Stephanie Witt Sedgwick

Serve this stew — featuring black beans, which are full of fiber, protein, and antioxidants (concentrated in their dark skins) as a vegetarian entree or as a side to a lean-meat dish. As the recipe notes, cooking your own beans instead of using canned keeps the sodium in
check.

Health.com

Try this with the spicy black bean stew, above. Chicken’s a good source of niacin, which might help lower cholesterol.

FoodNetwork.com

This colorful breakfast, with just 179 calories per slice, features my favorite vegetable — red bell pepper — which is a great source of Vitamin C and Vitamin A, antioxidants that are thought to help keep cells healthy, plus potassium, good for regulating blood pressure.

Adapted from a recipe on DiabeticCooking.com

This flavorful twist on standard mac and cheese has much less fat than that family favorite, but is still likely to please your family anyway. The corn contains both fiber and folate, which may help reduce risk of heart disease and some cancers.

Whole Foods Market

I’m always on the lookout for ways to use quinoa, an excellent source of protein and the blood-pressure-lowering mineral magnesium. This one mixes it with beef and vegetables to make meatballs. An extra healthful touch: These meatballs are baked, not sauteed in a pan of oil, to save fat and calories.

Real Simple

To keep our cardiovascular systems healthy, it’s recommended that most people eat at least two servings of fatty fish per week. But that doesn’t have to mean splurging on salmon: Canned tuna’s got plenty of heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids, too.