The Well Plated Cookbook: Fast, Healthy Recipes You’ll Want to Eat by Erin Clarke

I love this book and the recipes! it changes from what i usually cook!!

Erin Clarke’s The Well-Plated Cookbook features a range of classic recipes with a healthier approach. I bought this cookbook after noticing many other Instagram accounts of the success of her dishes. I was not disappointed! From chapters on breakfast and party food, to soups, sandwiches, salads, and desserts, Clarke offers lessons on how to become a better cooks while also making healthy choices like using more fruits and vegetables and swapping in more nutritious ingredients. Along with recipes, there are sections on helpful topics like ideas for use of a can of chickpeas; ways to use Bolognese sauce; and many ways to make stuffed sweet potatoes. So many creative and healthful ideas! The photographs by Becky Hardin enhance the attractiveness of the dishes and present a goal for your own food photos.

Recipes I have made to the acclaim of my family include:
–Caprese Chicken Skillet: Sauteed chicken breasts are finished with balsamic vinegar, red onions and cherry tomatoes before being topped with fresh basil and mozzarella balls and additional drizzles of balsamic.
–Italian Turkey Sausage Skillet with Farro, Greens, and Bean: Crumbled turkey sausage is sauteed with red onion, garlic before chopped kale, white beans, tomatoes, and farro are added to the skillet. The finished dish is a flavorful, one-dish meal perfect for an easy and healthy dinner.
–5-Ingredient Maple Dijon Salmon: The easiest approach to cooking salmon perfectly with a coating of maple syrup, Dijon mustard and olive oil. A quick oven roasting yields a delicious entree.
–Chicken Shawarma Wraps: An ideal way to make the most of leftover chicken. Shredded chicken is sauced with yogurt, a spice blend, and lemon juice before filling pita with hummus, sliced cucumbers, and feta.
–Grammy’s Green Chili Chicken Enchiladas: Another way to employ cooked chicken. Sliced peppers and onion and Mexican spices are mixed with shredded chicken to fill tortillas. The tortillas are topped with a cheese-yogurt sauce and homemade green enchilada sauce before being baked until bubbling. Garnishes include avocadoes and cilantro.
–Autumn Sheet Pan Sausages with Apples and Harvest Vegetables: A combination of Brussels sprouts, red onion, garlic, sliced turkey sausage, sliced apples, and herbs are oven-roasted. Another easy and flavorful one-dish meal.

There are many other recipes on my To Try list from The Well-Plated Cookbook. It is full of many promising approaches to familiar dishes. I recommend it to any level of cook, and it would be a great gift. A new favorite cookbook!

I usually buy cookbooks that have the nutritional information. This cookbook has many wonderful recipes but I really miss the important facts about the nutrition. It takes a lot of work to key in all the ingredients to find those facts. I would have given it a 5 except for that.

As a person who is new to cooking but LOVES food, I am finding this cookbook to be incredibly accessible with an offering of delicious, easy-to-follow recipes and ingredients that make sense. The author offers recommended swaps for things I can’t find in the market. So many cookbooks require trips to multiple stores for ingredients I *might* use once. Not this one! I’ve made 7-8 recipes so far, and intend to work my way through the whole book, as everything featured in its pages are things I’d actually like to eat. I can’t wait for the author’s next book!

Love the recipes in this book – easy to follow, make and healthy – I understand the book is in American measurements – I wish there was the option to buy a conversion chart with the book rather than buy it separately.

I do not know where to start. I stumbled upon Erin’s web site searching for a recipe. Again, where do I start? I could not stop printing off recipes as I was reading them. I had to stop, my family doesn’t eat like this. I am one of those ridiculous people who make 2 meals a night. One for me, one for everyone else. I loved these recipes so much that in January I announced that the 2 meals were not happening anymore and we were ALL eating healthy. My husband said he would try. The first week, everything came from Erin. From the sweet potato frittata for breakfast to stuffed pepper casserole for dinner. Long story short, I got all compliments and no complaints! They didn’t even know they were eating brown rice except one night my husband said the rice wasn’t cooked enough, hee hee. They even ate quinoa! After the first week of family approvals I purchased this cook book. It is a lovely book! I love her tips, I now make my brown rice in larger batches and keep it in the fridge for another night. I also cook the quinoa and freeze it. Bye Bye Lipton noodle packets. My fridge is currently LOADED with vegetables and I saved so much money at the grocery store. I just got my daughter started with “Erin cooking” and I am curious to see how she does. I know that I am learning a lot, like dicing sweet potato and cooking them in a bowl of water in the microwave, for example. That is one of those things that is a duh, but I had never thought of it. I will let you know if she finds this too complicated, or if she, like me, is learning from Erin. I also want to point out that my healthy eating journey started with many visits to a nutritionist. Everything that my nutritionist had me eating is in this book. It is spot on healthy, besides the cheese. My family appreciates the cheese! So I leave it in and eat around it. I try to use Cabot cheese and grate it myself. I tell myself that this is better……. I have been searching for a way to work some salmon into my diet. I am not a huge salmon person, actually I don’t like it at all. HOWEVER, Erin has a recipe for a salmon cake in her book that is sitting in my recipe book cradle, opened to the page, as a reminder to me that I need to try it. It looks delicious, sigh, we’ll see, its salmon……. Long story short, Erin is a treasure that you have just found if you are reading this review. Buy the book and enjoy her spin on healthy eating! I look forward to many more books Erin! Update January 2022 I purchased a number of these cookbooks for Christmas presents. I also made the sweet potato frittata as Christmas gifts for coworkers and neighbors. I put them in a pie box and wrapped with satin ribbon. I have printed off so many recipes from Erins website I can now make my own cookbook! Last night I made chicken and biscuits with the drop biscuit recipe. My husband had no idea it was lacking cheese or condensed soup. It was the first time that I have made a chicken pot pie type meal and actually ate it. It was so good, I can’t wait for leftovers!! Follow Erin on Instagram for fresh recipe ideas and some that maybe you forgot about. Erin is the real deal and she works so hard to provide fresh content and new twists on recipes. She also has links to her favorite cooking equipment and they are budget friendly items! She also has a great you tube channel for people like me who cannot seem to zest an orange correctly, the rind is bad and will ruin everything. Lesson learned the hard way. This is the most used cookbook I own and I cannot wait for cookbook number 2 I will be on the preorder list for sure!!

Very good book fun ideas