Tag

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.

Sort by

Pistachio Lemon Bars with flour, butter and pistachio — USA recipe

🇺🇸USAAdvanced

Flour and Confectionery Products

Pistachio Lemon Bars

Lemon bars are already one of the better things you can do with eggs and citrus. The pistachio shortbread crust makes them something else. Ground pistachios replace part of the flour, giving the base a nutty, slightly green quality and a more interesting texture than plain shortbread — sandy but with more flavor, and with a subtle saltiness that works against the bright lemon filling. The filling is a simple lemon curd baked directly over the prebaked crust: eggs, sugar, fresh lemon juice, a little flour to help it set. It sets to a glossy, slightly wobbly layer that cuts cleanly once cold. Powdered sugar dusted over the top just before serving, and a few chopped pistachios for contrast. These are spring dessert food, but they'd make sense any time of year.

75 min245 kcal16 serves

🌿Vegetarian

Pita Bread with bread flour, yeast and olive oil — Lebanon recipe

🇱🇧LebanonAdvanced

Flour and Confectionery Products

Pita Bread

Pita (from the Greek πίτα) is the leavened flatbread of the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean. Flatbreads like it have been baked in the Near East for thousands of years, though the steam-puffed pocket is thought to be a much later development. The pocket forms during baking: when a thin disc of well-hydrated yeast dough hits an extremely hot baking surface, the water in the dough converts instantly to steam, inflating the two layers of dough apart like a balloon. As the bread cools, the steam escapes and the pocket collapses — but the internal separation remains, creating the pocket that makes pita the ideal vehicle for falafel, shawarma, hummus, and mezze. The technique is simple but precise: the right dough hydration, the correct thickness (4 to 5 mm), and a screaming-hot baking surface are the three variables that determine whether a pita puffs completely or bakes flat.

90 min220 kcal8 serves

🌱Vegan🌿Vegetarian

Pommes Anna with Yukon Gold potatoes, clarified butter and fresh thyme — France recipe

🇫🇷FranceAdvanced

Vegetable and Mushroom Dishes

Pommes Anna

A French side dish of thinly sliced potatoes layered into a cake and baked in clarified butter until the edges turn golden and crisp while the centre stays tender. It was created in 19th-century Paris by chef Adolphe Duglere.

70 min350 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌾Gluten-free

Pretzel (Brezel) with bread flour, yeast and baking soda — Germany recipe

🇩🇪GermanyAdvanced

Flour and Confectionery Products

Pretzel (Brezel)

Yeast-leavened dough shaped into the classic knot, dipped in a strongly alkaline bath, and baked at high heat until the crust turns deep mahogany brown and crackles. The alkaline bath is what makes a pretzel taste like a pretzel — it triggers an intense Maillard reaction on the surface that no other baking technique can replicate. Authentic German pretzels (Laugenbrezel) use food-grade lye; this recipe uses baked baking soda, a practical home alternative that reaches a higher pH than regular baking soda. The belly is thick and soft; the twisted arms are thin and chewy-crisp. Served warm, spread with butter, with a cold beer.

90 min280 kcal8 serves

🌿Vegetarian

Protein Muffins with cottage cheese, rolled oats and vanilla protein powder — USA recipe

🇺🇸USAMedium

Flour and Confectionery Products

Protein Muffins

Soft cottage cheese muffins built on blended oats instead of flour. The whole batter goes through a blender, so the curds disappear and the oats grind into flour on the spot. Around 10 g of protein per muffin, sweetened with maple syrup rather than sugar. They bake with a domed top and stay moist for four to five days in the fridge.

35 min175 kcal12 serves

🌿Vegetarian

Pshennaya Kasha with Pumpkin (Russian Millet Porridge) with millet, pumpkin and milk — Russia recipe

🇷🇺RussiaMedium

Cereal and Pasta Dishes

Pshennaya Kasha with Pumpkin (Russian Millet Porridge)

Pshennaya kasha with pumpkin is a warm Russian millet porridge cooked in milk with sweet pumpkin — an autumn and winter comfort dish. Rinsing and scalding the millet first removes its natural bitterness, and simmering the pumpkin until soft lets it melt into a creamy, golden porridge. It's finished with butter and served with honey or dried fruit.

45 min230 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌾Gluten-free

Ptichye Moloko (Bird's Milk Cake) with eggs, milk and butter — Russia recipe

🇷🇺RussiaMedium

Sweet Dishes

Ptichye Moloko (Bird's Milk Cake)

An iconic Russian confection: an airy soufflé made from a custard-butter cream folded into stiff meringue and set with gelatin, covered with a glossy dark chocolate glaze. Light, almost cloud-like in texture, it is one of the most beloved Soviet-era desserts. It takes about an hour of work plus about 3 hours of chilling.

60 min350 kcal10 serves

🌿Vegetarian

Pulpo a la Gallega (Galician Octopus with Potatoes) with octopus, waxy potatoes and onion — Spain recipe

🇪🇸SpainAdvanced

Fish and Seafood Dishes

Pulpo a la Gallega (Galician Octopus with Potatoes)

Pulpo a la gallega is Galicia's most famous dish and one of the simplest in Spanish cooking — tender slices of boiled octopus laid over soft potatoes on a wooden plate, then finished with nothing but coarse salt, smoked paprika, and a generous stream of olive oil. There's no sauce and nowhere to hide, so everything rests on cooking the octopus to exactly the right point and using paprika and oil worth tasting on their own.

80 min340 kcal4 serves

💪High protein🌾Gluten-free

Pumpkin Oatmeal with rolled oats, pumpkin puree and milk — USA recipe

🇺🇸USAMedium

Breakfast and Brunch

Pumpkin Oatmeal

Rolled oats cooked with pumpkin puree and a mix of warm spices — cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg. Ten minutes on the stove, one pot, no drama. The pumpkin makes the oatmeal thicker than usual and gives it a color that looks like autumn in a bowl. Works year-round, not just in October.

15 min290 kcal2 serves

🌿Vegetarian⚡Quick

Pumpkin Spice Latte with pumpkin, milk and coffee — USA recipe

🇺🇸USAMedium

Beverages

Pumpkin Spice Latte

A pumpkin spice latte, PSL for short, is an American coffee drink: espresso or strong coffee topped up with hot milk, sweetened, and flavored with the spices that go into pumpkin pie, which are cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves. Coffee shops finish it with whipped cream. Starbucks developed its version in Seattle in 2003 and rolled it out across its US stores in fall 2004, and real pumpkin went into its sauce only in 2015. This home version does have pumpkin, 2 tablespoons of canned puree per mug, cooked with the spices for 2 minutes before the milk goes in. It uses strong brewed coffee instead of espresso, so you can make it without a machine, and it skips the whipped cream. Start to finish it takes about 15 minutes.

15 min180 kcal2 serves

🌿Vegetarian⚡Quick🌾Gluten-free

Radish and Sour Cream Salad with radishes, sour cream and fresh dill — Russia recipe

🇷🇺RussiaEasy

Salads

Radish and Sour Cream Salad

A classic Russian spring salad of thinly sliced radishes, fresh cucumber, and green onion with hard-boiled egg, dressed generously with cold sour cream and fresh dill. It comes together in minutes and is served right away while the vegetables stay crisp.

15 min110 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌾Gluten-free⚡Quick

Rassolnik with beef, pearl barley and pickled cucumbers — Russia recipe

🇷🇺RussiaAdvanced

Soups

Rassolnik

A hearty Russian sour soup built on meat broth, pearl barley, and brined cucumbers, with its signature tang coming from cucumber pickle brine stirred in at the end. Potatoes and a carrot-onion sauté round it out; sour cream and dill finish each bowl. The trick is sequencing — potatoes cook before anything sour goes in, and the barley cooks apart to keep the broth clear.

90 min210 kcal6 serves

Tags

Other tags

Filter the archive by another angle — diet, speed, or a flavour note.

Vegetarian Keto Quick Spicy Gluten-free low-calorie High protein Vegan