Heart Healthy Anti Inflammatory Dinners: What to Cook (Jan 23) (2024)

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This week’s dinner menu is focusing on Heart Healthy Anti Inflammatory Dinners for the last full week of January. Delicious, Mediterranean Diet style foods everyone will love.

Dinners this week are dishes that are both healthy and tasty, low in saturated fat, and meet heart-healthy recipe parameters. In addition, we’re focusing on ingredients like dark leafy greens, legumes, fish, herbs, and spices, all of which can help reduce inflammation and its symptoms like joint stiffness, digestive issues, and mental fog.

What Makes a Heart Healthy Anti Inflammatory Recipe?

EatingWell uses this guideline in determining which recipes constitute “heart healthy.”

“Recipes must meet the following thresholds for saturated fat and sodium. Recommendations are based on the guidelines for the American Heart Association Heart-Check program and general recommendations for reduced saturated fat (≤5-6% of total calories) and reduced sodium (≤1,500 mg/day).”

Anti Inflammatory Diet

If you’ve followed our weeknight dinner menus, I’m confident you’re familiar with The Mediterranean Diet and its style of eating. While not all of our menus fit this lifestyle-type eating behavior, most come close.

As a result, you are likely also eating an Anti-Inflammatory Diet. At its core, it’s a healthy “Mediterranean-style diet with a focus on nutrient-dense foods andhealthy fats, like salmon, avocado, nuts and olive oil.”

Foods to Eat on an Anti Inflammatory Diet

• Blueberries, blackberries and raspberries
• Cherries
• Pomegranate
• Beets
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
• Brussels sprouts
• Dark leafy greens (spinach, kale, chard)
• Nuts and seeds, especially walnuts
• Natural nut butters
• Avocado
• Olives and olive oil
• Fish, especially salmon and tuna
• Legumes (lentils, chickpeas and other beans)
• Whole grains (quinoa, whole-wheat bread, brown rice)
• Sweet potato
• Eggs
• Citrus fruits
• Garlic, herbs and spices
• Greek yogurt and kefir

Heart Healthy Anti Inflammatory Dinners Menu

This week’s dinner menu is super healthy and delicious. They’re cozy and warm for winter, with an eye toward spring.

Here’s what we have on the menu:

Monday’s dinner is an easy, plant-based soup that’s been one of my favorites this winter. Packed with veggies and flavor, it’s perfect for chilly days. I’m serving the hearty soup with winter greens and perhaps slices of whole-grain bread.

Tuesday’s dinner is a meal with an eye toward spring. In this recipe winter greens and healthy grains are topped with sliced Mediterranean-spiced grilled chicken. It’s too cold to grill at my house this week so I’ll be “grilling” on the stovetop.

If you love ramen as much as I do, you will look forward to Wednesday’s dinner! Easy and simple meatballs in ramen– and it’s heart healthy and anti inflammatory too!

Thursday’s dinner is an easy sheet pan seafood dinner we will make all on one pan. This meal is all about simple cleanup, and healthy ingredients.

I love to make Friday food at home. The crockpot chili dinner planned for Friday is perfect for mid January– and will hopefully produce leftovers as we look toward a game day weekend.

You won’t believe the treat this week is heart healthy and anti-inflammatory. But it is! And… it’s no bake.

Have a great week!

See theWinter Mediterranean Diet Dinnerspost for more recipes ideas to make all season.

RELATED: More 31Daily Dinner Ideas >>

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