Elevate Your Snacking Game with Seasonal Goodness
PLUS 20 healthy and EASY snacks for every season!
Don’t you just love experiencing all of the different seasons?
Coming from South Eastern North Carolina, I feel like I get the best of the both worlds. The winters aren’t too harsh, but just cool enough to pull out my favorite sweaters. Spring is the perfect invitation to warming weather and the promises of new growth. The summers are hot, but not unbearably so and autumn offers crisp leaves and hints of the approaching holiday seasons to come. What I love even more is enjoying the fruits of each season, the bounty that nature has to offer, in its perfect timing.
Eating seasonal has so many benefits, that include not only health but financial benefits. Nutritionally, eating fruits and vegetables in season allows you to get these items in more of a farm-to-table fashion. Although we enjoy having strawberries at our fingertips 10 months out of the year, it’s important to realize that strawberries from Mexico are going to have a much lower nutrient content than the strawberry patch a few miles down the road, unless you live in Mexico, of course. Fruits and vegetables always taste better when they are in season and harvested closer to the peak of freshness than those that spend a lot of time in transit that might cover hundreds, if not thousands of miles.
Pro Tip: If you live in an area with minimal produce yielding seasons, you can prepare and freeze produce for use throughout the year.
On the financial side, doesn’t it feel so good to support local farmers and purveyors. Personally, I have also found it to be much more financially reasonable to shop the local farmers markets, co-ops, and road-side stands when fresh produce is in season. Not only are you pouring resources back into your local economy, you are spending less out of your own pocket.
As a Registered Dietitian, something I commonly hear is “so what exactly do I make with this seasonal produce?” So, let’s look at 20 healthy and easy snacks that you can enjoy throughout the year!!
Winter
- Grilled pears with walnuts and fig demi-glace
- Crispy air-fryer brussels sprouts with pancetta
- Citrus salad with Greek yogurt drizzle
- Toasted turmeric-dusted kale chips
- Pasture-raised spicy sausage stuffed mushrooms
Spring
- Fresh Pineapple smoothies
- Crudité with seasonal veggies and goat cheese dip
- Prosciutto wrapped asparagus
- Dark chocolate covered strawberries
- Fresh fruit salad with Greek yogurt dip
Summer
- Watermelon, feta & basil salad
- Fresh seasonal fruit yogurt parfait topped with granola
- Cherry tomato, fresh mozzarella & basil salad
- Easy summer lettuce wraps with ginger dressing
- Crispy green beans almandine, served cold in an olive oil and vinegar dressing
Fall
- Golden beet salad with feta and toasted pumpkin seeds
- Buffalo cauliflower fleurettes in dairy-free ranch dip
- Spicy-topped sweet potato rounds
- Slow cooker cabbage rolls
- Fresh apple cranberry sauce
Eating healthy, and in season, doesn’t have to be boring. In fact, it can be quite invigorating. Who knows, you may even impress your next house guests with some of these seasonal favorites! The next time you are considering what to put on your table for an event or even just for your own day-to-day snacking, I hope you will try out one (or more) of these tried-and-true favorites!
Here’s to happy & healthy snacking, friends!