Sunflower Seed

Turn soaked sunflower seeds into a creamy dressing for smashed chickpeas with onions, celery, capers, and dill, then stuff into pita pockets for an easy, delicious vegan sandwich.

Gluten-free and literally packed with good things, a slice of this bread is a great way to get your daily dose of seeds and nuts.

These hamantaschen are filled with a celebration of seeds set in chewy-soft caramelized honey. While poppy is traditional, we threw in sesame, sunflower, and pumpkin as well for variety and crunch.

This savory granola will magically boost the flavor, protein, and crunch factor of any dish. Sprinkle it over a plate of whipped ricotta and crispy broccoli for an easy, veggie-centric meal.

This pesto is a little different—the grilled tomato base brings a sweet smokiness.

Keep a jar of dukkha—a mix of spiced, salted seeds—in the pantry to add life to roasted winter squash or any other simply prepared vegetable.

This moist, chewy loaf is packed with seeds, oats, and whole wheat, which makes it both energy-sustaining and beautiful to look at.

A combination of nut butter, dried fruit, and lots of seeds makes these chewy homemade granola bars downright irresistible. For a crispier bar, toast them in the oven after baking.

To mimic a traditional risotto, this grain-free version first simmers sunflower seeds to soften them to a rice-like texture, then purées a portion of them to create a creamy sauce. You can easily follow the sunflower cooking method for a basic go-to grain-free risotto, then swap in whatever seasonal vegetables you'd like to top it with.

One simple master recipe, based on a classic French pain de mie, proves endlessly changeable—feel free to think of the five suggestions that accompany it here as merely a start, and let your imagination take it from there.

This crackers recipe features a variety of seeds, and the combination of colors and textures is impressive, but you can use fewer types—just make sure total volume stays the same.

This green pesto owes its intense and powerful flavor to the use of kombu. It’s such an easy recipe that you can experiment with the ingredients as much as you like. The arugula and basil, for instance, can be substituted with any leafy green of your choice. And the pine nuts can be replaced by any other type of nut, such as cashews or hazelnuts. You can even use sunflower seeds! Serve the pesto on crackers, on a grilled vegetable sandwich, or with a bowl of pasta.

Sprouting and frying the sunflower seeds completely transforms their flavor. But just using salted, roasted sunflower seeds would also work fine.

Whether you're following a grain-free diet or not, this coconut, almond, and mixed seed granola is so good you'll never miss the oats.

Says Chef Yu: "I really love a slightly softer taco filling with lots of toppings for crunch. This is based off a chili verde recipe that my chef used to do for staff meal, with a Mexican/Southeast Asian tinge. The two cultures share so many of the same flavors, it's easy to blend them without making it feel out of place."

These protein "truffles" are so ridiculously easy that I feel somewhat silly adding them to this collection. Then again, my super-simple, silly recipes are often my most popular. They are certainly favorites in my repertoire, in large part because of their fast factor, but also because of their portability and candy-like appeal. Plus, they are endlessly customizable by varying the spices, extracts, and other add-ins, or by giving them a chic coating of chia seeds, cocoa powder, or chopped nuts. Who says pretty and power can’t go together?

Copious amounts of kale were sacrificed in my pursuit of a kale energy bar. On my umpteenth attempt at puréeing the leaves into gooey-green glue, inspiration struck: why not incorporate the kale in crispy kale-chip form? It only took one batch to know I had a winner. The trick to getting great bars is to make sure that the kale is super-crisp, which is a cinch so long as you dry the leaves thoroughly– I'm talking layers of clean dish towels or many turns in the salad spinner, a mere minute or two of effort, before baking. If water remains on the leaves, the kale will steam, not crisp. I don't know about you, but the prospect of steamed kale bars doesn’t do it for me. But crispy, toasted seed-enhanced bars? Yes and yes!

Rae: This is an old-timey High Holiday vegetable side dish, sweetened with honey and raisins or prunes and, sadly, often simmered to mushy blandness. To get past that problem, roast the carrots first, to brown them and coax out their natural sweetness, and then bring everything together on the stove top at the end. Sunflower seeds add a nutty note to the chewy prunes and raisins.

This homemade cereal is hearty, wholesome, and filled with nutritious ingredients such as walnuts, rolled oats, raisins, and sunflower seeds. Granola is very flexible, so you can add whatever fruits and nuts are your personal favorites. This granola is great with milk or yogurt, or even as a topping on pancakes. Because raisins can make the granola soggy, we add them right before serving. The granola keeps well for a long time, so this is a big batch—it makes three pounds. Just keep it in an airtight container and eat it for breakfast all week, as we do at Bubby's or cut it in half to feed a smaller crowd.

In this version of a granola bar, clusters of quinoa, apricots, pistachios, and sunflower seeds make a sweet and delightfully chewy snack. White quinoa is used in this recipe, but you can substitute any variety; all share the same nutritional qualities, flavor, and texture.

Although more commonly cooked, brussels sprouts, Swiss chard, and kale also make delicious raw salads, as long as they’re thinly sliced. This salad—which combines two of the vegetables—serves as a particularly nice fall or winter first course, when it’s hard to find flavorful leaf lettuces.

Store-bought snack nuts tend to contain high amounts of salt and sugar, and can sit on the shelf for months. This healthier mixture relies on spices and honey for flavor, and it tastes much fresher than the prepackaged varieties.

To store, wrap the loaf tightly in plastic; refrigerate for up to 1 week, or freeze for up to 2 months.