From the web to the bookstore! Well+Good has been a leading health and wellness website for years, and on Tuesday, April 16, the site’s founders – Alexia Brue and Melisse Gelula – are launching their first-ever cookbook.
The tome, which is called Well+Good: 100 Healthy Recipes + Expert Advice for Better Living, is comprised of recipes from health, wellness and culinary celebrities such as Padma Lakshmi, Marie Kondo and Lea Michele. “We really hope the book helps demystify and democratize healthy eating — it doesn’t have to be hard or expensive to make or taste like the forest floor,” Gelula tells Us Weekly. “These recipes are ones the contributors have made a trillion times for themselves and their friends and families, and will make a trillion times more: They’re that good.”
Furthermore, each recipe in the book is labeled with a wellness benefit, whether it’s good for better digestion, better mood, better sleep or better skin. “A lot of readers are looking to food to help with these issues, so we wanted to make it super easy to customize meals around the pursuit of a key wellness benefit,” Gelula notes.
And of course each dish is also labeled with any dietary guidelines, including gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan and more. As Gelula sees it, “These eating styles are just the way more and more people think about food now. They’re considerations parents make for kids and themselves. We wanted to make sure that was reflected in the book.”
To gather recipes for the book, the crafty cofounders approached it just as they approach getting dishes for their beloved internet destination. “[We] hand-picked top experts for the cookbook — and it’s a wellness super-crowd,” Gelula tells Us. “The book is filled with people whose careers we’ve been covering for years, some dating to the earliest days of Well+Good—and their businesses, too.”
Lea Michele, for example, has been a Well+Good fan for years and even took over the brand’s @iamwellandgood Instagram handle in 2018, where she shared self-care essentials and a recipe for one of her go-to dishes. “We knew right then she was going to have a great recipe for the cookbook,” Gelula says. “We were right: her shaved radicchio, Parmesan and truffle pizza is crazy photogenic with the egg on it, and our readers can swap out the cheese for vegan options or use a gluten-free cauliflower crust so easily.”
The Glee alum, 32, loves this gluten-free and vegetarian dish because it both reminds her of dinners with her Italian family and is incredibly versatile. It also promotes better digestion and improved focus.
Check out the recipe below!
Lea Michele’s Shaved Radicchio, Parmesan, and Truffle Pizza
Makes one 12-inch pizza
INGREDIENTS:
• 1 medium head radicchio, finely shaved (about 1 1/2 cups)
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 2 tbsps plus 1 tsp olive oil, plus more for drizzling
• 1 pre-made 12-inch pizza crust (gluten-free), cooked
• 1/2 cup freshly shaved Parmesan cheese
• Freshly ground black pepper (optional)
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon truffle oil (optional)
• Crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
INSTRUCTIONS:
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
- In a medium bowl, combine the radicchio, lemon juice, kosher salt, and two tablespoons of the olive oil. Toss to coat the radicchio.
- Place the pizza crust on a baking sheet, then layer the radicchio on top of the crust, leaving a one-inch border. Drizzle a bit of olive oil over the top and bake until the radicchio is crispy, about 10 minutes.
- Remove the pizza from the oven and sprinkle the Parmesan over the whole surface. Add a few cracks of black pepper, if desired, and bake for three more minutes, or until the cheese has melted.
- Meanwhile, heat the remaining one teaspoon olive oil in a small skillet over medium heat. When it shimmers, crack the egg into the pan. Reduce the heat to low and cook until the egg white is completely set but the yolk is still runny, about three minutes. Use a spatula to slide the sunny-side-up egg on top of the pizza and bake for two more minutes (or turn on the broiler and broil to make the pizza extra crispy).
- Before serving, drizzle pizza with the truffle oil and sprinkle with red pepper flakes, if desired.
