Add this fresh tortellini salad recipe to your weekend menu, stat! It features cheesy spinach tortellini tossed in my all-time favorite green goddess dressing, layered with lemony fresh greens and seasoned spring or summer vegetables.

This pasta dish manages to be light yet hearty at the same time, which is a real feat. It’s quick to make, but looks impressive. It’s versatile, too—you’ll see quite a few vegetable options below. Choose raw vegetables for the simplest preparation, as I did for these photos, or incorporate some quickly blanched vegetables, like asparagus, to expand your options.

My healthy homemade green goddess dressing comes together quickly in the blender or food processor. I suggest doubling the ingredients so you can serve the extra as a veggie dip or refrigerate it for upcoming green salads. It’s really delightful to have on hand.

Choose spinach tortellini over basic cheese tortellini to incorporate even more greens. I hope you’ll give this recipe a try. This vegetarian pasta salad is a real crowd pleaser!

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This recipe is coming from a longtime crepe enthusiast. I’m so pleased to share my tried-and-true crepe recipe today. You might assume that crepes are difficult to make or require special equipment, but fortunately, it’s not true! In fact, these crepes are a cinch to whip together in a blender. From start to finish, they come together in under 30 minutes.

This recipe is easy to make in a regular skillet. These crepes are a more manageable size to make at home than the large traditional crepes you’ll find at a real creperie. This recipe is quite versatile, too. Use it to make sweet crepes or savory crepes, with regular flour or buckwheat flour. You’ll find all of my tips below, plus a short video that shows the cooking method.

Crepes are similar to pancakes, but thinner and much lighter. You could say that they’re more sophisticated. They are indisputably lower in carbohydrates. And they’re definitely a lovely option for Mother’s Day brunch or any weekend breakfast or lunch.

As an American, my first taste of crepes took place in high school, when Madame Gordy showed us how to make them in French class. During my college semester in France, I sampled crepes across Bordeaux and Paris, with one particularly memorable experience by a fountain in the Latin Quarter.

These days, I satisfy my crepe cravings at one of our favorite local restaurants, French Market, or I make them at home with this recipe! Our toddler loves crepes with Greek yogurt and sliced banana. I hope you enjoy these crepes as much as we do.

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Behold, my favorite luscious dessert! This cheesecake recipe hails from the Basque region of Spain—specifically, from a restaurant called La Viña, where fresh cheesecakes line the walls and smell like heaven.

Honestly, I’m not sure why this cheesecake (tarta de queso in Spanish) is called Basque cheesecake over here. We should call it La Viña cheesecake or Santiago Rivera’s cheesecake to give full credit to the man who created the concept in 1990.

We enjoyed the real deal on our honeymoon in San Sebastián in 2019. We spent the evening wandering through the old part of town, sampling pintxos and sipping marvelous inexpensive white wine everywhere we went, as you do in San Sebastián. I insisted that we make room for the magical, mythical cheesecake at La Viña, so we followed our noses around the corner until we found it.

Fast-forward a few years, and we’re sleep-deprived with a baby at home. My husband brought home a surprise Basque cheesecake from a local shop. We’ve been obsessively recreating it at home ever since, trying different methods and proportions. I’m super excited to share the perfected recipe with you today.

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Y’all know I’m from Oklahoma, right? I grew up eating cowboy caviar, also called Texas caviar. It’s a classic bean salad recipe popular in the South. You can serve it as a side salad or as salsa. Either way, people go crazy for cowboy caviar at potlucks.

Cowboy caviar is made with black-eyed peas and black beans, chopped tomatoes, corn, bell pepper, onion and cilantro tossed in tangy Italian dressing. I typically think of cowboy caviar as a warm weather salad, but it’s made with ingredients that are readily available year-round.

Cowboy caviar is actually perfect for New Year’s if you’re craving something fresh yet hearty, and trying to hit your black-eyed pea quota!

I have one issue with most cowboy caviar recipes—they’re often swimming in store-bought Italian salad dressing. As such, they can be way too oily and contain some unnecessary preservatives. Instead, I whisked together a simple, homemade Italian dressing from scratch. It’s easy to do and tastes fantastic.

This recipe yields a big bowl of dip, but I don’t think you’ll have any trouble polishing it off. I hope you enjoy this cheekily titled delight!

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Italian dressing has been one of my favorites for as long as I can remember. My mom always served a simple green salad with dinner, and I gravitated toward Wish-Bone’s Italian dressing for drizzling on top. I was especially glad to reach for the extra zesty variety when we had it.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—homemade salad dressings taste so much better than store-bought. This classic Italian vinaigrette is bold, lively and irresistible! My collection of salad dressing recipes was incomplete without it.

This dressing is easy to make with basic pantry ingredients. You’ll need olive oil, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, honey, garlic, and dried oregano. You’ll also reach for salt, pepper and red pepper flakes (if you like mild heat). Finely grated Parmesan is entirely optional, but lends a familiar Olive Garden vibe.

The beauty of making your own Italian dressing is that you know exactly what’s going into it—like real olive oil and no preservatives.

You can also adjust the flavors to suit your preferences. Whether you like extra zesty or more mellow dressing, you’ll find guidance in the simple recipe below. It’s ready in under five minutes and keeps for a week!

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This blue cheese dip just might convert blue cheese skeptics into fans. Yes, it really might. You can trust me on this because I’m a little iffy on blue cheese myself. Sometimes I love blue cheese, like in this peach and avocado salad, and sometimes it’s just too much.

In this dip, it’s perfect. This blue cheese dip recipe is cold, creamy, and savory with an unmistakeable—but not overpowering—blue cheese funk. It’s easy to stir together and tastes even better after a brief rest.

In addition to blue cheese (try a mild one, like gorgonzola), you’ll need just a few basic ingredients to make this dip: sour cream or Greek yogurt, chives or green onion, fresh garlic, salt and pepper. Rarely do I suggest Greek yogurt as a worthy alternative to sour cream, but it really works here and yields a lighter dip. For a different flavor profile altogether, try feta cheese instead of blue.

Serve your dip with Buffalo Cauliflower, or simply with raw vegetables like celery, carrot and bell pepper. Please let me know how you like it in the comments!

Watch How to Make Blue Cheese Dip

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Have you met my all-time favorite chickpea salad recipe? Sure, I have many beloved chickpea salads on the blog already, but this is my tried-and-true favorite from my cookbook, Love Real Food. In the book, I called it the “Outrageous Herbaceous Chickpea Salad,” which is exactly right!

“Here’s a simple chickpea salad that I could eat every single day. It’s bursting with fresh Mediterranean flavors, thanks to chopped bell pepper, parsley, red onion, and celery. Lemon and garlic take it from tasty to transcendent. This salad packs well, so it’s perfect for potlucks and picnics. It’s also a great lunch option, so long as your serving is large enough…”

I love this recipe as much today as I did when I created the recipe several years ago. In fact, I stand behind all of the cookbook recipes, and it makes me so happy to hear that you’re cooking from the book!

I’m truly a healthier eater when I have this salad in the fridge. It’s the perfect hearty side salad or mid-afternoon snack. Pile it onto a bed of greens, or cooked whole grains like farro or quinoa, or even onto your scrambled eggs or cheese nachos. You can’t go wrong with this one.

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Grilled pizza is so fun to make! I love grilling pizzas on hot days because I don’t have to crank up the oven to high heat. Grilled pizza makes dinnertime feel like an event, and it’s simple enough to manage on a weeknight.

Grilled pizza is especially doable when you start with my Easy Whole Wheat Pizza Dough, which comes together in a flash—no rising time required—and grills beautifully.

Today, I’m sharing a full tutorial on how to grill pizza. As you’ll see, grilled pizzas differ a bit in technique from oven-baked pizzas.

Choose your toppings wisely (you’ll find suggestions below) and follow my recipe until you get the hang of it. Then, you’ll be a grilled pizza champion!

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When it’s blazing hot outside, this cucumber tomato salad is exactly what I want to eat. This recipe is crisp and refreshing, light yet satisfying.

This salad features fresh cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, not-too-much red onion, fresh herbs and optional feta cheese. Once tossed in Greek dressing, this basic combination is further proof that summertime produce doesn’t need much help to taste spectacular.

Bring this tomato cucumber salad recipe to your next get-together, or serve it at home as a side salad. It keeps well for several days in the refrigerator.

I love leftovers with sandwiches—this salad would be perfect with my Caprese Sandwich, Vegetarian “BLT” Sandwich or Green Goddess Hummus Sandwich. Hope you’ll make it soon!

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Have you tried the baked feta pasta that took the internet by storm earlier this year? That simple recipe inspired this delicious summer dip, which features some of my very favorite flavors—creamy feta, tangy cherry tomatoes, olives and plenty of fresh basil.

Baking these ingredients together near the heat source yields maximal flavor. The feta softens and turns golden, the cherry tomatoes burst and naturally sweeten, and the olives become even more intensely olive-y. Swirled together and finished with a generous sprinkle of basil, the combination is sublime.

This dish also bears a resemblance to a classic Greek dish called feta fournou, or baked feta. That dish typically features feta with bell pepper, tomato and oregano.

The flavors in today’s dip are also delicious raw, as you’ve seen in my Mediterranean Tomato & Feta Dip—make that one if you don’t want to turn on the oven! Either one will be a perfect light meal or summer evening appetizer.

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