something we actually do suggest making. This recipe is extremely simple, quick, and incorporates festive flavors into a clean side dish. Since this is a side dish, it’s perfect to bring along to someone else’s party without making too much of a splash over trying to “replace” one of the stars like turkey.

This dish is a medley of sweet, savory, bitter, and aromatic ingredients that don’t overpower one another. They’re all classics of the Thanksgiving feast too, so there’s nothing that will be too scary for everyone else at the table: apples, Brussels sprouts, cranberries, pecans, sweet potatoes, and rosemary.

Everything in this recipe is roasted in the same large dish. That means you do need to consider relative cook times in your preparation. The most important thing is to make the sweet potato chunks are small— otherwise, they’ll take far longer to cook and you’ll risk having raw potatoes or burned Brussels and mushy apples. All in all, you’re going to spend most of your time cutting and prepping, and then it’s all about letting everything cook in the oven while you get ready for the party!

Honey-Roasted Rosemary Vegetables Recipe

Equipment:

• Mixing Bowls

• 9x13 pan

• Measuring cups

Ingredients:

• 2 large apples

• 1.5 cups Brussels sprouts, halved

• 2 large sweet potato, cubed

• 1 cup cranberries

• 1 cup pecans

• 3 sprigs rosemary

• ¼ cup stoneground mustard

• ¼ cup honey

• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

• Salt, to taste

• Black pepper, to taste

Recipe:

1) Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

2) Core the apples and cut into pieces.

3) Cube the sweet potato. Leave the skin on, but cut into roughly 1” cubes.

4) Combine the apples, sweet potato cubes, pecans, cranberries, and Brussels sprouts into a large mixing bowl.

5) Combine the oil, honey, and mustard in a small bowl.

6) Pour the mustard and honey mixture into the large bowl with the rest of the ingredients. Add salt and pepper to taste, and toss thoroughly until everything is equally covered in mustard and honey.

7) Pour the contents of the bowl into a baking pan, place in the oven for 35 minutes.

8) Serve immediately, or cover to transport and reheat later.