The healthy broccoli recipes some of ate as kids didn’t exactly do the delicious cruciferous vegetable justice: Boiled or steamed until mushy, offensively under-seasoned, and horribly bland. As adults, we know better than to sleep on the bevy of fantastic broccoli recipes at our fingertips.
Affordable and packed with nutrients like fiber and vitamin C, broccoli is worth having in your fridge crisper drawer for all of your breakfast, lunch, and dinner needs. Though not a meal by itself, pairing your veggies with a variety of protein-, complex carbohydrate-, and healthy fat-rich ingredients will ensure that what you’re eating is always satisfying, SELF columnist Jessica Jones, M.S., R.D., certified diabetes educator and cofounder of Food Heaven, has previously told SELF. That could mean roasting your broccoli and serving it atop soba noodles with a soft-boiled egg, or baking it right into a cheesy, overnight breakfast casserole.
Broccoli is great for meal prep because of the way it maintains its texture and flavor over time, a characteristic many of these meals take advantage of. Even if you don’t have time to meal prep, know that broccoli also doesn’t take very long to cook in the first place and can be added to almost anything, whether that’s a grain bowl or a wrap. When in doubt, having a head of broccoli on hand is always a great way to guarantee there is some green goodness on your plate. These 30 healthy broccoli recipes showcase the many different ways you can make the most of this veggie.
A note about the word healthy here: We know that healthy is a complicated concept. Not only can it mean different things to different people, it’s a word that’s pretty loaded (and sometimes fraught), thanks to the diet industry’s influence on the way we think about food. At SELF, when we talk about food being healthy, we’re primarily talking about foods that are nutritious, filling, and satisfying. But it also depends on your preferences, your culture, what’s accessible to you, and so much more. We selected these recipes with those basic criteria in mind while also trying to appeal to a wide variety of nutritional needs and taste buds.