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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.

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Green Borscht with sorrel, potatoes and hard boiled eggs — Ukraine recipe

🇺🇦UkraineMedium

Soups

Green Borscht

Green borscht (zelenyi borshch, also called sorrel borscht or sorrel soup) is a Ukrainian spring soup of potatoes and shredded chicken in a light chicken broth, soured not by beets but by fresh sorrel. The sorrel goes in at the very end for only a few minutes, so the soup stays bright and lemony; each bowl gets chopped hard-boiled egg, dill and a spoonful of sour cream.

60 min300 kcal6 serves

🌾Gluten-free

Green Goddess Dressing with fresh flat leaf parsley leaves, fresh tarragon leaves and full fat mayonnaise — USA recipe

🇺🇸USAMedium

Sauces and Dips

Green Goddess Dressing

Green Goddess was invented at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco in 1923. The formula: mayonnaise, a serious amount of fresh herbs, tarragon, garlic, anchovy for depth, and lemon to hold it all together. The result is vivid green, herb-forward, and complex in a way no bottled version gets close to. Doubles as a dip, a sandwich spread, and a sauce for grilled fish or chicken. Makes in 10 minutes.

10 min120 kcal8 serves

🌾Gluten-free⚡Quick

Grilled Corn with Herb Compound Butter with fresh sweetcorn, butter and garlic — USA recipe

🇺🇸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

Grilled Salmon with salmon, lemon and garlic — USA recipe

🇺🇸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

Grilled Shrimp with shrimp, garlic and lemon — USA recipe

🇺🇸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

Grilled Trout in Pomegranate (Georgian Kalmakhi) with trout, pomegranate juice and onion — Georgia recipe

🇬🇪GeorgiaMedium

Fish and Seafood Dishes

Grilled Trout in Pomegranate (Georgian Kalmakhi)

Kalmakhi is the Georgian word for trout, and Georgian cooks serve it with pomegranate juice and cilantro (kalmakhi brotseulis tsvenit). In Georgian recipes the fish is pan-fried and the juice is served raw; this is my version, which grills the trout whole and reduces the juice to a light glaze. Use gutted trout of 250–300 g each. The skin is crisp, the flesh tender, and the fish is finished with raw onion, cilantro, and pomegranate seeds. The sweet-tart pomegranate sets off the rich trout — simple and bright.

30 min340 kcal4 serves

💪High protein🌾Gluten-free⚡Quick

Grilled Vegetable Platter with eggplant, zucchini and bell peppers — USA recipe

🇺🇸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

🌿Vegetarian🌾Gluten-free

Grilled Whole Fish (Mediterranean Style) with whole fish, olive oil and lemon — Greece recipe

🇬🇷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

Guacamole with avocado, cilantro and garlic — Mexico recipe

🇲🇽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

Halva (Russian Sunflower Halva) with shelled sunflower seeds and flour — Russia recipe

🇷🇺RussiaMedium

Sweet Dishes

Halva (Russian Sunflower Halva)

Sunflower halva is the crumbly, fibrous sweet that Soviet and Russian childhoods were built on — instantly recognizable by its toasted-seed aroma and the way it flakes into soft layers. Roasted sunflower seeds are ground to an oily paste, bound with a hot sugar syrup, and worked until the mass turns fibrous rather than smooth. Unlike Middle Eastern tahini halva, the star here is the sunflower seed, giving a deeper, nuttier flavor. Allow 3–4 hours of chilling before you cut it.

45 min310 kcal10 serves

🌱Vegan

Harira with chickpeas, lentils and tomatoes — Morocco recipe

🇲🇦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 pastries. 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

Herring Under a Fur Coat with salted herring, beets and potatoes — Russia recipe

🇷🇺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

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