Healthy Spring Recipes _ Light, Fresh & Easy Meals! (1080p)

It's about that time that I do some spring inspired recipes. I know a lot of you are going to love the ideas that I'm about to share. Before we jump into the recipes, I do have some really exciting news. I was named Rising Star Content Creator of the Year at the Fortnum and Mason's 2025 Food and Drink Award. Here is my award. You guys really, really came through. Thank you for your continued support. I cannot believe that I'm actually in my ninth year on YouTube. Can you believe it? Nine years on YouTube. We're going to jump into these spring recipes. Let me know in the comments which ones you will try out. If you like the look of what I'm about to share and you would like to check out more of my recipes, you can head over to my website where you will find all of my eBooks. I'm going to do this asparagus and prawn pasta dish, throw a little creme fraiche in there, lots of lemon, basically just spring feels all around. Obvious ingredients for our prawn and asparagus pasta, we're going to need some prawns. I've got some asparagus, a few cloves of garlic, you could do two, some pasta of choice. I'm going to use some tagliatelle, some creme fraiche as well, a little bit of lemon. I'm going to start off by just deveining my prawns. You can prep your prawns however you like your prawns, however you want to. I'm going to take it over to the sink, it's a lot easier. I'm just going to break the end of these asparagus spears, just get off the woody part, just snap it off, or you could cut them, but I just prefer to snap them. How you chop your asparagus is completely up to you. I'm just going to do mine lengthways like this. I did this exact same dish, but not with asparagus, with mushrooms last week and it was so delicious. So it only seems right to celebrate spring, to grab some gorgeous asparagus. When I went to the farmer's market, it's really slow, like it's that time of the year, it's kind of a little bit empty, a little bit bare. I don't want time to fly by, but I am really looking forward to summer produce. It feels like it's been so long. Well, it kind of has been. In my kitchen, I know I've told you guys before, but for absolutely everything, even when it comes to boiling pasta, making tea, using water in just random recipes, for soups, for stocks, whatever I'm doing, whatever I'm preparing, when it comes to cooking food in my kitchen, I am using my Waterdrop filter. I'm partnering up with Waterdrop once again to introduce to you something really exciting. It is the Waterdrop WD-A2 countertop reverse osmosis system. For those of you who don't know, Waterdrop is an innovative brand dedicated to improving global water quality. If you watch my videos often, you've probably seen me use the Waterdrop WD-A1. This is the WD-A2. They're from the same series, but there are a couple of slight differences. The A2 has a 3 to 1 water ratio, whereas the A1 had a 2 to 1 water ratio, meaning that the A2 reduces water waste and is even more cost effective. Unlike the A1 that has two filters, the A2 has only one filter and the lifespan is 12 months. WD-A2 is sleek, modern, and I think it fits perfectly in any space. It would be great in an office, even an RV. This water filter has a five-stage filtration system, meaning that it reduces contaminants like TDS, PFOAs, chlorine, and many more. Whether you need ice-cold water or a hot cup of tea, this system delivers water at the perfect temperature, ranging from 50 to 203 degrees Fahrenheit in a matter of seconds. You also have five water volume options, which makes it ideal when cooking. I think a feature that's going to appeal to a lot of you is the fact that it's completely installation-free. If you're ready to upgrade to the WaterDrop WD-A2 countertop reverse osmosis system, you can grab yours by heading to the WaterDrop website at waterdropfilter.com. I've also placed the link in my description, so you can check that out. Be sure to click the link, head over to their website. You can check out the other products that they have available. Let's get back into this recipe. I am going to put a little bit more water in this pan. I gave the water some salt and I placed my pasta in, In a separate frying pan, I drizzled in a touch of olive oil, placed in that asparagus, gave it a little bit of salt, and just cooked everything for a few minutes. You still want to make sure that that asparagus maintains its vibrant green colour, and that it doesn't lose too much of its texture. You want to soften it a little bit, but not too much. So once it is softened a little bit, remove the asparagus from the pan, just set it aside. Reduce the heat drastically. You want to turn the heat all the way down. And then you want to place in some good quality butter. Follow on by throwing in either your minced or chopped garlic, and just cook it on a very, very low heat for about 30 seconds to a minute. You can then throw in your deveined prawns, season with a little bit of salt, give it some pepper. And I chopped up lots and lots of fresh parsley and threw that in. So I cooked my prawns for a couple of minutes. Obviously, cook time will vary depending on the size of prawn that you're using, but you'll know when the prawn is cooked. You then want to throw your asparagus back in, followed on by that pasta. Give it some creme fraiche, some lemon zest, some more black pepper. You can then throw in a little touch of the pasta water. I love the extra touch of parmesan. I went ahead and served up my prawn and asparagus pasta. This was divine. I drizzled over a little bit of olive oil, gave it some more black pepper. And yeah, I devoured this bowl. Oh, so damn good. It's so good. This recipe is nothing groundbreaking, but it is so delicious. We're going to make this marinated butter bean salad. I've got some jarred butter beans. We're going to throw some jarred artichokes in there. In an ideal world, I would have had some jarred red peppers, but I don't. I have loads of fresh red peppers. So I'm just going to put those to roast, chop those up and throw them into the butter bean salad. I've got a variety of herbs. So I've got some dill, some parsley and some fresh mint. I'm going to make a really delicious dressing. I've got some shallots, lots of lemon. I'll probably throw a little bit of honey in there. Some olive oil. So delicious to pair with anything. And the best thing is that it keeps so well in the fridge and it just gets tastier over time. I'm going to chop each pepper into like three or four slices. So I placed my chopped peppers onto a large baking tray. I drizzled over a little bit of olive oil and placed over some salt, just mixing everything, making sure they were all covered. Place your peppers in a 190 degree Celsius oven. We're going to put this very simple dressing together. We're going to start with some olive oil. We're going to need a little bit of honey. Let's do a little bit of Dijon mustard and we're going to need some lemon. I'm going to put some lemon zest in. I kind of like it lemon zest heavy, but it's completely up to you. In some recipes, I prefer it to be very subtle. Actually, for this one, I like the fullness of the lemon zest. Let's put the juice in. A little bit of salt and some ground black pepper. Oh, a little bit too much black pepper there. I'm going to place in the shallots. Make sure you don't overpower it with the shallots. You just kind of want it subtle. The dressing gets better if you let it sit. So that's exactly what we're going to do. With the peppers, I'm going to throw them straight into a bowl like this or any type of dish that you have that you can cover. So let's cover the bowl and just put those aside. You're just going to kind of let them sweat out and then the skin is just going to peel off very easily in a few minutes. Five minutes later and the skin is just going to literally slide off. I love how these three herbs work in such unison together. They just work so well. And I'm so glad I actually threw that mint in because it really made a difference. So, yeah, I just chopped up my mint, parsley and fresh dill. I love this time of year when I'm cooking in my kitchen and my doors are wide open. I can just hear the sounds of those birds. So just chopping up those roasted peppers. Always going to prefer a fresh roasted pepper over a jarred one. Convenience sake, using jarred peppers is so much easier. The exciting part, all of the jar opening. I've actually decided that I'm going to put some olives in there, some artichokes. I'm going to leave the cherry tomatoes out, actually, because we've got the peppers, so we've got enough red going on. I will add a few capers in though and then some butter beans. I've actually got a jar that's already open. So we'll use those. I definitely like to rinse my butter beans. And that's what I did. Gave them a good wash and rinse. Just chopping these olives lengthways. I'm just going to drain the oil from these jarred artichokes. It's all kind of chopped. I don't actually need to chop them. I'm just going to throw them straight in. I got these from Sainsbury's. They're not the best artichokes I've ever had, but the dressing is just going to bring them alive. Placing everything together for these marinated butter beans. I grabbed a large dish, placing on the butter beans. And then those chopped roasted red peppers, the olives, those artichokes. I threw over some capers, all of those fresh chopped herbs. And I threw over that dressing every last drop. This one makes the perfect sharing side dish. But if you are serving it just for you, you're enjoying it just for yourself. You can go ahead and serve it with whatever protein you enjoy. This is just the best. And it gets better over time when you just let everything just sit in that marinade. I'm going to pair it with some sea bass. You can obviously pair it with whatever you want. But I've got some sea bass fillets. Artichoke and marinated butter beans with some sea bass cooked with lots of butter, capers and lots and lots of lemon juice. It wouldn't be a spring video without a little Jersey Royal appearance. We're going to bring out these Jersey Royals. We're going to make a potato salad and I'm going to whip up this really delicious, very simple yogurt dressing. If you want to make it completely vegan, obviously you can use like a plain vegan yogurt of choice. I'm going to be using some Greek yogurt for this recipe in particular. We're going to chop up some spring onions. We're also going to add some long beans into the potato salad. This is so delicious. I love serving it with any type of protein that I have on hand, any protein that I fancy. I'm probably going to pair this with a juicy steak. We've got some gorgeous Jersey Royals that I love this time of year. One of my favorite things about this time of year. We're going to need either some long beans or some fine beans. We've got some spring onions. Gherkins are not everyone's cup of tea, but I absolutely love them. And I really, really love them in a potato salad, actually. So I'm going to chop some of these up. We're going to chop up and throw lots of dill in. For our yogurt dressing, we're going to need some yogurt of choice. I'm using, like I said, some Greek yogurt. We're going to need some Dijon mustard. I'm going to throw a little bit of red wine vinegar with a couple of other ingredients. So yeah, let's do this. So I'm going to chop my potato into four pieces. So I'm going to half it and then half it again. So I placed my chopped Jersey Royals into a pot of water, threw a generous amount of salt into the water and just brought these to a boil, just cooking them for around, I want to say 12 minutes. Just keep an eye on them, though. You don't want to overcook the Jersey Royals, but then you definitely don't want to undercook them. So follow on by just removing the ends of your long beans. I just chopped mine in half. I continued by finely chopping up the spring onions, the gherkins. These are kind of small gherkins, which I just halved, halved again and just kind of finely sliced. We're going to make this yogurt dressing for the potatoes. We're going to combine some Greek yogurt, a little bit of Dijon. I like to add a little bit of maple syrup. It just kind of balances everything. Some red wine vinegar, a little swirl of olive oil, some ground black pepper. And let's chop up lots of fresh dill. Just give that a good stir or whisk. Give it a little taste. If it needs adjusting, go ahead and do what you need to do. But remember, you haven't mixed it with the potatoes yet, so it will taste a bit different once you mix it with the potatoes. So once your potatoes are cooked, remove them from the water. You can use the same water from the potatoes and quickly blanch your long beans. Or if you'd prefer, you could steam your long beans. So grab a large mixing bowl, place your cooked potatoes in, your blanched or steamed long beans. Throw in your chopped gherkins, spring onions. So let's place the yogurt dressing all over. I'm just going to throw it all in. I love it sauce heavy. Just throw it all in. Give your potato salad a good stir. You can throw in some extra black pepper if you want to. If you're serving it sharing style, just serve it in a large bowl or you can just obviously plate it up with whatever protein you want to eat it with. I really hope that you find value in the recipes I have shared in this video. Hope that they push you to go and experiment and just have some fun by cooking your kitchen. Let me know in the comments which one you'll be trying out first. I will see you all very soon in my next video. See you. Bye.