Healthy Dessert Recipes for the Cold and Flu Season

Are you on a quest for healthy dessert recipes that can help keep your immune system strong during the cold and flu season? Look no further than our selection of cold- and flu-combating dessert recipes! This section provides a repertoire of dessert recipes starring some of the best flu-fighting ingredients such as cocoa, papaya, blueberries, and raspberries. But before you delve into the recipes below, make sure you've checked out the section Diet Tips for Preventing the Common Cold as well as the section Best Foods for Fighting the Common Cold which provide more basic information about how your can keep your immune system in top-notch condition during the dreaded cold and flu season.

Apple Slices with Cinnamon

This dessert is a cinch to prepare, and it contains only 95 calories! But the benefits of this dish do not end there: apples are rich in vitamin C and flavonoids, which can give your immune system a real boost.
See the Recipe

Green Tea and Pineapple Smoothie

This super healthy recipe pairs green tea with pineapple to create a delicious and highly nutritious smoothie to boost your immune system.
See the Recipe

Buckwheat Pancakes with Papaya Purée

Buckwheat delivers plenty of rutin, a bioflavonoid with powerful antioxidant properties, while papaya is backed with vitamin C. In fact, papaya is one of the best natural sources of vitamin C, even better than oranges.
See the Recipe

Quinoa Crepes with Applesauce

Quinoa contains zinc, which plays a crucial role in maintaining a well-functioning immune system. Also applesauce is packed with compounds that help boost the immune system.
See the Recipe

Nettle Crêpes with Raspberries

Don't worry about this dish stinging your mouth; the nettle in these crepes will only do you good. Young, cooked stinging nettle shoots are perfectly edible, and they are packed with antioxidants such as vitamin C, vitamin E, beta-carotene, selenium, and flavonoids. The various antioxidants found in nettle are known to have a synergistic effect and to protect each other from oxidation, thereby enhancing the overall antioxidant prowess and of this delicious immune system boosting dish.
See the Recipe

Low-Fat Apple and Raspberry Crumble

This lovely recipe combines apples and raspberries, two excellent sources of quercetin. Quercetin is a bioflavonoid that has shown promising potential for suppressing rhinoviruses which are the underlying cause of cold bouts.
See the Recipe

Antioxidant Muffins

These scrumptious muffins feature blueberries and pecans, two antioxidant powerhouse foods. Blueberries top the list of berries with the highest antioxidant capacity, and pecans—along with walnuts and chestnuts—have the highest concentration of antioxidants in the tree nut family.
See the Recipe

Carrot Muffins

Carrots are thought to enhance the function of the immune system and are therefore a great vegetable for fighting the common cold.
See the Recipe

Chocolate Cake

One study conducted in the UK found that an ingredient in dark cocoa powder called theobromine was more effective at fighting coughs than a leading cough medicine. The effect was almost one third more effective than that of the cough medicine. In addition, dark cocoa contains flavonoids which have strong antioxidant activity.
See the Recipe

Rice Pudding with Blueberry Sauce

This rice pudding is dairy-free, which ensures that you benefit from the maximum antioxidant capacity of the accompanying blueberry sauce. Blueberries are among the best dietary sources of antioxidants, but consuming milk together with these pleasantly tart berries has been shown to decrease their antioxidant capacity.
See the Recipe

Scandinavian Blueberry Soup

In Scandinavia, blueberry soup is a popular treat that can be served warm as an appetizer or chilled as a dessert. But the benefits of blueberry soup extend far beyond its culinary use. In a laboratory test conducted by USDA researchers, wild blueberries were ranked number one in terms of antioxidant capacity over 40 other tested fruits, berries, and vegetables. The antioxidant properties of wild blueberries were shown to be even stronger than those of cranberries, raspberries, strawberries, plums, or cultivated blueberries.
See the Recipe

For more recipes that help fight the common cold and flu, go to the main recipe directory of HealWithFood.org's Guide to Fighting the Common Cold and Flu.