Summer recipes

Summer Recipes

During the summer months, we enjoy long, light evenings socialising and often that means eating meals with friends and family. This is the perfect time to enjoy meals outside with colourful salads, BBQs and plenty of fresh produce.

Why not make the most of everything we have on offer in the UK and Ireland, and feed your gut microbes with the rainbow diet they are looking for?

Below we have put together some gut microbe-friendly summer recipe tips.

Cook with seasonal fruit and veg

From July onwards there  will be a lot of seasonal produce available in the UK and Ireland, including:

Artichoke, summer berries, beetroot, broad beans, broccoli, cauliflower, cucumber, tomatoes, new potatoes and summer squash, just to name a few! We know gut microbes like a variety of plants  in the diet to encourage diversity within your gut microbiome¹. Enjoy the local produce available  whilst reducing your food miles in the process.

For some seasonal cooking ideas, visit our Scrumptious Seasonal Recipes blog  for an  artichoke recipe or Rhubarb and Ginger treat recipe.

Or see our recipe for a delicious Frozen berry yogurt cake – perfect for Summer.

BBQ time!

We all love a BBQ – the summer smell, an easy afternoon catering option! There are lots of ways to add plant variety to a BBQ with summery sides. Try rainbow salads with summer berries or adding nuts and seeds, sprinkled on top. We love adding a yoghurt and mint dip with vegetable sticks as a BBQ side.

All you need is:

• Greek style yoghurt – 200ml
• Chopped fresh mint – handful or half mint and half basil
• Lemon zest and juice of 1 lemon
• Drizzle of olive oil

Stir the ingredients together and serve with carrot, cucumber and pepper sticks. Add different herbs to the dip for more plant points. Each herb is ¼ of a plant point helping to contribute to the 30 plant point per week goal!

Or why not try a Summery traybake recipe when catering for guests, instead of the trusty BBQ! These recipes are easy and include seasonal vegetables.

• Roast Cod and Mediterranean vegetable tray bake
• Broad bean and feta bake

References

1. McDonald et al., 2018 American Gut: an Open Platform for Citizen Science Microbiome Research. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1128/mSystems.00031-18

The post Summer recipes appeared first on Love Your Gut.

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By: Catherine Hogan
Title: Summer recipes
Sourced From: loveyourgut.com/our-recipes/summer-recipes/
Published Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2022 08:28:11 +0000