Comfort Food

Serve in soup bowls with a protein of choice. In Z2 this is your veggie portion. You can have plain salad greens on the side if you need more. It’s very filling though.

Fennel has a distinct flavor, but when it's roasted, the flavor mellows. If you like fennel, this recipe is great, and it's very easy to make.  

A no sugar variation of my caramelized pears recipe. Still very yummy!

It may not feel like it here in Chicago, but spring and asparagus season are just around the corner. Gear up with this flavorful soup.

When you need some serious cold weather comfort food, ratatouille hits the spot. This shortcut ratatouille-inspired recipe was submitted by dieter Angela. She Zolafied the original recipe and created a delicious ZReduction veggie sauté that can be made in less than half the time of a traditional ratatouille.

A delightful chicken dish that tastes very French. This is super easy to make and dieters are enjoying it all over the country.

This dish comes together in a flash! You can also make it with steak or even seafood. When I get a hankering for pasta, I crave Chicken Alfredo. This one did it for me!

A unique way to stuff a chicken! From our dieting friend from Canada…Loretta.

This meal is good for breakfast, lunch or dinner. With a side salad it makes a nice brunch offering too!

Lobster thermidor is a classic dish. It’s decadent because of the cost of the lobster but it also has one of the dreamiest sauces you can possibly imagine.

There’s something about the potential of smelling apples baking with cinnamon and nutmeg that conjures up fond memories of my mother in the kitchen. She taught me as a small girl to make apple crisp so I did it often. This also makes a wonderful little breakfast the next day.

This will taste pretty darn official!

This soup can be served hot or cold.

In addition to being crunchy, satisfying and delicious, pumpkin seeds are a nutritious snack. You can buy shelled pumpkin seeds in the grocery store (also know as pepitas), but when pumpkin season rolls around, you can buy a fresh pumpkin, scrape out the seeds, and toast the whole seeds yourself. YUM! 

Cooking does not have to be complicated. In this recipe Chef Josh shows us how to make a simple and delicious puree using butternut squash. Easy. Decadent. Delicious.

Orzo is a wonderful, tiny pasta. This is the most requested side dish recipe I get from dinner guests–but watch your portion size. Enjoy!

You know how you can eat mac and cheese and not even use your teeth? This had the same result. BIG YUM!

You can have your stroganoff and eat it too! Most stroganoff recipes are served over rice or a big pile of noodles. You don’t have to do that. You have other choices.

Fried till golden using coconut flour.

This lasagna has no noodles. Standing in for the noodle layers are zucchini sliced the long way.

This is a remake of Beef Bourguignon. Who can resist this traditional French dish? So lush-tasting. It just about melts in your mouth.

A rich and easy cream of mushroom soup.

Talk about easy to make. This dish is done in a flash. If you’re like me, you’ll make a triple batch of the tomato base. You can freeze the portions.

My husband loves these so much he asks for them probably 4 times a week and has even begun making them himself! They taste every bit as good as regular onion rings without the breading.

This is a classic Italian dish. The one you order at Olive Garden will have WAY more pasta than this dish will have. That’s okay. The shrimp are the real star of this dish. Plus, you’ll be better off without all that starch. 

This recipe is for all the vegetarians out there. Thank you dieter Nancy for this photo. For you non-vegetarians this makes a great side dish to go along with a grilled meat. We had this last night with grilled Andouille sausage and had a lovely meal.

Tastes very much like the traditional version but this one doesn’t include higher carbohydrate vegetables like carrots and potatoes. Still quite delightful, though. Brings back memories of grandma.

It’s all the rage in the big city. Have a runny egg on top of your burger. Well, you can do that in ZReduction too! I just ate mine and I’m stuffed!

What makes this Zola lasagna is a reasonable amount of pasta. Most lasagna recipes run at least 3 or 4 layers of noodles. This one has 2. And I promise, you won’t miss the other two layers.

This dish is Italian comfort food. I curl up on sofa with a bowl of this and watch a movie. You can go totally low-carb with this one and make it without the pasta. Tastes just as good. This also makes a great casserole addition to a pot luck party.

This stew will contain your meat and vegetable portion, serve with salad greens for a complete meal.

A traditional Italian meal made the Plan Z way. My husband declared this one of his favorite meals of the year.

This is elegant comfort food. It’s sort of like the American version of the French dish called Coquille St. Jacque.

Talk about comfort food. This is the pure definition. Thankfully fat doesn’t make you fat so you can eat this at parties and not feel the guilt.

There’s something about the potential of smelling apples baking with cinnamon and nutmeg that conjures up fond memories of my mother in the kitchen.

I’ll admit it. I found this inspiration recipe online. I did not have to change it up much to Zola-fy it..it is soooo good!

I thought – what better time to have a spicy chili than when I am in lockdown, practicing social distancing.

Amatriciana is an Italian dish. Simple and traditional. I am calling this American Amatriciana because the Italian version is made with guanciale or pancetta. I make mine with good ole’ American bacon. This is one of my husband’s favorite dishes. I hope you love it too.

You’ll think you’re eating at an Italian Grandma’s house when you taste this.

One of my favorite Cajun meals is chicken mamou. Mamou in Creole is basically grandma. So this is “grandma('s) chicken.”

We made this during a snow storm, the taste took off the chill of the day.

I don’t eat potatoes very often but these are worth the splurge a few times a year. The yellow potatoes they are made from in my recipe are lower in carbohydrates than a Russet potato, so that’s a bonus, too.

This dish comes together in a flash. If you are doing beef enchiladas, I recommend red sauce. If you are doing chicken, I recommend you go wild and use a green sauce.

You could call this the “adult version” of Sloppy Joes.  It does have some ZIP to it. Don’t be intimidated by the length of the ingredients list. The recipe is worth it. And you probably have most of these ingredients in your pantry.

This is fast to make and is a wonderful comfort food addition to your recipes.

When I was young I loved going to Chi Chi’s and ordering the chimichanga. Now that I know all the carbs from the tortilla it was wrapped in are a bad idea, I decided to make a lower carb casserole version.

This dish can be made a day ahead and reheated.

Celebrity Chef Jernard Wells knows soul food. While a lot of his food is quite decadent, he also loves greens, and shared his wonderful southern greens recipe in a local interview. What's great about it is it can easily be modified to fit ZReboot. His original recipe calls for sugar, but by replacing the sugar with your favorite sugar substitute, you can still enjoy this delicious recipe. 

Tomato basil soup is very easy to make. It comes together in a flash. The addition of cooked chicken elevates it to a one bowl meal.