30 Healthy Seasonal Recipes to Make in September

Healthy seasonal recipes to make in the month of September, featuring easy lunch ideas, flavorful breakfast ideas, and simple weeknight dinners

If you love seasonal cooking check out the entire “What to Cook” series.

“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall”

F. Scott Fitzgerald

September bounty is here! Gardens are overflowing, we are in the perfect shoulder season between peaches and apples. Do you need to choose? Absolutely not, fill your counter with both!

This month’s “What to Cook” not only focuses on the foods that are at their peak freshness, but also the cooking methods that we tend to lean into as the season shifts to fall.

Back to school, busier work commitments, moving toward the holidays. The fall always heralds in a season of busyness, but that doesn’t mean we have to abandon home-cooked food! 

This month get ready for easy sheet pan meals, magical instant pot meals, meal prep lunches, supportive breakfasts to start the day, and the perfect afternoon snack ideas for hungry kiddos or to cure that 3 pm energy slump 

WHAT’S IN SEASON IN SEPTEMBER?

This will depend on the region of the world you live in, naturally. Here in the northeastern United States, we are hitting the peak, prime-time growing season. The markets are bursting, my garden is bursting, and the earth is providing.

Fill your market bags with these seasonal goodies:

• Apples
• Bell Peppers
• Broccoli
• Kale
• Lettuce
• Spinach
• Tomatoes
• Eggplant
• Cucumbers
• Zucchini
• Summer Squash
• Swiss Chard
• Kohl Rabi
• Collard Greens
• Green Beans
• Figs
• Potatoes
• Cabbage

I hope you LOVE these healthy early fall recipes.

If you make one of these recipes leave a review below and let me know how you liked it or share a photo on Instagram with the tag #AbrasKitchen so I can share your masterpiece!

Let’s Get Cooking!

Energizing Breakfasts

Banana Spinach Green Smoothie

As a nutritionist, this is my go-to green smoothie recipe! This banana spinach smoothie is creamy, wholesome, protein-packed, and delicious! And a great way to add more greens to your diet.

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Gut Healthy Egg Muffins with Kimchi and Veggies

Breakfast egg muffins are a nutritious, filling, protein-packed breakfast perfect for meal prep! These gut-healthy egg muffins are loaded with gut-supportive nutrients from kimchi, spinach, shitake mushrooms, and scallions.

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Muffin Yogurt Parfait

Lemon chia seed muffin crumbled and layered with creamy yogurt and tropical fruit!

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Apple Muffins with Oat Flour (Gluten-Free)

These healthy and gluten-free Apple Muffins with Oat Flour are bursting with fall flavors! Apples, apple butter, cinnamon, and other warming spices paired with nutrient-dense buckwheat and oat flour. The perfect healthy fall snack or breakfast!

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Beet, Pray, Love Smoothie Bowl

This vegan, gluten-free, beet, pray, love smoothie bowl is the perfect combo of bright red beets and berries, loaded with antioxidants and superfoods. A healthy loving way to begin any day

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Sweet Potato Pineapple Muffins

Incredibly delicious fluffy sweet potato pineapple muffins. Made without butter, oil, or refined sugar. Get ready to fall in love with your new favorite healthy muffin!

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Meal Prep Lunches

Greek Lentil Jar Salad

This healthy wholesome Greek Lentil Jar Salad is perfect for meal prep lunches or a quick dinner, loaded with protein-rich lentils, lots of crunchy veggies, creamy feta cheese, and a tangy dijon vinaigrette.

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Buffalo Chickpea Jar Salad

Buffalo chickpea jar salad easy to make and super healthy loaded with veggies and plant-based protein.

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Healthy Thai Chickpea Jar Salad

Healthy Thai Chickpea Jar Salad is the perfect meal prep lunch, this recipe makes 4 days of crazy town delicious protein-rich lunches! Creamy spicy peanut butter dressing with chickpeas, crunchy vegetables, cilantro, and salted peanuts. You have to put this on your meal plan!

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Chili Lime Mango Quinoa Meal Prep

Sweet and spicy, tangy and luscious. This healthy vegan meal prep bowl is everything! Sweet mango with tangy lime and spicy chili powder, crunchy cucumbers, creamy avocado, tangy protein-rich tofu, and hearty quinoa. I’m happy to have this lunch on repeat all week long.

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Everything Crusted Tuna Meal Prep Bowls

Everything Crusted Tuna Meal Prep Bowls with roasted Brussels sprouts and cauliflower puree. Paleo, Gluten Free, Easy lunch idea.

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Greek Kale and Quinoa Salad Meal Prep Bowls

Greek kale and quinoa salad meal prep bowls are addictively delicious! Tender kale, salty feta cheese, crunchy cucumbers everything you need in a salad all packed up and ready to take to work!

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Meal Prep Meatballs with Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Rich and savory wild mushroom meatballs with fresh herbs and grass-fed ground beef. These meatballs are easily made in the oven and the perfect meal prep protein for delicious lunches and dinners all week long!

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Afternoon Snacks

Apple Nachos

Healthy Apple Nachos! Sliced apples topped with creamy sunflower seed butter, cinnamon, coconut, and crunchy seeds,  the perfect fall treat! A healthy after-school snack or mid-morning break that takes less than 5 minutes to put together.

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Superfood Peanut Butter and Jelly Bites

No-bake superfood peanut butter and jelly bites with energy-boosting maca and fiber-rich, chia seeds

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EASY SHEET PAN DINNERS

Healthy Sheet Pan Sausage and Vegetables with Creamy Dijon Sauce

Sausage, peppers, potatoes, and zucchini all roasted together on one sheet pan and drizzled with a creamy dijon sauce. Quick prep, easy cleanup, 30 minutes from start to finish!

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Mini BBQ Turkey Meatloaf Sheet Pan Dinner

Sheet Pan Mini Turkey Meatloaves with purple potatoes and green beans, your busy weeknight healthy dinner savior. Delicious nourishing comfort food cooked on one pan for easy cleanup! 

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Spicy Crunchy Salmon and Broccoli Sheet Pan Meal

A healthy complete dinner prepared on one sheet pan. Heart-healthy wild salmon and perfectly roasted antioxidant-rich broccoli.

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Sheet Pan Roasted Shrimp and Cauliflower with a Meyer Lemon Salsa

Perfectly roasted shrimp and cauliflower tossed with a bright and tangy Meyer lemon salsa. Dinner is done in 13 minutes! Paleo, gluten-free, quick, healthy, and easy.

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Mediterranean Sheet Pan Salmon with Zucchini Noodles

Mediterranean Sheet Pan Salmon with Zucchini Noodles, 10 minutes to a healthy delicious dinner! Paleo, Whole30, gluten-free, anti-inflammatory, good for you and delicious!

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Buffalo Chicken Sheet Pan Nachos

Oven-baked sheet pan nachos, loaded with real food ingredients! Healthier buffalo chicken nachos are perfect for a crowd, or a lazy Friday night family dinner. 

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INSTANT POT + SLOW COOKER DINNERS

Instant Pot Apricot Ginger Chicken Thighs with Bok Choy

Tender chicken thighs bathed in a delicious sticky apricot ginger sauce, easily prepared in the instant pot with steamed baby bok choy. A few simple wholesome ingredients, dinner is ready in 20 minutes!

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Instant Pot Spicy BBQ Turkey Meatballs

Sweet, sticky, and slightly spicy, these instant pot barbeque turkey meatballs will blow your mind with deliciousness and require only 6 simple ingredients: ground turkey, bbq sauce, jalapeno, onion, breadcrumbs, and spices.

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Instant Pot Thai Coconut Lime Chicken Soup with Noodles

A fragrant, warm, fresh and zesty soup that is insanely delicious and super nutritious! Start with a whole chicken, garlic, cilantro, and fresh ginger, then thanks to the instant pot, dinner is done in about 35 minutes!

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Garlicky Greens with Creamy Polenta

Garlicky greens with creamy polenta – Healthy, quick and easy meal. 

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Crispy roasted beets and carrots with everything spice on top of creamy polenta

Crispy roasted beets and carrots with everything spice on top of creamy polenta. A healthy delicious quick and easy meal.

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Meet Abra Pappa, MS, CNS, LDN

Abra is a licensed nutritionist, seasoned home cook, and forever flavor-chaser. She’s spent more than two decades exploring the connection between food and health—and just as long obsessing over what makes something truly delicious. Abra’s Kitchen is where those two loves meet, with recipes that celebrate vegetables, follow the seasons, and make you excited to cook.