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Low-calorie recipes

Under 350 kcal per serving, without the sad-diet energy. Real flavour, careful fat, plenty of vegetables — the kind of light cooking you actually want to make again.

All ⏱Under 30 min ⏱Under 60 min

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🇺🇸USAMedium

Vegetable and Mushroom Dishes

Grilled Corn with Herb Compound Butter

Grilled corn on the cob is the defining side dish of the American summer barbecue — requiring almost no preparation, producing spectacular results, and improving everything eaten alongside it with a hit of smoke and sweetness. When corn is grilled directly on hot grates without the husk, the natural sugars caramelize against the hot metal, producing the characteristic charred, lightly sweet flavor that boiling or steaming cannot replicate. A herb compound butter — softened butter blended with fresh herbs, garlic, and lemon zest — is made ahead, rolled into a log, and sliced into rounds that melt over the hot corn the moment it comes off the grill. This recipe also includes a Mexican elote variation: the classic Mexico City street corn treatment of mayonnaise, cotija cheese, chili powder, and lime that transforms the same grilled cob into something entirely different.

35 min280 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌾Gluten-free🌶️Spicy

★4.9

🇺🇸USAAdvanced

Fish and Seafood Dishes

Grilled Salmon

Grilled salmon with honey, soy sauce and garlic marinade. The marinade gives the salmon a rich flavor, and the grill creates a delicious crust while keeping the fish juicy.

65 min325 kcal4 serves

💪High protein

★4.4

🇺🇸USAMedium

Fish and Seafood Dishes

Grilled Shrimp

Jumbo shrimp marinated in garlic, lemon, smoked paprika and olive oil, then grilled fast over high heat. Ready in 30 minutes, works as a main or an appetizer.

30 min220 kcal4 serves

💪High protein🌾Gluten-free⚡Quick

★4.7

🇺🇸USAAdvanced

Vegetable and Mushroom Dishes

Grilled Vegetable Platter

A grilled vegetable platter is the most underrated item at any barbecue — and the most versatile. Where meat requires precise temperature control and resting times, vegetables are forgiving: they tell you when they are done by releasing from the grates, and they improve with a few minutes of rest, during which the heat equalises and the marinade or dressing soaks in. The technique is the same across all vegetables: oil them generously (oil on the vegetable, not just the grate), grill on medium-high direct heat for the time each vegetable needs, and dress them hot — a vinaigrette applied to hot vegetables is absorbed rather than sitting on the surface. The key to a beautiful platter is timing: eggplant and peppers need the most time; zucchini and asparagus need the least. The trick is to work in sequence, pulling each vegetable as it finishes, and to arrange everything on one platter together so the final dish is warm and accessible.

40 min185 kcal6 serves

🌱Vegan🌿Vegetarian🌾Gluten-free

★4.4

Grilled Whole Fish (Mediterranean Style)

🇬🇷GreeceMedium

Fish and Seafood Dishes

Grilled Whole Fish (Mediterranean Style)

Grilling a whole fish over live fire is the defining seafood technique of the Mediterranean — practised from the Greek islands to the Spanish costa, from Turkey to Morocco — and it is dramatically simpler than it appears. A whole fish holds its moisture better than fillets (the skin and bones act as a self-basting, self-insulating shell), cooks more evenly, and has infinitely more flavor from the bones. The keys are three: the scoring (diagonal cuts through the skin so heat penetrates the flesh without waiting for it to tunnel in from the ends), the stuffing (fresh herbs and lemon slices that steam the interior with aromatic vapour as the fish cooks), and leaving the fish undisturbed for 7 to 8 minutes before the first flip so a full char crust forms and the fish releases cleanly from the grates. Sea bass (branzino), sea bream, red snapper, and whole trout are the best candidates: white-fleshed, mild, firm-skinned, and sized for individual portions.

40 min320 kcal4 serves

🌾Gluten-free🌶️Spicy💪High protein

★4.4

🇲🇽MexicoEasy

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Guacamole

Ripe avocados mashed coarse with lime juice, raw onion, cilantro, and a hit of jalapeño. The key is chunky texture and enough salt — underseasoned guacamole is the most common mistake. Best eaten within minutes of making it.

13 min200 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian🥑Keto⚡Quick

★4.6

🇲🇦MoroccoAdvanced

Soups

Harira

Harira is Morocco's most important soup. The name comes from the Arabic word for silk — a reference to the velvety texture it gets from a flour-and-water slurry (tedouira) stirred in at the end. Every Moroccan family has their version, but the spine is always the same: tomatoes, chickpeas, lentils, fresh herbs, ginger, and warm spices. It is the soup that breaks the Ramadan fast every evening at iftar, served alongside dates, hard-boiled eggs, and chebakia cookies. It is also eaten through the rest of the year, as a starter or as a meal in itself. The lamb version is the most traditional, but the vegetarian version is nearly as popular.

90 min320 kcal6 serves

★4.7

🇷🇺RussiaMedium

Salads

Herring Under a Fur Coat

A layered Russian holiday salad of salted herring hidden under potato, carrot, egg, and a bright top layer of beet, with mayonnaise between each tier. It is assembled in a ring and chilled overnight so the layers meld; the beet fur coat gives the salad its name.

60 min280 kcal8 serves

🌾Gluten-free

★4.8

Herring with Onions and Potatoes (Russian Zakuska)

🇷🇺RussiaMedium

Fish and Seafood Dishes

Herring with Onions and Potatoes (Russian Zakuska)

Herring with onions and potatoes is a simple Russian zakuska: salted herring fillets with rings of raw onion and warm boiled potatoes. The fish is drizzled with unrefined sunflower oil and a splash of vinegar, then scattered with dill. The contrast between cold, salty fish and hot potatoes is the whole point of the dish.

35 min340 kcal4 serves

⚡Quick🌾Gluten-free💪High protein

★4.9

🇯🇵JapanEasy

Beverages

Hojicha Latte

Hojicha is roasted Japanese green tea — reddish-brown, nutty, and faintly caramelised, with a fraction of the caffeine of matcha or coffee. When whisked into a paste and combined with hot frothed milk, it becomes one of the most comforting drinks in the Japanese tea repertoire. This version works hot or iced. The water temperature is the only thing that needs attention.

10 min110 kcal1 serves

⚡Quick🌾Gluten-free

★4.7

🇫🇷FranceEasy

Sauces and Dips

Hollandaise Sauce

A warm, buttery emulsion of egg yolks, clarified butter, and lemon juice whisked over gentle heat until it holds its own weight on a spoon. Hollandaise is one of the five French mother sauces, and its reputation for being difficult is vastly overblown — the only real rule is keep the heat low. I make this every weekend for eggs Benedict and it takes me about twelve minutes from cold butter to finished sauce.

15 min180 kcal4 serves

⚡Quick🌿Vegetarian🌾Gluten-free

★4.8

🇬🇧UKEasy

Beverages

Homemade Apple Cider

Fresh apple juice fermented for one to two weeks with wine or cider yeast, then cleared and bottled. Proper homemade cider tastes nothing like the syrupy commercial versions – it's drier, more complex, with a genuine apple character that varies depending on the fruit. The process is simple: press or buy the juice, add yeast, wait. The patience is the skill.

30 min120 kcal8 serves

🌱Vegan🌾Gluten-free⚡Quick

★4.4

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