7 Refreshing Citrus Recipes Guaranteed to Brighten up Your Meals

With most of the talk surrounding food in January being of the healthy, lifestyle-changing, and lets-eat-all-the-greens-type, foods that actually come into season now tend to get shoved into the backseat. Perhaps after so many months in a row of focusing on very seasonal flavors (pumpkin! peppermint!) we’re all a little burnt out? Whatever the reason may be, it’s a big shame because January and the rest of the Winter months bring us some of the most versatile, bright, exciting flavors that nature has to offer: citrus. Blood oranges, meyer lemons, tangerines…all this deliciousness starts to arrive right about now. Here are some of my favorite ways to use up these yummy citruses:

Meyer Lemon Pudding Cake {via two peas and their pod}
Pudding cakes aren’t that popular and I’m not that sure why. They check off all the boxes on the ultimate-baked-good-must-have list: simple to make (the hardest part here is whipping the egg whites, which means there are no hard parts if you have a stand or hand mixer), varying textures, strong flavors, and able to be made in cute individual portions. This meyer lemon pudding cake is a triumph — light and cake-y on top, and smooth and creamy on the bottom, with a strong-not-too-sweet flavor straight from the meyer lemons.

Image Credit: barn images

Blood Orange Margaritas {via smitten kitchen}
It’s inappropriate to choose favorites but this might be my favorite citrus recipe here, and ever. I eagerly await these winter months for blood oranges to come into season just so I can make margaritas with them. Joke? No. Sad? Maybe so. But I can just drown my sorrows into this drink and — you can too once you make it! Blood oranges are a tad sweeter than the standard orange and, of course, have that gorgeous pink-red tone to them that permeates everything they get into. I’m not sure whether I like the flavor or the color of the oranges better but I don’t care much to find out, I’ll just continue making batches and batches of this drink.

Shrimp & Kale Pasta with Lemon Ricotta Sauce {via foolproof living}
Let’s take the other big January food trend in kale, mix it with the January food trend were talking about here in citrus, throw some cheese, shrimp, and pasta in there for good measure and just eat ourselves silly. Kale and pasta is such a great combination (it’s all about balance, people, of course) on it’s own that when you add in shrimp, ricotta cheese, and the bright flavors from the lemon it just sends it over the edge. I really had a hard time not eating this entire bowl myself, it’s a very addicting dinner, and I’ve got a feeling it’ll make it’s way into the regular meal rotation.

White Chocolate Lemon Truffles {via brooklyn farm girl}
These might seem a little holiday, but the fact that they are truffles coated in shiny sugar is all that is holiday about them. And who says we can’t eat flashy-looking truffles year long? Lemon & white chocolate are much more suited for this post-holiday time anyway, the time where you still want something yummy and bite sized but might be a little chocolate-d out. If you’re the type of person that makes truffles just to make them (hi, we’d get along great) than these should be your Saturday project. They are melt-in-your-mouth creamy and because there’s so few ingredients in them, the lemon really gets to shine and tastes like a little lemon bomb in your mouth. So yummy and perfect for meyer lemons.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Blood Orange Buttercream {via life, love, and cupcakes}
Are you weird-ed out by chocolate & orange? Have you ever heard of exposure therapy? It’s this thing where you have to face whatever is freaking you out head on and the thought is that once you see that it’s not life ending or all that scary, your fear or aversion to it will be over. My proposition to you is that if you don’t understand chocolate & orange as a combination you should totally expose yourself to these cupcakes by making them. Once you see that they are in fact some of the most delicious cupcakes ever you will come to see the light as it pertains to chocolate and orange being a great combination. Go ahead, your kitchen is waiting.

Image Credit: jessica merchant

Blood Orange Sugared Scones {via how sweet eats}
I realize this is the third blood orange recipe but they are only around for such a short time that we really all need to be taking advantage of them while they are here. Scones don’t get a lot of attention, but they are the unsung hero of the baked good world. They can take on so many flavors and turn themselves into a canvas for so many different things, just as they do for the blood oranges here. I love these scones — they are sweet and soft and are topped with a pink glaze provided by that gorgeous blood orange juice.

Citrus Smoothie {via bright eyed baker}
If you’ve recently taken on a new years resolution of getting into shape, chances are you are drinking a lot of smoothies these days. They are a simple and quick way to get a bunch of different nutrition in and they can be breakfast, lunch, snack, dessert, or even dinner depending on how calorie heavy you make them. This one I like to drink as a refreshing snack. It has three different types of citrus in it — so it’s a real treat for the citrus obsessed among us. I like to take the leftovers, stick them in a mason jar, and keep them in the freezer so I can enjoy them for days to come.

Are you a fellow citrus lover?

Featured image is from barn images.