I got a couple questions lately about eating better—and I always say the key is to eat more good things, not punish and deprive yourself by eating less, less, less. One good thing to eat more of? Artichokes! They’re basically a miracle food—they’re ultra-high in fiber and bursting with antioxidants, including but not limited to the anti-carcinogen quercetin, the vascular-health promoting rutin, and then a million more. But artichokes are also a pain in the neck to clean, and that’s just a hurdle a lot of people won’t get past. That’s why I’m nuts about frozen artichoke hearts, you can get them frozen, and once you get them frozen you’re much of the way to making some very tasty and healthy dishes. Like these!
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Spinach Artichoke DipI know that the first thing you think when you hear artichoke hearts is: Dip. But there’s more to do then putting artichokes in a dish of mayonnaise! Here’s a nice recipe that combines spinach and artichokes, and you can serve it with bread as dip, but you can also stuff it into a baguette for a most excellent artichoke dip sandwich. I saw one internet commenter saying she uses it as a pierogie filling, but I have never made pierogies so I cannot vouch for that. I could see it as a puff-pastry roll-up filling too. Dip that goes beyond dip!
Basic Oven-Roasted Garlicky ArtichokesHere’s your easy weeknight oven-roast artichoke recipe, you’re high-heat cooking the artichokes to brown them, and then tossing them with some garlic oil in a pan—this brings the good garlic aromatherapy to the house too, in my humble opinion. This recipe calls for panko bread crumbs, but I skip them. Add them to be fancy!
Braised Artichokes with Tomatoes and MintCooking artichokes and tomatoes together is a staple of Turkish, Italian, Greek, and Lebanese food—basically everywhere on the Mediterranean, and once you taste them you’ll see why, the combination does something tricky in your mouth and makes the artichokes taste extra sweet. You could hardly fit more healthy foods into this dish, too. Better than an avocado kale smoothie.
Joel Robuchon’s Chicken Tagine with Artichoke Hearts and PeasI always like to put one complicated recipe in here for your weekend chef’s-knife armed warriors, and this chicken tagine is the magic—it’s by one of the world’s greatest chefs, Joel Robuchon, and it calls for six saffron threads! Expensive. Make it for your mom for Mother’s Day and tell her she’s eating her present: it’s the dried up insides of crocus flowers. Kidding! It’s a great recipe.
Greek Easter Artichokes with Fava BeansGarlic, lemon, a couple of sorts of onion, artichokes and fava beans, this is seriously the most ultra-healthy recipe I can think of—fava beans are another one of those super-healthy ingredients we don’t eat enough of. Because of the fiber, people! But the most important thing about healthy foods is that they must be super delicious so you will eat them, because super-healthy foods that you don’t eat are about as valuable as a dead gopher in a deep mine. This recipe is delicious! Lemony, artichoke-y—come on, you can put this on your Easter buffet as they do in Athens and look like a champ.
