Whole Grains Daily Tips

Let your Friday night pizza count toward your whole-grain servings for the day with this delicious dish. The whole wheat and basil base is an earthy foil for the creamy cheese, tangy olives, and tomatoes in this sauceless pizza.

View Recipe: Fontina, Olive, and Tomato Pizza with Basil Whole Wheat Crust

Find more Whole-Grain Recipes 

Featuring peak summer produce and protein-rich quinoa, this colorful recipe was a finalist from our Ultimate Reader Recipe Contest. Save leftovers to serve for lunch throughout the week.

View Recipe: Colorful Quick Quinoa Grecian Salad

Find more: Whole-Grain Salad Recipes

The loads of southwestern flavor in this recipe take kindly to whole-wheat flour. You can prepare these in muffin tins, but the cast-iron cornstick pan yields a crisper crust.

View Recipe: Whole Grain Cornsticks  

Find more: Whole-Wheat Flour Recipes 

This curry hails from the Indian region of Punjab. The cardamom pods puff up to almost twice their size and float to the top, so they're easy to find and discard before serving. In just one serving, you pack in lots of whole-grains and close to 10 grams of fiber, thanks to brown rice, chickpeas, tomatoes, and plenty of onion.

View Recipe: Curried Chickpea Stew with Brown Rice Pilaf

Find more Whole-Grain Recipes

The nutty, slightly sweet flavor of whole-wheat flour is a tasty addition to a basic pasta recipe. Look for the smallest sweet tomatoes you can find for this simple sauce. Substitute grated orange rind for the lemon, if you prefer.

View Recipe: Whole Wheat Tagliolini with Fresh Cherry Tomato Sauce

Find more Whole-Grain Recipes

Bulgur is wheat that has been steamed whole, dried, then cracked. So bulgur is essentially precooked and quick to prepare. Bulgur is added to lamb meatballs in this recipe, adding fiber and nutty richness.

View Recipe: Bulgur and Lamb Meatballs in Tomato Sauce

Read more: All About Whole Grains 

We challenge anyone afraid of whole grains to try these delicious biscotti. They pack in the good stuff with loads of flavor to boot: whole-wheat flour, flaxseed, and almonds add fiber and antioxidants.

View Recipe: Deep Dark Chocolate Biscotti

Find more: Whole-Wheat Flour Recipes 

“I don’t have much time to cook whole grains, and my husband doesn’t love them,” says Sarah Sorensen, a Cooking Light reader. Our advice: Boil-in-bag brown rice is a fast partner for stir-fries. Or try 100% buckwheat soba noodles, which cook in less than 10 minutes. Also try whole-white-wheat bread. Whole-white-wheat flour is made from an albino variety of wheat that contains all the nutrients of its darker counterpart.

Read more: Meet Sarah, The Busy Young Mom

Great with grilled chicken, lamb, or salmon, this side-dish salad also packs well for a picnic. Almost any fruit would work well in place of nectarines–try apricots, peaches, or figs.

View Recipe: Cracked Wheat Salad with Nectarines, Parsley, and Pistachios

Find more: Whole-Grain Salad Recipes 

Either of these options can serve as a nutritional base for sandwiches―particularly when they are made with 100% whole wheat. Typically, 2 slices of whole wheat bread contain fewer calories and a bit more fiber than one whole wheat pita, which has less sodium. Both count as up to 2 of your 3 recommended daily servings of whole grain.

Read more: Take Two: Whole Wheat Bread & Whole Wheat Pita

 

Amaranth [AM-ah-ranth] was a principle food of the Aztecs. It has a slightly peppery, molasses-like flavor with a faint nuttiness. The grains (or seeds) are tiny, shiny, and can be yellow and black. They’re so small that they seem almost lost when served alone as a side dish. But amaranth is good as a thickener in soups because, when cooked, it has a slightly gummy texture, like okra. Try amaranth flour, along with wheat berries, in Wheat Berry Bread.

Read more: All About Whole Grains 

While rolled barley flakes look nearly identical to rolled oats, they pack more fiber. Look for them in whole-food shops or supermarket bulk food bins. Serve over plain low-fat yogurt.

View Recipe: Toasted Barley and Berry Granola

Find more Whole-Grain Recipes 

With their nutty taste, mild flavor, and irresistible chewy texture, whole grains are a fitting canvas for salads because they harmonize with the bright, fresh flavors we enjoy most.

Start with recipes with lots of herbs and vegetables, like this bulgur salad, as a basis for customizing your own grain salad. Stir in leftover chicken or shrimp to vary the flavor if you prefer.

View Recipe: Bulgur Salad with Edamame and Cherry Tomatoes

Find more: Whole-Grain Salad Recipes 

In this cobbler, whole-wheat flour does double duty. We've used it as the basis of a truly tender "cobbled" topping and as a thickener for the juicy fruit filling.

View Recipe: Mixed-Fruit Cobbler

Find more: Whole-Wheat Flour Recipes 

Our (almost) classic recipe dishes up whole grains in a delicious way. Lots of fresh veggies paired with traditional Asian flavors make this a scrumptious one-dish meal.

View Recipe: Almost Classic Pork Fried Rice

Find more Whole-Grain Recipes 

Millet is a popular grain in Asia and Africa in which pan roasting brings out its nutty character. This is a great make-ahead recipe since the millet will continue to absorb flavor as it sits. However if you make this salad a day ahead, stir in the avocado just before serving.

View Recipe: Millet Salad with Sweet Corn and Avocado

Find more: Whole-Grain Salad Recipes 

In the past, you would have had to go to a health or natural foods store to buy many grains, but now you can find most of them at the supermarket. Grains—­­­es­­pecially whole ones—have oils that even­­tually turn rancid. Shop at stores where the turnover seems high, and buy only what you plan to use within a few months. If you have space, it’s best to re­frigerate grains, but you still can’t keep them forever. You can tell if they’ve lost their freshness by their smell—old grains, including flours, will have a stale odor.

Read more: All About Whole Grains 

When baking with whole-wheat flour, it’s important to not dive into a regular recipe and just replace regular flour with whole wheat. There are definite texture and flavor differences. It’s safe to replace half of all-purpose flour with whole-wheat in most recipes. For recipes that use more than 50% whole-wheat flour, it’s best to use a recipe that’s been developed and tested using the good stuff. In Fig, Date, and Walnut Quick Bread, equal parts of whole-wheat and all-purpose flour serve as the base, and potassium- and fiber-rich dried figs and dates offer moisture and even more nutritional punch.

View Recipe: Fig, Date, and Walnut Quick Bread

Find more: Whole-Wheat Flour Recipes 

Although quinoa is considered a whole grain, it is, in fact, a seed—making it a welcome addition to a Passover meal. Quinoa Salad with Artichokes and Parsley from the April issue also features parsley, which owns a spot on the seder plate, representing spring.

Find more recipes in our Passover Supper menu.

“Whole grains can be expensive, and I want to make sure what I’m buying is genuine, and that I’m eating the right amount of it,” says Adam Hickman, Cooking Light staffer. Our advice: Forty-eight grams of whole grains are recommended per day, useful when looking at processed foods (though many labels don’t tout how many grams the product contains). Aim for 16 grams of whole grains per serving.

Read more: Meet Adam, The Whole-Grains Seeker on a Budget

 

Kellogg’s Raisin Bran Cereal—YES: With whole grain wheat as the first ingredient, this variety of raisin bran is indeed whole grain, boasting more than 27 grams of whole grain per serving. These flakes are a great way to work whole grains into your morning routine, but watch the added sugars and salt, which lend unwanted calories and sodium to each filling bowl.
Find out if 37 common products are really whole-grain foods in Decoding Whole-Grain Food Labeling.

Foods like grains, pasta, flour, and seeds from bulk bins are significantly less expensive because they don’t require costly packaging and labeling. So if buying organic whole-grain products is important to you, buying in bulk will save you some money.

Read more: How to Save on Organic Foods

Barley is best known as an ingredient in beer and soup. Creamy and possessing a fairly neutral flavor when cooked, pearl barley is easy to serve in place of rice; because it’s so starchy, pearl barley can be treated just like Arborio rice for risotto. Whole barley, with its protective layer of bran intact, plumps nicely when cooked. Barley flour, when toasted, has a strong nutty flavor; try adding it to breads. A great source of fiber, 1/2 cup of pearl barley offers more than 12 grams.

Read more: All About Whole Grains 

Sneak some whole grains into your Easter brunch with these decadent cinnamon rolls. Brown sugar sweetens the filling, and powdered sugar dissolves into a milky glaze that's drizzled over the top. Your mind might think you have something to feel guilty about after indulging in one of these.

View Recipe: Whole Wheat Cinnamon Rolls  

Find more: Whole-Wheat Flour Recipes 

Make this salad with any whole grain, including wheat berries or barley. Vary the chopped vegetables too, if you like. But don't change one iota of the simply luscious vinaigrette made with orange juice and champagne vinegar; it makes this salad burst with flavor.

View Recipe: Rye Berry Salad with Orange Vinaigrette

Find more: Whole-Grain Salad Recipes 

The whole-wheat flour—not to mention dried fruits, nuts, oatmeal, and wheat bran—contribute plenty of fiber to each Morning Glory Muffin. Substitute apricots or raisins for chopped pitted dates in this recipe if you like. Complete your breakfast with fat-free yogurt and fruit.

View Recipe: Morning Glory Muffins

Find more: Whole-Wheat Flour Recipes 

While similar in fat, iron, and sodium, whole wheat English muffins and bagels offer more zinc, magnesium, and vitamin E than their refined counterparts. For comparison’s sake, even when downsized to a half, the dense and chewy bagel packs about 40 more calories per serving than an entire muffin, but it provides a bit more fiber and protein, which help you feel full.

Read more: Take Two: Whole Wheat English Muffin & Whole Wheat Bagel

 

Whole-grain cookies that taste good? It's true! This recipe is a must-have for your repetoire. Don't stress if you can't find whole-wheat pastry flour. Instead, increase the all-purpose flour to 1 3/4 cups and use 1/4 cup whole-wheat flour.

View Recipe: Alaska Molasses Cookies

Find more: Whole-Wheat Flour Recipes 

L’Anne Gilman, gallery owner and mom of 3, wants to find whole-grain dishes her whole family will like. Our advice: Add whole grains gradually. You don’t have to go whole-hog right away—it might backfire with picky ¬eaters. Try a combo of half regular pasta with half whole-wheat.

Read more: Meet L’Anne, The Whole-Grain Newbie

 

This brunch dish is also hearty enough to serve at dinner with a green salad. Choose 100 percent whole-wheat or 100 percent whole-grain bread (not "made with whole wheat") to ensure you'll reap the benefits of the fiber and phytonutrients found in whole grains.

View Recipe: Fontina and Parmesan Mushroom Bread Pudding

Find more Whole-Grain Recipes