Bobby Flay Fit: 200 Recipes for a Healthy Lifestyle: A … (2024)

This cookbook offers a wide range of healthier options from salad dressings and side dishes, main courses, desserts, drinks, etc.

Bobby Flay begins this book by sharing his own experience with getting older and realizing its time to change to a healthier lifestyle. He then offers a little advice on healthier eating and exercise.

Onto the recipes:

Variety: Although I am pleased with the range of categories (basics, breakfast, snacks, lunch, soups, dinner, sides, dessert) I am disappointed with the variety within the dinner category. Most of the dinner recipes are fish. Don’t get me wrong, I love fish, but I’m not going eat fish every night of the week.

Pictures: There are NOT enough pictures of the dishes in this book.

Difficulty/time preparation: There is quite a range here from easy and quick to lots of steps and complicated. Like the Toasted Muesli in which the ingredients are simply tossed on a pan and then bake for 10 minutes. To the Tomato Soup which starts with roasting the tomatoes for 1 hour, followed by several other steps and I think about 2 hours total time before we were eating tomato soup.

Ingredients: Many of the dishes require fresh herbs and Flay especially seems to be a big fan of cilantro. I am all for using fresh herbs, especially in lower calorie meals such as these in order to boost flavor. Of course this would require more frequent trips to the grocery store and I found I felt just as satisfied using herbs from a jar with these recipes as I did when I used fresh. I would say, for the most part, these recipes are not made from ingredients the average person keeps on hand in their kitchen.

Nutrition: Nutrition facts are included with each recipe.

Functionality: It is important to me that a cookbook be functional. This book does not lay open flat on your countertop. Paper weights are needed.

BEST recipe — for me, the winner in this book is the Pico de Gallo and I will making that often in the future.

1.5 stars.
I love to read cookbooks.......I also like Bobby Flay......his recipes and his T.V. shows........ but I found this collection of recipes "fairly" uninspiring.......no real standout favorites (for me)......and nothing I feel even slightly motivated to attempt at home .

It took me almost 2.5 months to finish reading......that really says it all.

Nice looking recipes here, but most are too complex or fancy for my family. I did takeaway a few tips and plan on trying a few of the simpler recipes.

A lot of the recipes look doable and delicious. I made a frico to go with my tomato soup and it was wonderful. Looking forward to trying more.

The 2 recipes I made personally came out well. For my library's Cookbook Book Club, I tried 8 other recipes and they were all great. We had a few complaints: for one recipe there was no directions about how to toast the oatmeal. For another, it indicated a medium English cucumber and it felt like there could have been a note stating that, when chopped, it gives you 1 cup, or something.

It's a beautiful book with a wide variety of recipes which at first did not appeal to quite a few members of the group! Once they got to try more recipes, they liked it a bit more. I chose this book because I wanted us to try a Bobby Flay title and I saw adequate copies of the book for each member of the group.

This felt like it was geared to experienced cooks but, again, some in our group felt that more detailed instructions were lacking.

Just from watching his shows on TV, I could tell he was too fancy for me and knows so many skills and things that the average person doesn’t know. I feel like the only people who can duplicate his stuff are fellow chefs.

He is so fancy and sophisticated and it was evident in every single recipe. Most of his recipes have a lot of ingredients, because he’s all about seasoning and flavor, and a lot built upon other recipes, so one of the ingredients for one recipe was a whole other recipe in the book. I imagined that would be frustrating if you went to make one recipe only to find you were supposed to have bought all these other ingredients because one of the components was a whole other recipe unto itself.

There are so many components and layers of flavor and texture. His recipes call for ingredients that I’ve never heard of and I’ll never use again. I don’t know anything about them, not how to pronounce them or anything. That was a major turnoff for me. I couldn’t justify buying these things because I don’t know anything about them, and wouldn’t know where to find them in the store. Sometimes he said where some of them will be in the store which is helpful. This just isn’t my kind of shopping or eating, with all these seeds and beans and all that. It didn’t jive with me when I know the leftovers that I don’t use will end up spoiling in the fridge because I’ll have no other use for them.

Some called for equipment that I don't have like a food processor, mixer, mesh strainer and cheesecloth, or that I don’t know how to use, like a fryer which I don't know how to use. But they weren't listed with the ingredients, like they should have been. The only way I even saw them was to read the instructions. They need to be listed with the ingredients so we don't run out and buy all the ingredients only to get home and realize we can't make it because we don't have the right equipment. There needed to be a “tools needed” section to alert us to what we’ll need before we even buy the ingredients.

Many of the recipes didn't have pictures, or if they did the pictures were several pages ahead or came several pages later. Each recipe should have come with a picture on that specific page so we would know what it looks like and not have to go flipping around in search of it. It's so upsetting not to see pictures of what the dish is supposed to look like. It would be a mystery to how it’s supposed to turn out.

This is also primarily breakfast and that also work for lunch if you make some adjustments to them, which he included. They're quick, nutritious meals, almost like snacks. I was looking for supper recipes and meals I could make for my family and this wouldn't do so I was really disappointed the meals were so light. I didn’t find any recipes in the Dinner section that I thought I could handle.

I flipped through this and didn’t find but a couple recipes that looked doable, but once I went back and sat down and read through everything I found a lot more than I expected. I’ve decided to turn the library book back in tomorrow though because I don’t know when I’ll actually try any. It feels like this stuff would rack up and be too expensive for me to try right now. I just don’t have the money to spend on dishes that aren’t a sure bet and that the whole family wouldn’t like.

I liked hearing about his life. He shared that he liked traveling and tasting new foods and ingredients and perfecting the same recipes or changing them up. "Food is the center of my universe." Now that's passion!

He talked about turning 40 and noticing changes and not liking what he saw in the mirror. He switched his diet to be more nutritious and exercised more, running every day. He's careful about how much and when he eats.

I really liked his healthy eating tips. He advises to eat real, unprocessed, natural ingredients: fruit, vegetables, fish, meat, eggs, whole grains, and good fats. To eat foods with ingredients as close to their natural state as possible. Eat protein at every meal, like Greek yogurt, fish, eggs, cheese, nuts, legumes and ancient grains. Fiber-rich foods like vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains keep you fuller longer.

When he decides to eat something like a burger or steak he makes that the only big meal of the day and exercises.

Unsaturated fat like olive oil, avocados, coconut oil and almonds are good for you.

Fuel your body before and after workout with something like a banana, smoothie, or granola.

I love that he included vinaigrette recipes so we can make our own, healthy dressings. 3 parts oil to one part acid. Acid would be a type of vinegar or lemon, lime, or orange juice. Oil can be any type of oil, like canola, vegetable, or olive oil. They'll keep up to a week in the fridge.

He had recipes for salsa and sauces, pickled vegetables. The spice rubs are really neat and surprisingly simple. They'll last in the cupboard for 6 months.

I really liked that he added smoothie recipes because I've been wanting some. And that he had recipes to make our own healthy chips, nonalcoholic drinks.

I'd like to make the healthy basics: dressings, pico de gallo, pickled chiles to go on tacos or nachos, spice rubs, frico, spiced almonds.

Breakfast:
Vanilla date smoothie with nutmeg and orange. Easy being green smoothie. Coffee hazelnut smoothie. Blueberry pomegranate smoothie soup with quinoa croutons. Garlic bread crumbs. Avocado toast with red chile and cilantro. Toasted Muesli. Overnight muesli with banana yogurt cream. Warm apple muesli porridge. PB&J cream of wheat. Overnight oatmeal. Spelt waffles with blueberry compote and lemon ricotta cream. Mini zucchini banana muffins with berry chia jam. Oatmeal breakfast cookies.

Energy boosters and snacks:
Vanilla bean and espresso granola. Raspberry-white peach granola poppers. Peanut butter chocolate energy bites. Apple cider caramel apples with walnuts. Baked tortilla chips. Baked chile cheese tortilla chips. Baked pita chips. Baked vegetable chips. Baked collard chips. Jicama with chile, salt, and lime. Ancho kettle popcorn. Spicy black bean-lime hummus. Avocado jalapeño hummus. Roasted carrot and Harissa hummus with dill. Lime-Rickey-black cherry ice green tea. Sangria tea sparkler. Apple spice tisane. Watermelon mint cooler.

Lunch:
Yogurt flatbread. Sweet potato and black bean tacos with pickled green onions. Greek salad with herbed tofu "feta." Shredded greens with feta, dill, and green onion.
Dinner: Garlic-roasted greens and brown rice.

It was funny that Bobby said he hadn't met a veggie burger he liked until he had to create one on the fly on Beat Bobby Flay. "Don't ask me what made me grab mushrooms, quinoa, and chickpeas off the pantry shelves, but I am glad I did." I watch that show a lot and I liked that it came up here. And it's cool that he now serves it at all his burger palaces.

Sides: Roasted broccoli with roasted lemon and Parmesan. Roasted green beans with tomatoes and hazelnut. Marinated zucchini with caramelized onions, tomatoes, and herbs. Mustard greens with Indian spices. Roasted carrots with Spanish spices and Harissa yogurt sauce. Spicy maple-roasted hassle back sweet potatoes. Roasted cabbage steaks with caraway vinaigrette. Parsnips and carrots en papillote with wine, maple, and thyme (except without the wine). Roasted peppers with garlicky bread crumbs.

Desserts:
Almond Granita with sour cherry compote. Coffee-caramel yogurt panna cotta. Banana split with spiced strawberries and pistachios. Bittersweet maple bark with quinoa, cashews, apricots, and cherries. Individual New York-style strawberry cheesecake (it's no bake!) Olive oil brownies with toasted bread crumbs. Roasted fruits with coconut whipped cream and amaretti crisp.

I liked the pictures of Bobby throughout the book. They showed him doing various things throughout the city, like stretching for a run, picking out foods, holding a plate of food, and picking veges in the garden. I particularly liked the ones of him walking on the beach, and standing inside biting an orange or something. He looked good! That dark shade of green is really flattering. It's his color! And I like the picture of his cat at the end of the book, which I saw on the show.

“Who reads cookbooks?” you might ask. Me. I do. I read cookbooks. I have had this one for about a year. I flipped through it casually when I first got it, but nothing jumped out at me. Now, more than a year into the pandemic, I found myself craving a reboot, especially with my nutrition. This book has many recipes that are easy to follow and just make sense for good health. If you like Bobby Flay and want to try some healthier options, especially for breakfast and lunch, there are plenty of recipes to consider.

Lots of good ideas for me here. Reasonable list of ingredients, reasonable prep time, appealing dishes. Recipes I actually might prepare! Nicely formatted with photos supporting less usual items.

This is a good, healthy cookbook. The intro explains how Flay got into healthy eating, and there is a sauce/dressing chapter that really kicks things off right. He relies on strong flavors - I like that he uses full fat ingredients, just sparingly. The breakfast chapter was kind of smoothie-heavy for me. I liked the dinner chapter a lot because it featured a lot of fish.

The ingredients here aren't too exotic; however, because the flavors are kind of strong for some kids and many of the entries have multiple parts to cook, this isn't the weeknight cookbook I was hoping for. I didn't think anything looked too difficult to prepare, but in some cases recipes could take over an hour.

If you're looking to eat healthier without really noticing, this cookbook is a good place to start. There are a lot of interesting recipes in here, and full nutritional information is offered.

While not all of the recipes are exactly low calorie or health food (there is plenty of sugar and even some bacon [everything in moderation]), the recipes are certainly more nutrition than his other books, which like most chefs emphasize flavour and tend to be high in fat. But his style always tended towards the bright and fresh, so the transition to healthier eating isn't much of a stretch. Here he stresses using whole grains and more fruits and vegetables, with zesty sauces and bold preparations to add zing in place of extra fat and empty carbs.

There are some good ideas for interesting combinations of ingredients and a gentle introduction to healthier eating, with some less-bad alternatives to junk food (e.g. baked whole grain chips rather than the fried highly processed store-bought kind), and lots of tasty looking vegetables.

I really dislike Bobby Flay. When I first saw one of his shows I remember thinking he seemed so pretentious. Then I found out he grew up in Manhattan and it confirmed my assumptions of him being a douchey rich kid that could take the streamlined cooking path to make it as a “celebrity chef”. But I also knew a boujie chef like him trying to make good healthy recipes would be exactly the kind of recipes that we’d like and I was not wrong. Then my boyfriend told me he was a home wrecker with Giada. Further confirmation of his douchery. But great recipes! (You just have to get past all the photos of booby posing around town looking like a tool.) We’re big fans of the stuffed poblanos and the chickpea/kale salad.

Obviously you can look at Bobby Flay and see he's doing something right - he's in his fifties in a very high pressure field and looks great. He explains how he changed his eating and exercise habits when he turned 40 and realized he wasn't as healthy as he wanted to be and needed to be for his career. The first chapter is called Healthy Basics and covers making basic dressings, sauces, condiments, and basic healthy cooking techniques, then the rest of the book is divided into your basic cookbook chapters - breakfast, snacks, lunch, etc. There weren't that many recipes I wanted to try, but it's definitely worth checking out if you want to focus more on whole food cooking.

I cannot wait to cook from this book

I found this cookbook hiding among my kindle books. As it’s January 2nd and healthy eating is on everyone’s mind, and I have a 10 hour car ride ahead of me, I dove into the book.
When I read most cookbooks, I might consider making 15% of the recipes because the other 85% are very time consuming, too fussy or just not my taste.This book is the opposite- I figure I will cook 85% of the recipes because they are relatively easy recipes, one more mouthwatering than the next. And best yet- they are beautiful whole food recipes. Can’t wait to get home and start cooking!

I got on a real Beat Bobby Flay kick early in le quarantine, and it made me want to try one of his cookbooks. This one seemed like it had the simplest, easiest recipes for healthy-ish weeknight cooking, so I went with it. I’ve made several dishes and they’ve all been good to great. His idea of healthy might differ from yours (isn’t it fun how everyone’s is different? *insert critique of diet culture*), but I like that he prioritizes flavor and deriving pleasure from all kinds of foods. Fave dishes: shrimp with Spanish bread sauce, salt-roasted potatoes, honey mustard-glazed Brussels sprouts, steak rub, spice blends, the method for the Spanish chicken with mint but sans the mint. 🙃

Hardly anything in this book is stuff that I would normally make or eat. With that being said, I would totally buy this book. At the beginning of the book Bobby talks a little about fitness and choices. He lays things out in different sections. I am a awful about pictures in cookbooks, there can never be enough. This was no exception. There needed to be way more pictures than there were. What there was looked amazing. They made me want to try to make what ever it was. This has fun fresh food, and is certainly worth a looksee.

Just read Cynthia's review; it's basically what I wanted to write, word-for-word. And probably better articulated than I would have done.

Most of these recipes are outside my purview both budget-wise and time-wise but the one big bonus is that I remembered, upon browsing this book, that I used to like roasted and stir-fried tofu once upon a time (read: when I was single). I will probably re-introduce it and see how it goes with my firmly meat-and-potatoes other half.

Cookbook is nicely laid out. But, a lot of the recipes have items that aren't easily found, and most seem to have a twist to make a regular recipe by adding fruit, etc. Just not my thing. I noticed this a lot with his editing takeover of the Bonjour magazine. Everything now has fruit with meat, or some ingredient not found easily of out California. A certain type of green heirloom tomato for instance.

Bobby Flay is world know celebrity chef and you see all his creative dishes on the food network. I loved how he wrote a healthy cookbook and how he dedicated it to his daughter and most importantly his love for food. It goes to show you don't have to go on these fad diets just to be healthy. Just eat real food and get creative with flavors and textures and live a fit lifestyle.

Love Fit!

I have always been a Bobby Flay fan! Living in Las Vegas I have enjoyed his restaurants Mesa Grill, Shark, and Bobby’s Birger Palace. However, eating well and being fit has always been a challenge. This year I am dedicated to changing all of that. Seeing this cookbook has inspired me even more. I can’t wait to try some of these delicious recipes!!

I have a load of food allergies, so am always looking for things I can eat that look interesting & don’t contain what I can’t have. This book is not it. Recipes look interesting enough, but so many contain things I can’t have. Oh, well. The search continues.

So much yum! I don't know what to make first. I have it narrowed down to either the Roasted Lemon Chicken Brodo or the Grouper Steamed In Parchment With Martini Relish And Sour Orange Sauce. Both look like they will be super yummy in my tummy.

Generally this cookbook contained many ingredients that are not in my pantry. I did find that the vinaigrettes, sauces, pickles and spice rubs look interesting and I will likely try some of them. There are only a few entries that I plan to make.

Everything I made from this book turned out delicious! There were multiple recipes I haven't attempted; either do to time or an ingredient I know some of my family members wouldn't like BUT favorites were: guacomole, kale salad, adobo chicken, pico de gallo and the smoothies!
Not enough pictures!

A great cookbook and I'm excited to try many more of the recipes. I appreciate the anecdotes and insights into eating along the way as well. In my opinion, in order to be good, cookbooks need pictures and this one did not disappoint in that regard.

13 February 2021

5 stars!

Okay, I like food, so I'm

Anyway, I liked the recipes (even though I haven't made any) and the commentary, so I thought this was a good cookbook.

Happy reading!

This is a healthy cookbook. Some of the recipes sound good.

Great book, made 3 recipes so far. Man loves his spices. I love the information he gives about each recipe and about his own life.

Finally, a “diet” cookbook with food you actually WANT to eat. The fact that he’s included nutritional information is a big plus! Thank you, Bobby! I’ll be cooking my way through this one for sure!

Many of the recipes were beyond what I would be interested in as a moderately talented home cook. But some of the breakfast options looked good.

The recipes are a little too complicated and involved for my taste.