What To Make With What’s On Sale: Celery

It’s Friday — time for What To Make With What’s On Sale!  This week at Sunflower Market, organic celery is $0.99/bunch.

When buying celery, look for the brightest stalks available.  If you can, bend the stalks a bit and avoid those that seem rubbery.  Crisp, green celery is the best-tasting and the most nutritious.

Celery is a versatile and flavorful food; here are some ideas for using this healthy veggie!

Celery makes a great snack on its own, and it’s also a perfect dip-holder!  Try serving celery sticks with hummus, salsa, queso dip, or your favorite type of salad dressing.  These Ants on a Log are a fun and tasty way to eat celery, too.

Did you know you can add celery to a smoothie and hardly notice the taste?  (I’ve tried it; it’s true!)  This Red Berry Celery Smoothie is delicious and good for you.

Here’s another recipe that’s great for summer, Celery Salad.  The recipe calls for low-fat yogurt and fat-free mayo, but I prefer to use the full-fat versions!

These Chicken Salad Sandwiches look yummy, and the ingredients are simple.  This would be a great way to use up leftover chicken!

This Cream of Celery Soup sounds good for a rainy evening.  The recipe author says it’s a “fabulous and easy cream soup that even people who don’t like celery will love.”  Several of the reviewers suggested pureeing the veggies at the end and added them back to the soup, rather than straining them out.  Many reviewers also recommended using butter instead of margarine.

Celery gives extra texture and flavor to dishes such as stews and pot roasts.  Try this Chicken Pot Pie, or The Pioneer Woman’s Italian Chicken Soup, or Ina Garten’s Company Pot Roast, all of which include chopped celery.

What’s your favorite way to use celery?

Be sure to check out the What To Make With What’s On Sale archives for more meal-planning ideas!