17 Red, White + Blue Recipes That Will Make You See Fireworks

Avocado Egg Salad

Made with four ingredients, this mayo-free avocado + egg salad is a game changer. It’s a fabulous make-ahead lunch that will give your work day some extra excitement! (via The Roasted Root)

Autumn Avocado Toast

We’re confident this toasted avocado toast treat can be enjoyed all year long, especially on chilly days or nights when you’re craving something that's both sweet and savory. (via How Sweet Eats)

Cottage Cheese Avocado Toast

Cottage cheese is a super easy way to give your avocado toast recipes a boost of protein! Its cheesy, creamy consistency blends exceptionally well with mashed or sliced avocado, and in this delicious case, fresh tomatoes. (via The Fast Recipe)

Roasted Chickpea Avocado Toast

Same goes for chickpeas! They're a nice, cheap source of vegan protein that can make your avocado toast recipes more fulfilling. This recipe calls for you to pan-roast them, so they get crispy and flavorful. (via Two Peas & Their Pod)

Avocado Toast with Roasted Asparagus on Multigrain

This loaded toast is good for meals beyond just breakfast. The hearty roasted asparagus will warm you up from the inside out, all while incorporating tons of vitamins and minerals in each bite. (via Vanilla and Bean)

Avocado Toast with Brown Butter Sesame Seeds

The brown butter sesame seeds that adorn the top of this toast add a much-needed note of umami, balancing out the creamy avo in no time. (via The Original Dish)

Grilled Corn, Feta, + Egg in a Hole Avocado Toast

Bet you've never seen an avocado toast recipe like this before! This pick gets topped with grilled corn, feta cheese, egg, and if you feel like going gourmet with it, some fresh peach slices. (via Half Baked Harvest)

Avocado + Heirloom Tomato Toast

We can all agree that avocado toast is what dreams are made of. But when you add fresh, ripened tomatoes and drizzle some balsamic vinegar on top, it takes your avocado toast dreams to a whole new level. (via Blissful Basil)

Open-Faced Lemon Pepper Artichoke and Arugula Sandwich

Better known as fancy toast, this gourmet knife-and-fork meal tastes as good as it looks. With a stellar combo of white bean hummus, artichokes, lemon juice, baby arugula, and sweet balsamic glaze, this savory-yet-subtly sweet avocado toast will likely become your new favorite food. (via Veggie and the Beast)

Avocado Toast With Charred Tomatoes, Garlic Shrimp and Fried Egg

Perfect for lunch, dinner, or even a late night snack, this flavorful and nutritious version of avo toast will have you thanking the food gods! (via Domesticate Me)

Avocado and Crab Crostini

Top your avocado toast with fresh, buttery crab and toasted baguette slices, then be prepared for your life to change — it’s that good. Serve these slices as an appetizer when hosting your next soirée, and your guests will be begging for the recipe. (via Confessions of a Chocoholic)

Green Goddess Toast

Roasted spring vegetables, tahini sauce, and avocado. Do we even need to say more? (via Feed Me Phoebe)

Vegan Hummus on Avocado Toast

If you’re getting a little bored with your avocado toast, but don’t want to put in a ton of effort to renew the meal, this recipe is for you! Slow-roasted tomatoes, hemp hearts, avocado, and hummus make for a winning combination. This also makes for the perfect post-workout snack! (via Oh She Glows)

Avocado Toast With Crisped Prosciutto

This take on avocado toast will make you hungry just thinking about it. Don’t say we didn’t warn you! (via Honest Cooking)

Spicy Steak and Avocado Toast

Don’t be afraid to step outside the box when it comes to your avocado toast recipes. Whether you’re headed to a summer potluck or making a meal for your boo, this filling steak dish will thrill even the pickiest eater. (via Heather Christo)

Smoked Salmon and Smashed Avocado Tartines

You’ll get a nutrient-rich dose of heart-healthy fats, vitamins, protein, and omega-3 fatty acids with these tasty avo-smothered tartines. (via Baker by Nature)

Spicy Maple Bacon and Scrambled Eggs on Avocado Toast

Are you just drooling reading the name of this dish? We are! Pair this crave-worthy comfort food with mimosas, and declare yourself the queen of brunch. (via Domesticate Me)

The Only Bean Crunchy Dry Roasted Edamame Snacks

These dried edamame beans are a great healthy late-night snack to have if you're aiming to eat a high-protein diet. One pack of this crunchy treat delivers 14 grams of protein, plus they're fully vegan, keto-friendly, gluten-free, and dairy free for all to enjoy! The individual serving packs also make this snack easy to take on the go!

Deux Cinnamon Sugar Donuts

I can't say enough about Deux! They sell edible cookie doughs and dessert spreads, too, but their donut holes just hit different. One serving of the Cinnamon Sugar flavor (the best flavor, IMO) has 140 calories, but what makes them a healthy late-night snack is the inclusion of B12 and L-theanine, which help support your energy & metabolism. Even though these bites are "healthier," they still taste like a real cake donut (icing and all), which is optimal for satisfying sweets cravings!

SmartSweets Sourmelon Bites Sour Gummy Candy

🎶 I want candy! 🎶 No, seriously – I want candy. But when I want candy that's not as harsh in terms of sugar content and artificial additives, I reach for these watermelon-flavored SmartSweets gummies. The entire bag is one serving, which is super satisfying to me! Plus, there's only 3 grams of sugar in one bag. I will say the texture doesn't really compare your regular sour gummies do (they're a bit sticky), but I'm still obsessed with the flavor given that this is a "healthier" snack.

Siete Grain Free Cinnamon Chips Churro Strips

Siete is another food brand that's ​stacked​ with options for healthy late-night snacks. My favorite pick of 'em all are these grain-free churro chips, which are made with minimal, whole ingredients and crafted using only 100% avocado oil. They're sweet, sugary (sweetened with coconut sugar – chef's kiss 🤌), and crunchy all at the same time, and taste ahh-mazing with some hot chocolate.​

Unreal Milk Chocolate Gems

It's unreal how good these little chocolate bites are! Below a colorful, crunchy candy coating made only with natural colors from spirulina, turmeric, red radish, and beets lies a creamy chocolatey filling that'll make you crave handful after handful. These are an excellent contender for your next healthy late-night snack since they're made from 100% real ingredients!

CHOMPS Grass Fed Original Beef Jerky Snack Sticks

There's nothing like a meat stick when you're strapped for a snack, IMO. They're packed with protein that'll fill you up, plus the taste and texture are often super pleasing when hunger strikes. That's the case with these snack sticks from CHOMPS – a single serving delivers an impressive 10 grams of protein for only 100 calories, and get this: there's 0 grams of sugar!

MOSH Cookie Dough Crunch Protein Bars

If I could eat a MOSH bar every night, I would. The protein bar brand, founded by none other than Maria Shriver and Patrick Schwarzenegger, never misses when it comes to texture and taste. As opposed to most other protein bars I've tried that boast grainy, chalky formulations, MOSH bars are always creamy and smooth. They also have the perfect amount of crunch with tiny crisps mixed in! One bar of the Cookie Dough Crunch flavor is 160 calories, has 12 grams or protein, and 1 gram of sugar.​

SkinnyDipped Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

These chocolate + PB snacks pack a super-sweet punch, but with only 2 grams of sugar per cup! We love a low-sugar option! These cups from SkinnyDipped are fully free from palm oil, sugar alcohols, and artificial sweeteners, plus, they're non-GMO, gluten-free, and kosher so just about anyone can enjoy them as a late-night sweet treat.

gimMe Extra Virgin Olive Oil Organic Roasted Seaweed Snacks

These are crazy because I could eat ten packs and still want more. But they're healthy! Potato chips have truly met their match. These organic seaweed snacks made with EVOO are vegan, Paleo, Keto, low-calorie (30 cals a serving), and rich in vitamins B12 and iodine. You can even snag 'em in flavors like Wasabi, Chili Lime, and Teriyaki.

LesserEvil Himalayan Pink Salt Organic Popcorn

Another amazing alternative for a bag of greasy potato chips (love 'em, but my tummy doesn't), this minimally-processed bagged popcorn from LesserEvil is still wonderfully crunchy and salty. They also air-pop their popcorn to be lighter and fluffier than most other kinds you'll find on the market. This healthy late-night snack boasts a lower calorie count and higher fiber content than other bagged popcorns, too! Now that's what I call a win.

Grillo's Pickles Classic Dill Pickle Chips

Pickle girls, rise up. I am officially deeming pickles a healthy late-night snack! One serving of these gorgeous Grillo's pickle chips is just 5 calories... wild. Although they boast 200 mg of sodium (9% of your daily recommended intake), these pickles are made with clean ingredients for healthy, guilt-free late-night snack seshes. Crunch away, my love.

Hu Salty Dark Chocolate 70% Cacao Candy

These dark chocolate bars from Hu are insane, I tell ya! Their formulations are free of any refined sugar, cane sugar, sugar alcohols, dairy, palm oil, gluten, and soy, plus they're primarily made with Fairtrade ingredients. If that's not an excuse to eat chocolate every night, I don't know what is.

Harvest Snaps Green Pea Snack Crisps Lightly Salted

Snacking on plant-based protein is always a good way to go when you're looking for healthy late-night snacks. That way, you can actually feel full and satisfied after eating! I could truly shovel a whole bag of these Harvest Snaps crisps into my mouth, but they're worth savoring. In each serving of this perfectly-salted treat, you'll get 130 calories, 5 grams of protein, and even 4 grams of dietary fiber!

As a Power of Women honoree, Mariska was recognized in regards to her work as an advocate for sexual assault survivors. She took the stage and used her platform to discuss rape and assault conviction reversals, shining a light on the recent overturned ruling in Harvey Weinstein's landmark NYC case. Here's what she said:

Today I want to talk about reversing convictions, and more specifically I want to talk to you about how impossible it is to reverse mine. It’s impossible to reverse my conviction that survivors matter. It is impossible to reverse my conviction that what happens to us matters, and that our society must respond to survivors with a more a compassionate, holistically, deeper, and more nuanced understanding of what healing means.

It is impossible to reverse my conviction that after a trauma, survivors can reclaim lives of hope, of possibility, of audacious risk, beautiful intimacy, and glorious, glorious abundant joy. And I stand before you as evidence of that statement.

It is impossible to reverse my conviction that we must listen to survivors as experts on what justice means. It is extraordinary how little their voices are consulted, let alone incorporated, in the process of deciding how to repair harm. Justice is not a one-size-fits-all journey.

It is impossible to reverse my conviction that patriarchal impunity has to end. Patriarchal impunity is when a male-dominated system exempts perpetrators from punishment. Studies show that only 20% of all rape cases in the U.S. are reported to the police, and that between 5 and 0% of all rapes result in a guilty plea or a conviction. So why do 80% of victims not report? Because they're met with a system that grants impunity to perpetrators; a system that blames victims; a system that accepts only those victims who are experienced as "real" rape; a system that completely misunderstands the neurobiology of trauma, which causes behavior in women that doesn't fit the picture of how a "real victim" would act.

Is that change needed that victims should just pull themselves together? Just buck up and report anyway? No. No, it's the system that receives them that needs to change

It is impossible to reverse my conviction — and the conviction of my extraordinary team, The Joyful Heart — that the backlog of untested rape kits can be brought to zero; that the testing of all new kits must be mandated; that we need a statewide kit tracking system; and that survivors have the right to access the status of their kits.

It is impossible to reverse my conviction that grammar — yes, grammar — that we use when we speak about rape must change. In the sentence, "A woman is raped," there's a crime and there's a victim, but there's no perpetrator. Where's the perpetrator? Where is he? Statistically, as we know, most likely he's walking free. He's so free that he doesn't even appear in the language about the crime that he committed. Is that not extraordinary? It's extraordinary that in the very grammar, the perpetrator goes free. Reintroducing perpetrators in the language of rape will make some very unwieldy grammar, but that's the nature of change. It's unwieldy, it's messy, it's uncomfortable, but it's necessary.

Hargitay continued on in her prolific speech to describe that rape shouldn't be considered a "crime of passion" because it's "not simply the next step in the trajectory of his passion" when a man takes a consensual hookup too far and assaults a woman against her will. She stated that it's "an exercise of power," doubling down that the language we use is important.

The speech went on to address that rape is both about power and control, as a "construct" that was "built, and assembled, and reinforced over time." She noted that there are people with these positions of power — and she specifically called out those in the entertainment industry — that could make a difference and aligned themselves to victims and survivors.

After this and some other remarks, Hargitay specifically called out the Weinstein conviction reversal. She said:

I do want to say something about the Harvey Weinstein conviction, specifically about the reason that it was overturned: too many women's voices. Too many women's voices were allowed to speak. Hallelujah! Amen! I can't imagine anything more beautiful than that. The Daily podcast episode talked about how it was so risky for the prosecution to have that many women testify. Risky to let women speak? You're damn right it is!

Too many women speaking brings change. Too many women speaking shakes the establishment. Too many women means we get listened to more, and people might actually hear what we have to say. Look what happened when women started saying just two words, right? Me too — just as an example — a tidal wave of change. Me too.

And then of course, there was the response: the Me Too Movement. The backlash. The examination of whether the changes that have come are lasting, or are even positive. Of course there's a backlash! What did they expect? For women to speak repeatedly, loudly, together, with a purpose — for there to be no backlash? The backlash is evidence of how powerful those voices were, how powerful those voices ARE.

Watch Mariska Hargitay's Full Speech Here

Turns out that your TV heroes really can be your IRL heroes after all. Long live Olivia Benson! Long live Mariska Hargitay!