Spring is the ideal season to get more creative with your side dishes. You’re likely to be grilling more meat, chicken, and fish, or at least mixing and matching more dishes. Instead of going with winter warmers such as bakes, casseroles, and hearty stews, you can showcase range, flavor, and freshness during mealtime with the added advantage of dropping some of those winter pounds.
While you could populate a list such as this with a riotous variety of potato sides alone, I’ve opted to broaden the possibilities with colorful veggie dishes and cheesy hybrid salads as well. Check out the collection below and pop a few into your weekly grocery plans. There’s a great chance you’ll be utilizing these recipes more than once.
1. Roasted Garlic Sweet Potatoes
Sweet potatoes are a lower-carb option than regular potatoes means that these orange beauties have become the darlings of dinner tables, whether in salads or as spud substituting sides.
I love Roasted Garlic Sweet Potatoes for their reliability – it’s practically impossible to get wrong. The pairing of garlic and sweet potato gives this side a delicious layer of subtle flavor throughout the dish. I always like to make a big batch, because even if you don’t eat them all the first time around you can make great use of garlic sweet potatoes in other meals down the line.
2. Tomato Mozzarella Cucumber Salad
Spring sides are a great opportunity to start ramping up your salad game, and you don’t have to get green and leafy right away. A Tomato Mozzarella Cucumber Salad is a tremendous companion for lots of different dinners, from bakes and casseroles to grilled meats and even traditional Italian plates. The crisply refreshing cucumber balances well with the slight acidity of fresh tomato, while the herb ingredients keep the spongy cheese and avocado from being too staid.
3. Crispy Cheddar Cauliflower
While many have embraced the low carb advantages of cauliflower to substitute for staples like potatoes or rice, I love this Crispy Cheddar Cauliflower for its unabashed flavor indulgence. Simply, all you need is a head of cauliflower and then you’ll bake it with cheese and spices until it’s a crispy, golden brown. It’s delicious alongside nearly every type of meal, plus it’s pretty much set and forget until it’s time to eat!
4. Easy Duchess Potatos
Keeping a lid on potato dishes when populating a list of sides is an extremely difficult thing to do, as there are so many great recipes. I’ve included this Easy Duchess Potatos recipe for the little bit of extra pizzazz they provide, while also being easy to individualize and keep to single portions. This comes in handy if you are trying to keep a limit on the spring calories!
5. Pesto Green Beans
The simple addition of Pesto Green Beans makes for a perfect spring side dinner recipe. There’s plenty of flavor and verve in the pesto, and if you blanch the greens and keep them bright green, it becomes also a beautiful looking dish to shine next to grilled meat, chicken, or other proteins.
6. Southern Fried Cabbage
I think cabbage does its best work quietly, as an unassuming and slightly forgotten component of salads, stir-fries, and soups. Southern Fried Cabbage is fabulous because it features the vegetable alongside my good friend bacon. The resultant fried dish, which also incorporates staple southern herbs and spices, creates a beautiful balance that interplays between the crunchy, salty bacon, and the slightly soft, gently sweet vegetable. This is the type of side I’d like to adapt into some of my other favorites, such as burgers and meaty salads.
7. Sheet Pan Scalloped Potatoes
Another potato side that I couldn’t leave off the list, Sheet Pan Scalloped Potatoes is a simplification of more indulgent recipes. What I like about it is that you don’t need a big batch of ingredients, or a lot of time to prepare, so it’s good for a busy weeknight meal. The sheet pan dish comes together quickly in a moreish mashup of creamy, cheesy potatoes that will go nicely with spring meat and seafood meals.
8. Parmesan Roasted Broccoli
My favorite green veggie, I like incorporating broccoli into as many different meals as possible – steamed, fried, or roasted. Parmesan Roasted Broccoli is simple yet dynamic; a little spice and parmesan cheese give the veg a crunchy, cheesy combination that tastes delicious. To get the most out of this dish, I’d hugely recommend that you grate a parmesan block instead of using pre-prepped shredded cheese.
9. Cream Cheese Stuffed Mushrooms
While I’m not a huge mushroom guy, my theory is that if you stuff it full of quality cream cheese and roast it at a low temperature, then it’s going to taste delicious. Our take on Cream Cheese Stuffed Mushrooms does the trick, providing a crafty little side dish that creates a point of difference from other vegetable options. Only the most ardent mushroom haters will indulge on this spring side!
10. Sun-Dried Tomato Spinach Rice Pilaf
I like this exotic Sun-Dried Tomato Spinach Rice Pilaf as a quality side with lamb, steaks, or gamier meats such as venison. The sun-dried tomatoes give the rice a distinct Tuscan touch, yet work in contrast to the earthy aspects of the spinach. The other ingredients coalesce together nicely with flavor bound up in the pilaf rice.
Conclusion
Springtime is the perfect opportunity to build a range of more exciting side dishes and snacks, that can make your mundane meals exciting and help you level up dinners from stodgy winter warmers.