This nightshade-free beef bone broth is so nourishing and wonderful to use as a base for soups and stews, or just for sipping on! It's also a great way for me to use up the abundance of fresh herbs, celery, and onions that I have growing in my gardens during the summertime. Bone broth freezes very well, so you can make a few batches and stock your freezer. I use an Instant Pot to make this because I can just press a button and walk away from it!
This egg-free and gluten-free recipe uses cooked rice and plenty of vegetables and dried herbs to create a flavorful and tender allergy-free meatloaf! Serve with dairy-free mashed potatoes and sautéed kale for a balanced, nourishing meal.
Serve these nutritious grain-free and dairy-free blackberry muffins for breakfast with scrambled eggs and sautéed kale. They also make a great snack for your child's lunchbox! Other fruits can be used such as blueberries, raspberries, chopped pitted cherries, or diced pears.
This warming vegetable beef soup makes the perfect meal on a chilly evening! You don't really need to serve it with anything, although a scoop of raw sauerkraut tastes great with it and helps with digestion. An Instant Pot cuts cooking time down significantly and makes very tender meat! Use a good homemade beef bone broth for best results. If the broth you are using is already salted you may want to taste the soup after it is cooked and add salt to taste if necessary.
Make a big batch of this chicken on a meal prep day to use throughout the week. You can make chicken salad out of it, top blended vegetable soups with it, add it to a garden vegetable salad, or use it in quesadillas with your favorite tortillas (my children love bean, chicken, and arugula quesadillas).
Serve these spicy, probiotic-rich vegetables as a condiment on top of stuffed sweet potatoes, scrambled eggs and avocado, or rice and black beans! They are very versatile!
This is a great way to use up an abundance of summer produce with a simple, classic soup that everyone will enjoy! Serve with finely grated parmesan cheese as a topping if desired.
Make this easy chipotle-spiced chicken salad with leftover chicken from making roasted chicken, poached chicken, or Instant Pot shredded chicken. Serve the chicken salad over baby arugula with sliced avocado on the side, or use it to stuff large avocados for an easy and nutritious low-carb lunch!
Several years ago I posted my gluten-free and vegan bagel recipe and promised to post my buckwheat cinnamon raisin version, but never got around to it until now! This recipe is nearly identical to that one, with a few slight changes. These bagels are boiled before baking, just like traditional bagels. You may want to make a double batch and freeze half of them. This way, your children can take one or two out at a time for a quick breakfast or after-school snack.
This recipe and these photos were done by my oldest daughter, Lily (at 10 years old). In her words: I like to pack these in my lunch or make them when I get home from school. My brothers and sister like them too!
This healthy cake recipe uses oat flour, applesauce, coconut sugar, and olive oil, so you can enjoy a sweet treat once in a while without refined ingredients! Pack a slice in your child's lunchbox as part of a balanced lunch.
Serve this quick and easy vegan main dish with a simple napa cabbage salad. Use any variety of noodles that fits your diet. Here I am using organic brown rice noodles. The key to stir-fried noodles is to cook them al dente and let them completely cool before adding them to the stir-fry. I like to rinse them in the colander with icy cold water for a while to stop the cooking and cool them off, then toss them in a little avocado oil (while still in the colander) to prevent the noodles from sticking together.
Serve this fresh and flavorful summer soup with grilled chicken for a nourishing, light meal. Fennel bulbs come with the fronds attached; reserve some of them to chop up and stir into the soup.
These gluten-free muffins have been designed for the low-oxalate diet. There are very few low-oxalate gluten-free grain flours, however, masa harina is low in oxalates. Although potatoes are a higher oxalate food, potato starch is very low in oxalates. White rice flour and sweet white rice flour are suitable for a low-oxalate diet as well. These delicious muffins use buttermilk and a touch of maple syrup, plus juicy antioxidant-rich blueberries to create a nutritious gluten-free and low-oxalate muffin! Serve with butter and raw honey.
Serve this more traditional gluten-free cornbread recipe with a spicy chili for a warming fall meal. The cast iron skillet gets heated with butter before adding the batter, which creates a crispier crust on the cornbread!
Serve this fresh and flavorful low-carb chicken skillet casserole with a garden salad for dinner. This recipe is a great way to use up leftover cooked chicken. You can quickly cook up some chicken thighs or chicken breasts in your Instant Pot if you don't have and pre-cooked chicken on hand.
This soup is a great way to use up your summer garden zucchini! Use a good homemade chicken bone broth if you have it, otherwise water can be used instead. Sliced Thai chili peppers can be used as a garnish, or they can be simmered in the soup during a nightshade/pepper challenge for those of you on an Elimination Diet. The extra spice balances out the creamy coconut flavors perfectly.
Serve this grain-free chocolate cake for a birthday celebration! It is also a great way to make use of overripe bananas. I like to top it with Hu Baking Gems, which are organic dark chocolate chips sweetened with coconut sugar. You can bake this cake in a 9-inch cake pan or 8x8-inch square baking dish. This recipe is a variation of the sugar-free Carob Banana Bars I posted to my blog about 10 years ago.
Serve this easy roasted vegetable dish with grilled steak or chicken and a light green salad for a balanced, nourishing meal. I like to top the vegetables with fresh herbs after roasting. Try parsley, rosemary, thyme, oregano, or basil!
This fresh and flavorful cabbage salad is quite addictive! Napa cabbage is much lighter with a milder flavor compared to green or red cabbage. If you are wanting to consume more raw vegetables, try adding napa cabbage into your diet. Serve this salad with sautéed tempeh, grilled chicken, or grilled steak. If you can't find Thai basil, use sweet basil, holy basil, lemon basil, or purple basil.
Tempura vegetables are made from cut raw vegetables that are dipped in a gluten-free and egg-free garbanzo bean flour batter and then lightly fried in oil. They are a fun appetizer to serve to a gathering of friends and family, and also a wonderful way to use up your garden produce! Serve them with an Indian-themed meal and a spicy cilantro dipping sauce. Use my vegetable combination below or use your own.
Sirloin tip steak is lower in fat and less tender than other cuts of beef, therefore marinating it in something acidic (like vinegar or citrus) before cooking will begin to tenderize the meat fibers. You can cook the steaks on a grill, or use a cast iron grill pan on your stove to sear it on both sides and then broil for a few minutes on high in the oven. The trick to keeping it tender is to cook it only to medium-rare or medium doneness.
Matcha powder is an antioxidant-rich green tea powder that can be added to smoothies, ice cream, or made into a delicious hot drink with hot water and dairy-free milk. There are many different grades of matcha powder available, and I have tried them all. The cheaper varieties will be bitter and a darker greenish-brown color, while the higher quality grades will be bright green and sweeter. Look for ceremonial grade matcha or latte grade; it should say "1st harvest" somewhere on the package. This is the brand I use.
Soaking buckwheat groats overnight in cultured buttermilk not only yields a light and fluffy pancake, but it also breaks down the phytic acid in the buckwheat, allowing for better nutrient absorption. Buckwheat actually contains some of the lowest levels of phytic acid compared to other grains and pseudo-grains, and it also contains high levels of phytase, the enzyme that breaks down phytic acid. Phytase "wakes up" when a grain is soaked. Serve these nutrient-dense pancakes with extra blueberries and a cup of herbal tea for an energizing breakfast.
Nourishing Meals began in 2008 as a blog to share new, healthy recipes, including Elimination Diet recipes. In January of 2018, we began construction to transform this site into a meal planning web application for special diets.
All of our recipes are now organized into one place, each tagged with over 70 different diets and food allergens, making it very simple to find exactly what you are looking for!
From My Kitchen to Yours
Embarking on a new diet (such as an Elimination Diet, Low-FODMAP Diet, or a healthy eating plan like the Mediterranean Diet or Paleo Diet) can be overwhelming. If you have additional food allergens or specific food dislikes, this can be even more challenging.
I wanted to create a meal planning system that could easily work across all devices while allowing other family members to log in, see what's for dinner on the weekly calendar, and use the shopping list to buy groceries.
I used to painstakingly write out my weekly meal plans, figure out the groceries I needed, write up a shopping list—this took hours every time! I realized that others, like me, also wanted to be able to save time and quickly create meal plans tailored to specific dietary needs—and save them to use again and again.
Additionally, if you are cooking whole foods—soaking beans, grains, and nuts, and making bone broths—then you need to plan ahead of time to implement these steps into your daily life. Upcoming Meal Prep Notes that alert you to what you need to do and when are essential. For example, say you wanted to make my Blueberry-Buttermilk Buckwheat Pancakes. If you put this recipe in your meal planning calendar for breakfast on a certain day, a reminder note will show up in your user profile to tell you to soak the buckwheat groats in buttermilk about 8 hours beforehand. These features help home cooks become much more efficient, saving time, and reducing overwhelm!
Scroll through our blog to find hundreds of free recipes, or become a member to access over 1700 nourishing recipes for every diet and our easy-to-use meal planning tools! Watch a live demo to learn more about the core features of our Nourishing Meals® membership platform.
Our Mission
Nourishing Meals makes eating for special diets easy and accessible, with meal planning tools and custom recipe searches that allow you to conveniently create healthy meals for your unique diet.
Family-Friendly Healthy Eating!
Just starting a Gluten-Free Diet?
Removing gluten from your diet and your kitchen can be a big step in reclaiming your health. Check out our Gluten-Free Diet page for more information and recipe inspiration. There are still so many foods you CAN eat!
Search this site for Elimination Diet recipes for Phase 1, 2, and 3! Use the Elimination Diet book to guide you on your journey through the diet, and this website to support you in creating meal plans and cooking new, healing foods!
Search through our Recipe Index for plenty of nourishing, family-friendly recipes! All recipes that are on the blog will be available for anyone to view, however, if you would like access to all of the recipes then consider becoming a member today!
I am the author of the best-selling cookbooks, The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook: A Complete Nutritional and Cooking Guide for Healthy Living, and Nourishing Meals: 365 Whole Foods, Allergy-Free Recipes for Healing Your Family One Meal at a Time. I am also the co-author of The Elimination Diet, a guidebook with over 125 recipes for reclaiming your health using the power of food.
Functional Nutrition looks at the root causes of disease and addresses them through dietary changes and supplement protocols. What are your symptoms? How well is your digestive system functioning? What are your health goals? Are there any underlying nutritional deficiencies? Do you have a chronic disease that needs to be addressed? There is no one right diet. We take your symptoms, history, test results, and goals and factor everything into a personalized diet and supplement plan that will be manageable for you. Virtual appointments only right now.
Are you confused about what the perfect diet is? Paleo? Vegan? Mediterranean? Vegetarian? Gluten-Free? There is no perfect diet! We each have our own unique dietary needs based upon many factors. Our diets need to be fluid and flexible, and able to evolve with our changing lifestyle needs such as pregnancy, breastfeeding, environmental exposures, health conditions, and stress levels. If you have a specific health condition and need help figuring out which diet or combination of diets to implement, please set up an appointment and we can create a dietary protocol that is specific to your needs.
Do you have a group of people interested in learning how to cook several nourishing recipes for a specific diet? Utilizing Zoom, I teach classes right from my own kitchen. Participants can cook along with me and learn tips and tricks for creating nourishing, healing meals. We will go over foundational cooking techniques for the specific diet protocol you would like to cover, and give participants PDFs of several recipes. The cooking class involves brief email or phone communication prior to setting the class date to determine which recipes to demonstrate.
Alissa Segersten holds a Bachelor of Science in Nutrition from Bastyr University and a Master of Science in Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine from the University of Western States. She is a Functional Nutritionist, the mother of five children, a whole foods cooking instructor, professional recipe developer, food photographer, and cookbook author. She is passionate about helping others find a diet that will truly nourish them. Alissa is the author of two popular gluten-free, whole foods cookbooks and guidebooks: The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook and Nourishing Meals. She is also the co-author of The Elimination Diet. Alissa is the founder and owner of Nourishing Meals®.
Marisa Dooley holds a Bachelor of Science in Nutrition and Culinary Arts from Bastyr University and a Master of Science in Nutrition from the National University of Natural Medicine. She is a professional recipe developer and food photographer who is passionate about helping families learn to cook nourishing meals at home and enjoy the process. Marisa has worked in a variety of professional kitchens, including the farm-to-table foodservice program at an all-girls middle and high school, and assisting a personal chef in preparing SCD-compliant meals for a research study out of Seattle Children’s Hospital. Marisa is a recipe contributor extraordinaire for Nourishing Meals®.
Although this recipe may look complicated with its long list of ingredients, it is actually very easy to throw together for lunch or dinner. If you don't have millet, use quinoa or brown rice instead. I have many different varieties of basil growing in my gardens, so today I added fresh lemon basil to brighten the flavors even more! My children love this millet salad; it is perfect for school lunches or packed in a cooler for a trip to the beach.
Serve this easy and flavorful elimination diet meal with sliced avocados and a green salad! Other vegetables can be used, but they need to be able to cook thoroughly in the short cooking time.
Summer Garden Salad with Herbed Pumpkin Seed Dressing
Soaking raw pumpkin seeds for a few hours can create a delicious and nutrient-dense creamy salad dressing that pairs well with a fresh lettuce and vegetable salad. Use whatever varieties of fresh basil you have growing in your garden. Holy basil, lemon basil, sweet basil, and purple basil all work well!
Chicken cacciatore is a classic Italian dish that can be made with whatever vegetables you have on hand. It is typically made with either chicken or rabbit. The long simmering and acid from the tomatoes and wine produces extremely tender meat. It can be serve with cooked rice, polenta, or pasta. It is also delicious served with roasted cauliflower for a low-carb, grain-free option.
Serve this easy chickpea curry over brown rice. Other vegetables can be added, such as zucchini, cauliflower, or broccoli. If you don't have sweet potatoes you can use red or yellow potatoes instead.
If you are following a keto diet, having high-fat and low-carb snacks already made really helps curb cravings and stick with the diet. These tasty fat bombs can be stored in the freezer for up to 6 months!
This easy and kid-friendly meal can easily be prepared on busy weeknights when you don't have a lot of time to cook. I like to use extra lean grass-fed ground beef here because there isn't a chance to drain the fat off after cooking the beef. Leave the cheese off if you are dairy-free! Serve with a simple cabbage and cilantro salad with sliced avocados on the side.
I grow a large variety of hot chili peppers in my garden every year. Poblano peppers are easy to grow and they're mildly spicy. They are delicious roasted, added to soups, stews, egg-vegetable scrambles, and stuffed! Serve these paleo stuffed peppers with my dairy-free avocado crema sauce and an arugula salad.
Could the toast you ate for breakfast bring on your afternoon headache? Could the milk in your coffee cause joint pain and brain fog? Could your healthy tofu stir-fry slow your metabolism? Yes—there is an age-old, powerful connection between what you eat and how you feel. Just as no two bodies are the same, no two diets work for everyone. The only way to discover your ideal diet is to follow an Elimination Diet that will help you link foods to symptoms and customize a diet that works for you.
An Elimination Diet is a powerful tool to get to the root of most diseases and disorders. Why? Because most disease begins in the gut. The gut has the highest concentration of immune cells, and the most common thing that the immune cells will react to is food.
Elimination Diet Clues
If you are experiencing these symptoms then it’s time for an Elimination Diet:
Weight Gain / Weight Loss
Fatigue / Lethargy
Foggy Thinking / Memory Issues / Lack of Focus
Moodiness / Anxiety / Depression / Racing Thoughts
Aggression / Hyperactivity
Gas / Diarrhea / Constipation / Bloating / Cramping
Food has the power to heal, and the power to harm.
Over a typical lifetime, the average person will consume 25 tons of foreign matter through their mouths. This food will pass down their “inner tube of life” otherwise known as the gastrointestinal tract. The cells that line this tube are specifically designed to keep out potentially dangerous food particles and bacteria. Just in case this barrier fails, our body puts over 70% of our entire immune cells directly on the other side of the barrier to neutralize any harmful food proteins or bacteria that make it through. But this system is rarely without its problems. Stress, toxins, bacterial overgrowth, medications, and even the foods themselves can easily damage the cells of the intestinal wall allowing for food particles to come in contact with the multitude of immune cells that reside there. The result is inflammation.
Odds are that foods you are eating every day are leaving you sick and tired. How do you find out which ones? The Elimination Diet.This foundational tool of Functional Medicine has been used for centuries to discover which foods are making you ill and which ones can make you feel incredible.
What is an Elimination Diet?
An elimination diet is a simple experiment that helps you to discover which foods may be causing problems and which foods are not. An elimination diet is a simple process of removing all potentially problematic foods from your diet until your symptoms subside—usually a few weeks. Then you slowly reintroduce foods back into your diet, one by one, to see which ones bring your symptoms back. By finding the foods that are behind your suffering, you can completely turn your health around and elevate your quality of life.
Getting Started on an Elimination Diet.
If you don't already own a copy of The Elimination Diet, pick one up from your local bookstore or online retailer.
Create a meal plan for each phase of the diet using the recipes on this site.
Private Consultations
Nutrition & Special Diet Meal Planning Consultations
Are you confused about what the perfect diet is? Paleo? Vegan? Mediterranean? Vegetarian? Gluten-Free?
There is no perfect diet! We each have our own unique dietary needs based upon many factors. Our diets need to be fluid and flexible, and able to evolve with our changing lifestyle needs such as pregnancy, breastfeeding, environmental exposures, health conditions, stress levels, and the seasons.
I can help you create a healing diet that will work for you. I coach clients via phone consultations, online video Zoom meetings, and in person.
Private Cooking Instruction
I am available for local private cooking instruction in your kitchen. Did you recently get prescribed a certain diet by your health care provider and don't know how to implement it? Let me help you learn how to cook new recipes and shop for new ingredients. I can help you come up with a meal plan that you feel good about.
Virtual Cooking Coaching
Do you need help learning how to cook some staple, nourishing recipes specific to your dietary requirements but live 1000 miles away? I can still help you with my virtual cooking coaching using Skype or Zoom right from my kitchen!
Recipe
Grain-Free Chocolate-Almond Cut-Out Cookies
This crunchy chocolate grain-free and egg-free cut-out cookie recipe is fun to make for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Valentine's Day! Use my Cashew-Honey Icing to frost them, or drizzle with melted dark chocolate chips!
Cobb salads are typically made with crumbled blue cheese, but my dairy-free version is just as good! Serve this flavorful salad for lunch or a weekend brunch. Hard boiled eggs can be prepped ahead of time and stored in the fridge until you are ready to serve the salad.
These gluten-free and vegan apple pie bars make a great nutritious after-school snack for your children or a delicious kid-friendly holiday dessert! Walnuts and oats are rich in antioxidants, and oats are an excellent source of beta-glucans (a soluble fiber that feeds beneficial bacteria in the gut)! It is important to use a soft baking apple in these bars so they cook properly during the baking time!
Serve this easy plant-based meal on a busy weeknight! Tempeh is a naturally fermented soybean product that can be found in the refrigerated section of your local health food store. It is high in plant-based protein and easy to digest. I like to serve Thai food with extra fresh red Thai chili peppers, fresh cilantro, and Thai basil or purple mountain basil.
A galette is a freeform French pastry made from a single pie crust and filled with fruit, sugar, and butter. I am using a small amount of maple sugar here to allow the sweetness and flavors of the plums to shine through. It is important to roll your gluten-free and egg-free pastry crust on parchment paper and then transfer it to a cookie sheet before adding the filling ingredients.