Top 3 Clean food recipe books

Clean and lean, #strongnotskinny, counting nutrients not calories – these are all buzzwords thrown at us via Twitter, magazines and even the Sunday supplements. From powerhouse Instagrammers Madeleine Shaw, Deliciously Ella and Mille Mackintosh, to local supermarket displays, the healthy, nutritious food movement has gone stellar in 2015.

Never ones to ignore a trend, we’ve been attempting to join the bandwagon – starting with James Duigan’s Clean and Lean, a great introduction to the principles of getting the natural glow (hint: vegetables can be super-tasty without hassle; nuts are a fab energy source, and you won’t have to cut out every single carb). It’s definitely about changing your understanding of nutrition, and not about going on a crash diet.

We’ll admit, we don’t follow every principle religiously – and we go for recipes with simple ingredients we can buy easily. The best advice we can give is to find your balance – we don’t all have time to cut out every quick-and-easy convenience food, or want to abandon Friday night cocktails (it can’t be just us?!).

For us, it’s been about finding healthier snacks to keep going at work, discovering a chocolate mousse that is good for you (really!), and making big batches of veg-packed stews and soups for easy weekday dinners. The beauty of learning to love healthy eating is that it’s easy and cheap to get involved at any time – it doesn’t matter how long you go away for!

To help you get started, we’ve picked our top 3 cookbooks with recipes we’ve been able to incorporate easily into our weekly routines – enjoy!

Hemsley and Hemsley: The Art of Eating Well
Pretentious title aside, the Hemsley sisters are the gurus of eating well. We love the combination of useful advice with recipes that are straightforward, filling and delicious. There’s lots of big-batch ideas here for freezing portions to make easy working lunches or quick dinners. Our favourites so far have been the comforting Sausage and Cider Stew, creamy Courgette and Aubergine Curry and so-good-it-can’t-be-healthy Chocolate and Avocado Mousse.
Buy from Amazon

Deliciously Ella
If you’ve read anything about eating well, you’ll have heard of Ella Woodward. Her story is fascinating, but her recipes are equally fab – we particularly love her dips (Avocado and Brazil Nut is a personal fave) and colourful, vegetable-packed lunch bowls.
Buy now from Amazon

Lighten Up, Jill Dupleix
Less well-known on the eating well circuit, but hugely recommended if you want to give healthy eating a go without overhauling your cupboards or giving up every treat. Dupleix’s recipes are particularly great for social occasions – the easy but impressive Lamb Tagliata has become our go-to for family visits, and Feta Eggs are our current weekend breakfast obsession.
Buy now from Amazon

So there you have it – 3 recipes books to pack a bit of colour and life into everyday eating.

Any recipes you’d recommend? Share with us @tweetjanes!