Forks Over Knives 100 Best Plant-Based Recipes

Welcome to our top-100-recipes special issue! Drawing from the Forks Over Knives website, mobile app, books, and magazine, we’ve curated this collection of audience and staff favorites—recipes that have generated the most interest, buzz, and culinary joy through the years. In working your way through this issue, you might try making whatever recipe calls your name or maybe experimenting with something a little more outside the box. Either way, I hope our most tried-and-true recipes measure up to your personal palate. I’m confident you’ll have fun and find many big winners along the way. My personal favorites, for the record? The Spaghetti Marinara with Lentil Balls (page 59), Tortilla Soup (page 52), and Spiced Sweet Potato Tacos (here and page 36) are the dishes I regularly return to, no matter how much…

DARSHANA THACKER A graduate of the Natural Gourmet Institute, Thacker is chef and culinary projects manager for Forks Over Knives. She is the author of the Forks Over Knives: Flavor! cookbook, recipe author for the book Forks Over Knives Family, and recipe contributor to The New York Times best-selling book The Forks Over Knives Plan. CATHY FISHER The author of Straight Up Food: Delicious and Easy Plant-based Cooking without Salt, Oil or Sugar, Fisher also is the creator of the plant-based recipe website StraightUpFood.com. She is a culinary instructor at two health centers in Santa Rosa, California: the McDougall Program and TrueNorth Health Center. MARY MARGARET CHAPPELL A freelance writer, recipe developer, and contributing editor to Forks Over Knives magazine, Chappell is the former food editor of Vegetarian Times magazine and author of four cookbooks,…

WHAT IS A WHOLE-FOOD, PLANT-BASED DIET? Whole food describes natural foods that are not heavily processed. That means whole, unrefined, or minimally refined ingredients. Plant-based means food that comes from plants and doesn’t include animal ingredients such as meat, fish, milk, and eggs. A whole-food, plant-based diet lets you meet your nutritional needs by focusing on natural, minimally processed plant foods. WHAT IT ISN’T: VEGGIES ONLY While leafy vegetables are an important part of a wholefood, plant-based diet, they don’t contain enough calories to sustain you. Consider that you would need to eat almost 16 pounds of cooked kale to get 2,000 calories! Not eating enough calories leads to decreased energy levels, feelings of deprivation, cravings, and even binges. HOW A WHOLE-FOOD, PLANT-BASED DIET CAN BOOST YOUR HEALTH There’s excellent scientific evidence that many chronic…

FRUITS: any type of fruit including apples, bananas, citrus fruits, grapes, strawberries. VEGETABLES: plenty of veggies including collards, corn, kale, lettuce, peas, peppers, spinach. TUBERS: root vegetables like beets, carrots, parsnips, potatoes, sweet potatoes. WHOLE GRAINS: grains, cereals, and other starches in their whole form, such as barley, brown rice, millet, oats, quinoa, whole wheat. Even popcorn is a whole grain. LEGUMES: beans of any kind, plus lentils, pulses, and similar ingredients. There are plenty of other foods you can also enjoy, including avocados, nuts, seeds, tempeh, tofu, whole grain flour and breads, and plant-based milks. However, we recommend eating these foods in moderation, because they are more calorie-dense and can contribute to weight gain.…

1 PUT STARCHES AND FRUITS AT THE CENTER OF YOUR PLATE. Enjoy nonstarchy and leafy veggies in generous amounts, but look to carbohydrate-rich whole grains, beans, fruits, and starchy vegetables to provide enough calories to power you through your day. 2 YOU’LL LIKELY EAT MORE FOOD, NOT LESS. Whole or minimally processed plant foods are dense in nutrients, not calories. As you adjust to this way of eating, you may find you feel a little hungry shortly after a meal, but over time you’ll get a sense of how much to eat to stay satiated. 3 FOCUS ON PLEASURE. The best whole plant foods are the ones you enjoy enough to stay on a healthy path. So have veggie chili, whole grain pasta, tacos, mashed potatoes, or whatever else hits the spot. 4 SAY NO TO…

NO.1 Nachos Verdes 1 hour │ Makes 10 cups Layer oven-crisped tortilla chips with a vegetable medley and a tofu-and-spinach sour cream, then pile high with classic nacho fixings. 12 oil-free corn tortillas, cut into bite-size triangles1 ½ cups frozen lima beans, thawed1 ½ cups frozen corn, thawed1 cup finely chopped onion2 cloves garlic, minced½ tsp. ground cumin½ tsp. Mexican oreganoSea salt, to taste1 recipe Green Sour Cream1 cup purchased salsa verde½ cup thinly sliced scallions (green onions)¼ cup finely chopped fresh cilantro2 cups shredded romaine lettuce1 avocado, halved, seeded, peeled, and chopped 1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Spread tortilla triangles on prepared baking sheets. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until crisp. Let chips cool on baking sheets. Leave oven on. 2. In a large skillet combine…