Recipes: Valentine’s Day Heart-Healthy Meals

6 Heart-Healthy Valentine’s Day Recipes You’ll Love | movelifestyle.com

I love these ideas for heart-healthy Valentine’s Day recipes! Now, I don’t mind indulging a bit on Holidays (OK, any day, really, haha), but I thought I would look up a few recipes for those of you who want to keep it a bit lighter and healthier. I will probably skip a heavy meal this year, but pasta always sounds good to me. Of course, my fave is just spaghetti with red sauce, but a lobster pasta with gobs of butter sounds lovely. As I am trying to severely limit my butter intake (I’ve told you my body doesn’t care for it all that much), this is the only lobster that will be in my house this Valentine’s:

lol, that’s Lonnie Lobster who hangs out in my home office. Isn’t he cute?

I made this fab salad that I think would be a great Valentine’s dish: Arugula, Blackberry, & Chèvre Salad with Blackberry-Thyme Vinaigrette.

As you can see, I didn’t have one of the main components of the salad: arugula, lol. Arugula is my favorite salad green after butter lettuce. I had little gems lettuce, though, so I subbed it. It doesn’t have the bite of arugula, but it was still pretty tasty. I thought about using the little gems for wraps (like I used to get at a restaurant in Scottsdale), but my love for salad won out. Little gems are the perfect size for petite wraps or ‘cups.’ Anyway, I used some of my homemade blackberry jam for the vin, but you could easily use store-bought. It was delish! I think I am going to use it for a glaze/marinade soon. I’m sure frozen blackberries would work in place of fresh. I let myself have just a wee bit of cheese for a very light meal, but you could add more protein (like chicken, turkey, tofu, etc.) for a main salad. Beyond the original recipe, I subbed spicy roasted almonds (s&p, red pepper flakes) for hazelnuts, and added some toasted coconut, red onion (for a little bite), and chia seeds.

Here are 2 more links you might enjoy:

Heart-Healthy Valentine’s Day Meals

Heart-Healthy Valentine’s Day Recipes for Two

Take care, and I hope to post a few dessert recipes before the big day!