Healthy Recipes for Seasonal Fall and Winter Foods

Health benefits: Squash is high in vitamins A and C, which aid your body's metabolic functioning and help ward off chronic illnesses. However, some winter varieties, like butternut squash, contain more sugar than others, such as acorn and spaghetti squashes, so be knowledgeable about which kind you're buying if you're watching your calorie count.

Nutrition: Acorn squash (1 cup, raw): 56 calories, 0.1g fat, 14.6g carbohydrates, 2.1g fiber, 1.1g protein. Butternut squash (1 cup, raw): 63 calories, 0.1g fat, 16.4g carbohydrates, 2.8g fiber, 1.4g protein

Recipes to try:

Quick-Roasted Acorn Squash
Curried Butternut Squash Soup

Health benefits: Bursting with vitamin A (377 percent of your daily recommended intake per cup!) and high in potassium and fiber, this versatile vegetable can be worked into a variety of dishes, from sides to desserts. One point to note: Its high sugar content translates into a fair number of calories, so consider this ingredient more like a starch than a vegetable.

Nutrition: (1 cup, raw) 114 calories, 0.1g fat, 26.8g carbohydrates, 4g fiber, 2.1g protein

Recipes to try:

Warm Sweet Potato, Apple, and Sausage Salad
Curried Sweet Potato "Fries"
Sweet Potato Soup

Health benefits: High in vitamin C and dietary fiber, apples are an easy way to fill up on relatively few calories. Tote one as a portable snack — the USDA recommends 2 cups of fruit per day for women.

Nutrition: (1 medium apple) 72 calories, 0.2g fat, 19.1g carbohydrates, 3.3g fiber, 0.4g protein

Recipes to try:

Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Apple-Thyme Sauce
Apple Phyllo Tart
Baked Apples with Cinnamon and Walnuts

Health benefits: Boasting high levels of a variety of vitamins and minerals, including iron, magnesium, niacin, potassium, vitamin A, and vitamin C, pumpkin is a nutritional powerhouse vegetable. The only bad point is that also contains a fair amount of natural sugar (1.6g per cup), so beware the calorie count when making it into an even sweeter dessert.

Nutrition: (1 cup, raw): 30 calories, 0.1g fat (0.1g saturated), 7.5g carbohydrates, 0.6g fiber, 1.2g protein

Recipes to try:

Spicy Pumpkin and Shrimp Soup
Pumpkin-Date Muffins
Bacon and Pumpkin Soup

Health benefits: Forget its reputation as a worthless fungus — mushrooms are high in vitamin C, iron, potassium, and zinc. With no cholesterol and low levels of sodium, they also pack a good amount of protein for a veggie.

Nutrition: (1 cup, raw) 15 calories, 0.2g fat, 2.3g carbohydrates, 0.7g fiber, 2.2g protein

Recipes to try:

Mushroom and Asparagus Fettuccine
Pan-Roasted Chicken Breasts with Mushrooms and Leeks
Mushroom Soup
Shrimp and Mushroom Risotto

Health benefits: Tired of apples already? Try their oblong sister fruits. Pears are high in fiber and vitamin C — 12 percent of your daily recommended intake, in fact. However, they're also pretty high in sugar (16.3g), so treat them as a sweet snack or even a dessert.

Nutrition: (1 pear, medium) 96 calories, 0.2g fat, 25.7g carbohydrates, 5.1g fiber, 0.6g protein

Recipes to try:

Pork Tenderloin with Caramelized Pears
Baked Pears with Almond Crunch
Arugula-Fennel Salad with Pear Vinaigrette

Health benefits: Though figs are naturally high in sugar, they earn points for being high in dietary fiber.

Nutrition: (1 fig, medium) 37 calories, 0.2g fat, 9.6g carbohydrates, 1.5g fiber, 0.4g protein

Recipes to try:

Banana, Fig, and Walnut Bread
Endive, Radicchio, and Poached Figs with Buttermilk Blue Cheese Dressing
Chocolate-Covered Figs

Health benefits: High in fiber, iron, potassium, and vitamin C, these vegetables are sweet as a roasted side dish or as a colorful salad add-in.

Nutrition: (1 beet, raw) 35 calories, 0.1g fat, 7.8g carbohydrates, 2.3g fiber, 1.3g protein

Recipes to try:

Beets with Blue Cheese and Candied Walnuts
Mixed Greens with Roasted Vegetables and Goat Cheese
Scarlet Salad

Health benefits: Perhaps considered the ugly stepsister of its more popular veggie sister broccoli, cauliflower is bursting with vitamin B6, potassium, and vitamin C — 77 percent of your recommended allowance per cup! As if that weren't enough, the veggie also happens to be low in calories and high in fiber, so eat up!

Nutrition: (1 cup) 25 calories, 0.1g fat, 5.3g carbohydrates, 2.5g fiber, 2g protein

Recipes to try:

Curried Chickpeas and Cauliflower with Brown Rice
Seared Scallops with Orange Sauce and Broccoli-Cauliflower Saute
Wheat Penne with Roasted Vegetables and Shrimp

Health benefits: Cabbage is way too versatile to be used for just coleslaw filler. High in vitamins C and B6, the winter green also boasts a good amount of potassium, magnesium, thiamin, and dietary fiber for very few calories.

Nutrition: (1 cup, raw) 22 calories, 0.1g fat, 5.2g carbohydrates, 2.2g fiber, 1.1g protein

Recipes to try:

Savoy Cabbage Salad with Salt-and-Pepper Chicken
Grilled Chicken and Rice Salad
Asian Chopped Salad

Health benefits: Not just rabbit food, one cup of carrots provides an astounding 428 percent of one's daily recommended amount of vitamin A. The veggie is also high in vitamins C and B6, as well as potassium, thiamin, and fiber.

Nutrition: (1 cup, chopped) 52 calories, 0.3g fat, 12.3g carbohydrates, 3.6g fiber, 1.2g protein

Recipes to try:

Roasted Salmon with Carrots, Molasses, and Chili
Stir-Fried Vegetables in Thai Peanut Sauce
Wheat Germ Carrot Muffins

Health benefits: Like their sister summer citrus fruits, winter citrus fruits — mandarin oranges, tangerines, blood oranges, and clementines — are very high in vitamin C, which helps boost immunity to fight off pesky colds and flu. They're high in fiber, to boot.

Nutrition: (1 tangerine, medium) 50 calories, 0.5g fat, 3g fiber, 1g protein

Recipes to try:

Papaya and Tangerine Sorbet
Fennel, Red Onion, and Blood Orange Salad with Miso-Lime Vinaigrette

Health benefits: We're not talking fries or a sliver of skin drowning in cheese and sour cream. In their most basic form, potatoes provide an abundance of vitamins C and B6, as well as potassium. With the skin, a large potato also provides 32 percent of your daily fiber intake.

Nutrition: (1 potato, large) 284 calories, 0.3g fat (0.1 saturated), 64.5 carbohydrates, 8.1g fiber, 7.5g protein

Recipes to try:

Rosemary New Potatoes
Warm Tarragon Potato Salad
Twice-Baked Potato with Melted Cheese and Broccoli

Health benefits: Yes, you may have hated it as a kid, but broccoli is a power vegetable that you should try to grow to like. High in vitamins A, B6, and C, these little green trees are a very versatile ingredient. Being very high in potassium, manganese, and dietary fiber is just icing on the proverbial cake.

Nutrition: (1 cup, raw) 30 calories, 0.3g fat, 5.8g carbohydrates, 2.3g fiber, 2.5g protein

Recipes to try:

Stir-Fried Beef, Broccoli, and Tofu
Broccoli Frittata
Broccoli and Cheddar Soup